{What I Ate Today and Protein Packed Peanut Butter Balls Recipe}

I lost nearly 12 lbs in January. In just 31 days. I exercised hard and tracked my calories at livestrong.com. To my disappointment, I've put about half of that back on thanks to valentines day, birthdays and vacations...oh and a major lack of will power.

What can I say, I love food.

Luckily, I've found that when you put on weight fast, it comes off fast...but the rest of that weight that I slowly packed on over the years, will likely take longer to come off.

Am I rambling or what? Let's get to the point, I did ok this weekend, I definitely could have done better, but we went up to celebrate some March birthdays with my hubby's family and pizza and cake were involved. I don't ever want to be that person that says they can't enjoy a little pizza and cake every now and then, so that's what I did. I ate one slice of pizza with a salad and one serving of cake (with ice cream and strawberries...oh boy...and there might have been whipped cream involved too...yikes). It's so hard to track what you are eating when it's not coming from your fridge and there's no nutritional information to track.

Here I am rambling again...

I still managed to lose a few pounds over the weekend. I know that won't be the case every weekend, but even with the pizza and cake, I ate way better than I had been the week before. Sad, but true.

When I diet, I don't do fad diets, to lose weight and keep it off, I believe you need a lasting life style change...which simply means making healthy food choices and regular exercise.

So what can day's menu look like for me?

Here's what I ate today:

Breakfast:

1/4 cup dry oatmeal with 1/2 cup water

1 tablespoon peanut butter

half a large sliced banana

splash of whole milk

Glass of water

{I mixed the peanut butter with the oatmeal..yum! Normally I used almond milk and no whole milk, but I was out of almond milk, so I subbed water and added a little whole milk to make it creamier.}

250 calories

***

Morning Snack:

Special K 90 Cal Bar

Handful of Sugar Snap Peas

A few grapes

109 calories

***

Lunch:

1 cup Campbell's Select Harvest Garden Tomato Soup

1 grilled cheese pita pocket 

(one kangaroo pita pocket, 1.5 slices of Kraft 2% American Cheese singles,

I Can't Believe It's Not Butter spray butter)

Normally I would just use 1 slice, but my little miss wanted half a grilled cheese and I wound up putting the other half of the slice in mine..that added 25 calories.

255 calories

***

Afternoon Snack:

Frigo Light String Cheese

10 raw almonds

110 calories

***

Dinner:

Salad with grilled chicken, cheese, bacon and light balsamic vinaigrette

350 calories

***

Evening Snack:

1 Protein Packed Peanut Butter Ball

{see recipe below}

117 calories

Total Caloric Intake: 1191

I did great on calories and I was not hungry once today, but here's where I went wrong:

Way too much sodium and a little high on the protein thanks to that protein peanut butter ball. The bacon and dressing on that salad set me way over on sodium. Sodium is definitely something I want to watch, both for health reasons and water weight.

I've found that I don't have to eat a lot of calories to stay full...I can still cram in a lot of food, I just have to make wise choices...and that doesn't mean I have to choke down bland food. I can honestly say I loved everything I ate today and nothing lacked in flavor.

On to the peanut butter balls...my 3 year old came to me with her apron on and asked to make a treat.

I couldn't turn her down so I came up with this treat:

Protein Packed Peanut Butter Balls

1 cup reduced fat peanut butter

1 scoop chocolate whey protein powder

1 ripe banana- mashed

1 tablespoon ground flax seed (see health benefits below)

1/4 cup quick oats

Mix all ingredients, form into tablespoon size balls, freeze for 20 minutes.

Makes about 16 balls.

Refrigerate leftovers.

Here's the full nutritional information:

Yes, it's high in fat, but remember, peanut butter is good fat. 80% or so of that fat in peanut butter is unsaturated fat.

If you haven't used or know much about flax seed, here's what livestrong.com has to say about the benefits of ground flax seed:

Cardiovascular Health, Weight Loss and Diabetes

"Flaxseeds are an excellent source of all omega-3 essential fatty acids (including alpha-linoleic acids) that are critical for reducing the risk of heart disease and diabetes as well as cancer. Omega-3s help balance blood sugar, boost metabolism and control appetite. Flax is known to help keep fats moving, as it emulsifies them in the body instead of storing them and keeps arteries from hardening."

Flax seed is a super food. You can easily slip it into smoothies, oatmeal, salads, and treats. With so many health benefits, I intend to incorporate it into my diet.

You can read more about the benefits here.

How about you? Do you use flax seed? Are you willing to try it?

If you've read this far, thanks for sticking with me! I promise all my posts won't be this long :)

Happy Sunday!