Break the Monotony and Keep Changing the Ingredients of your Salads

Trying to lose weight from the holidays and getting bored with salads? Mix it up a little. Try the following but also take into account the portions of each food group used. For instance, if you are keeping a low or no sugar diet, you may not want to have chopped mangoes or raisins. But still check the following ingredients out:-

Keep it leafy with lettuce, spinach, arugula, asparagus or string beans.

Add some flavour to your greens with a fat-free or low-fat vinaigrette or lime juice.

Add some healthy protein like tuna, turkey, boiled eggs or boneless, skinless chicken breast.

Add some fibre with chickpeas or quinoa.

Make use of various kinds of nuts such as pecans, walnuts and almonds.

Make it colourful with strawberries, black olives, tomatoes, carrots, mango, cranberries, beetroot, purple cabbage or corn.

Top it off with cheese! Grated parmesan or a sharp reduced-fat feta.

Experiment and see which ingredients work best with each other. Salads can be fun!

Fresh Eats from Y.not.pita and Subway

Y.not.pita in Courtyard 71 on Lady Musgrave Road and Subway in Liguanea, continue to be two of the few places that prepare food right in front of your eyes. The service is good at both establishments. There is a wide variety of toppings for sandwiches at Subway and wraps at Y.not.pita. However they both lack a variety of cheese. Subway only had the White American cheese two weeks ago and the Cheddar cheese was finished at Y.not.pita 3 weeks ago. I expected better from Subway, being an American franchise that usually offers four types of cheese. Despite that issue, the wraps and sandwiches were tasty, fresh and filling from both. The Italian herb cheese bread from Subway was awesome!

They also offer Pizza and Salads, various combos with drinks and Soup (Y.not.pita) or Chips (Subway). So persons can get a decent meal or combo for $1200JMD or less. Subway also gives customers punch cards, so after a few meals you can get one free. Keep it fresh!

Napa Chicken and Portobellos from Applebee’s ATL

For just $11.49US, I enjoyed a Grilled Chicken breast topped with Portobello mushrooms and onions smothered in a rich red wine sauce and parmesan cheese.

This was served over sautéed zucchini, mushrooms, roasted red peppers, red onions and crispy red potatoes.

The dish was so savoury and imagine I had it for take-out!

A full belly for just 490 calories. Thank you Applebee’s!

Get to It! Exercise! Do not Procrastinate or Make Excuses

The gym is too crowded?

‘Do a workout that keeps you in one area of the gym’ or just work out at home for January.

Do NOT use your Treadmill for storage, to hang clothes on, or start to consider it as a piece of furniture

Use your Treadmill during Cardio circuits or Interval workouts.

Your Gym clothes are dirty…really?!

No excuses there. Try pajama friendly workouts such as Yoga or a Total body Kettlebell or Dumbbell workout. You could also wash your clothes regularly and not have them pile up in the hamper!

You would rather do housework instead of working out in your room or living room?

Make your workout or exercise fun to take your mind off of housework or reorganising your closet, because clearly it was not fun before. Joining a gym is an option as well. Change your workout environment from time to time.

Having a salad for lunch is not an excuse to skip a workout

Great, you have restricted your calories for the day, but ‘dieting without exercise not only hampers your weight loss, but it can also cause you to lose muscle mass.’ In order to burn fat, tone and get overall results, muscle mass is needed.

This blog was inspired by Calorie Count. For more information and workouts or ideas, check out this article by Exercise Expert, Paige Waehner, ‘Exercise Excuses to Ditch this Year’ from Living Healthy by Calorie Count by clicking on the link below:-

http://exercise.about.com/od/motivated/tp/Exercise-Excuses-to-Ditch-This-Year.htm?

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Shake Shack on Peachtree Rd. in Atlanta Serving Kid’s Size Burgers

20141222_170527-1 I heard that Shake Stack was a hot spot in New York and decided to go to the franchise in Atlanta. I was extremely disappointed. Firstly, it was in a highly upscale plaza, but when you enter persons are practically sitting on top of each other. They definitely needed a bigger spot. Also, combos are not available. Everything has to be ordered separately, hence hiking the price. Perhaps their burgers are considered gourmet, since one of the least expensive burgers that I ordered, the Shack Burger costed $4.99US that was a regular cheese burger. Friesn costing $2.90 US and my Strawberry shake ($5.15US) was additional. So I exprected a decent size burger with the name, ‘Shack Burger’. When it arrived, it looked like a slider! The Shack Stack Burger (Veggie burger with Portobello Mushrooms) for $9.15US that my friend ordered was practically the same size, with the patty being slightly bigger. Perhaps they were putting all their customers on a diet to fit into their small seating space. Thankfully, the burgers at least tasted good. Drinking a milk shake with their burgers is highly recommended to help fill the void.

Garlic Shrimps at The Wine Shop

Happy New Year! Everyone should be back on the grind this Monday. But SuGa will be reminiscing on yummy or not so yummy bites consumed over the Christmas season.

The Garlic Shrimps at The Wine Shop in Southdale Plaza were delish. Definitely a better option than their Pastas. I just had the appetizer, however the main course is served with a side order of your choice. It complemented my glass of white wine well. Though I still think a bigger variety of and better quality wines should be offered by the glass.

The Wine Shop continues to have decent service and is a comfortable spot to dine.