Have a glass of wine today, it’s Friday! Heck have six glasses of wine. I’m not judging!
Time for Anything & Everything Friday. Today’s random thoughts include Valentine’s Day candies, food tracking, and grocery store staples!
1.Valentine’s Day – Do you celebrate or do anything special on Valentine’s Day? It is not a big holiday for us, but it sure is a fun holiday for candy and other food manufacturers! There are a ton of Valentine’s Day treats available. Some look delicious and some look less than appealing to me (I’m talking to you Cherry Cordial Delights Peeps). Well Delish.com rounded up some of the best Valentine’s Day treat available. Here is a slideshow for the 34 Amazing Valentine’s Day Treats in Stores Right Now. Disclaimer: viewing this article WILL make you crave sweets and chocolate!
2.Food Tracking: The top thing I tell people to do when they are trying to lose weight is to track their food. It is so important to know what is going in to your body and, more importantly, how it effects your body. There are a ton of apps out there that help, or simply writing it down in a food journal or in a regular notebook can help. I personally use MyFitness Pal to track my food intake. It is a great app that has a huge library of foods listed. Not sure if you want to take the time to track everything? Check out this article, “I Used a Food Log to Track Every Single Bite for a Week” on FitnessMagazine.com. It was written by Moira Lawler and she explains what happened, both good and bad, when she tracked everything she ate. It personally works for me to track everything and I enjoy it, but find what works for you. Tracking your food intake doesn’t necessarily mean you have to track calories. It all just depends on what your goals are and what works for you.
3.The Glass Castle: Our latest book club pick is The Glass Castle by Jeannette Walls. It is actually a memoir of Jeannette who grew up with quite unique parents. She tells her story about the crazy life she had and how eccentric (and somewhat crazy) her parents were. A couple of ladies in our book club had read it before, but they liked it so much they said they wanted to read it again! I started it last weekend and am a few chapters in. It is pretty crazy. Her parents had quite the outlook on life and how to raise their children.
4.Grocery Store Staples: We all have our go-to items that we purchase all the time at the grocery store. These days it seems like I don’t even need a list when I head in. I know I am going to need bananas, avocados, yogurt, almond milk, lemons, chicken, yada yada yada… it is like second nature to me. Here is a list of 12 Food You Should Always Keep Stocked In Your Kitchen. It is written by Nina Bahadur at Self.com. The only item on this list that I don’t regularly keep stocked is tortillas. It is hit or miss in our house if we have them (right now we do!). They are great to keep around for a quick lunch or for easy tacos for dinner! Some other items I would add to this list are beans in general (she mentioned black beans but also chickpeas, northern beans, kidney beans, etc), chia seed, milk of some sort (dairy or dairy-free), quick oats, and nut butters! What are your grocery store staples?
5.Spiralizer: For my birthday, my sister got me a spiralizer similar to this. It is handheld and perfect for zucchini and other squash. I love it – I used it for my food prep this last week! I follow @inspiralized on Instagram and she has the BEST pictures of all sorts of foods that were spiralized. I really want to try apples and sweet potatoes! Neither of those item will fit correctly in the one I have so what did I do?! Purchased another spiralizer on Amazon! The one I bought has the hand crank so you can do any shape of vegetable! You can find the one I purchased here. I cannot wait to get it and use it! My meal prep might be a little different over the next few weeks! Have you tried a spiralizer? What is your favorite thing to spiralize?!
That is all for today. Have a great weekend. I’ll have a new recipe posted Monday!
