I spend quite a bit of time at other weight loss blogger sites, and I'm always amazed at the number of people eating uninspired meals when they try to eat healthy. It's hard to stay focused on a diet when the thought of your next meal is less appealing than the thought up cleaning up baby vomit. Bad food at home is a sure-fire way to find yourself at the local drive-thru regularly. One thing I can say about myself is that I just absolutely have to eat food that is more than just nutritious; it also has to be delicious. Fortunately I've done a lot of trial and error on many healthy meals and recipes so I have a pretty good arsenal to draw from. I've decided to share some of my favorites as part of my blog (note the new list on my sidebar). Some will be full meals and others may just be healthy snacks. I'll try to get a new one out each week as time permits. I also found a great blog from written by Weezel that is all about recipes. What I like about it is that this blogger is actually a food service director and she takes requests from her audience. Not everything on her site is healthy, but many times she does offer healthy alternatives. Feel free to check it out it's called "
What's Cooking? ".
Not all my recipes are designed from scratch. Many of them have been modified or adapted from books, magazines and on the internet. I've picked up quite a few ideas from my
Men's Health Magazine 
in their
Abs Diet Recipes
, they have some really good meals. When appropriate I will reference the source of the inspiration or adaptation along with a link to the reference (when available). These recipes are designed to have 3 key components to them:
- They must be healthy (low in fat, calories, not swimming in salt, etc)
- They must be filling (what's the sense in eating a healthy meal if you are starving 2 hours later)
- They must taste good (no rice cakes smeared with low fat cottage cheese)
Now please understand that many of these recipes will be high in protein. I strive for balance in my meals, but I do tend to skew a little towards the high protein side. That's because
my workout consists of a lot of strength training so I eat a lot of protein to support muscle repair. You may need to modify these recipes to suit your own needs or tastes. If you do find an alteration that works well, please feel free to share in the comments section as I am always looking for new ideas.
Also note that I almost never use anything "light", "fat free", "reduced fat", "diet", "low sodium", or any other label that represents an unnatural form of something that tastes good. You can't be afraid of fat, sugar, and salt. When used in moderation they add flavor and make the meal more enjoyable. Besides, all of those so-called "healthier" versions of these ingredients replace the good stuff with artificial ingredients and I'm not a big fan of artificial sweeteners, flavors, and fillers. Trust me when I say you can eat a
healthy diet with all natural ingredients. Good food is about taste as much as about being healthy. In my house our philosophy is to spend a little more and get high quality, great tasting food because if our meals taste like cardboard we'll just end up going out to eat all the time. That's no good for your weight or your wallet!
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