Snack-O- Lantern

Ingredients:

• Navel orange
• Canned or fresh fruit salad

Directions:

1. To make one lantern, use a small knife to slice the top off a navel orange and cut around its interior to hollow it out. Scoop out the orange segments, chop them, and mix them with canned or fresh fruit salad.
2. Carve small facial features in one side of the orange, then cut a slit in the lid to accommodate the handle of a green plastic spoon. Fill the lantern with fruit salad. Insert the spoon and set the lid in place.

   

 

Tip #22: Ditch the Clean Plate Club

My parents were big on the whole “clean your plate” thing. I heard it all, there were starving children in India/Africa/China/Italy (depending on what our dinner was) who would love to have the food on my plate. No dessert until you eat everything on your plate.  Leaving food on your plate is wasteful. While I agree that leaving uneaten food on your plate is wasteful, it is just as wasteful to eat food that your body doesn’t need. By consuming those extra calories, your body is storing fat, which can end up being more costly than price of the food you should have left on your plate. If you are still worried about not wasting food, box it up to eat later as leftovers, or dish yourself smaller portions if you are eating at home.

 

Pumpkin Pie Frozen Yogurt

Ingredients (makes 4 1/2 cup servings)
– 1 cup canned pumpkin
– 1 cup Greek yogurt (such as Fage)
– 3 tablespoons honey
– 1 teaspoon pumpkin pie spice (or 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 teaspoon ginger, 1/4 teaspoon allspice)

Nutrition per serving
Calories: 100

Fat: 0 grams

Protein: 7 grams

Fiber: 2 grams

 

Original recipe was found here.

 

Tip #21: Satisfy your Sweet Tooth with Snacks on a Stick

Nothing has to be eliminated from your diet as long as you eat everything in moderation. The problem is, most of us have a hard time with limiting ourselves to eating the appropriate amounts of our favorite things. If you find yourself needing a sweet snack, you may have good intentions of only eating half a scoop of ice cream. But that can easily turn into half the tub of ice cream. When you are at the store, instead of buying a carton of Rocky Road, pick up low-fat or sugar free treats that are already portioned out. These include popsicles, low-fat ice cream sandwiches, ice cream bars, and the mini cartons of ice cream. This will make it much easier to know what portions are acceptable and keep you from dishing yourself too much dessert.

 

Healthier Seven Layer Dip

Ingredients:

• 3 medium-sized ripe avocados
• 2 Tbsp. lemon juice
• ½ tsp. salt
• ¼ tsp. pepper
• 1 ½ C nonfat plain Greek yogurt
• 1 package taco seasoning mix (or make your own mix using this recipe)
• 2 cans (9 oz. each) bean dip (or 2 cans refried beans — or make your own!)
• 1 bunch green onions, chopped (optional)
• 3 medium-sized ripe tomatoes, chopped
• 2 cans (3 1/2 oz. each) pitted ripe sliced olives, drained
• 1 package (8 oz.) grated 2% sharp cheddar cheese

Instructions:

1. Peel, pit and mash avocados in a bowl with lemon juice, salt and pepper (or put in blender). If you’re in a hurry and don’t have any ripe avocados, you can also substitute 2 containers of mildly seasoned guacamole dip from the refrigerated section at the grocery store.

2. In another bowl, combine yogurt and taco seasoning mix.

3. To assemble:

• Spread bean dip/refried beans on a LARGE shallow serving platter.
• Spread avocado mixture over bean dip.
• Spread yogurt-taco mixture over the avocado mixture.
• Sprinkle with the chopped green onions, then the tomatoes, and finally the olives.
• Cover with the grated cheddar cheese.

4. Serve chilled with your choice of corn chips.

Original recipe was found here.

 

Tip #20: Eat every 4-5 hours

A large pizza has around 2000 calories. Imagine that you eat that pizza in one day- you should eat 2 slices for breakfast, 2 for lunch and 2 for dinner. Then you should have 1 slice for a morning snack, and another for an afternoon snack. Of course, eating pizza for every meal isn’t healthy but it illustrates how you should space out your caloric intake throughout the day. Many people make the mistake of skipping breakfast, having a small lunch, and then overeating at dinner. This causes your metabolism to be very slow during the day, and then have to work to catch up when you overload your body with calories at dinner. Try to eat close to the same amount of calories at each meal, with smaller snacks in between. This keeps your metabolism working steadily throughout the day and helps prevent the feeling that your crashing a few hours after a meal. Make sure that you are eating in the morning- within an hour of waking up- to kick start your metabolism, then keep it up throughout the day!