healthy eating

For me, the most difficult thing about weight loss is staying on track with eating well.

I love to eat out. I have always been of the school of thought that "if we're going to eat out, I'm going to get something DELICIOUS and AMAZING". For me, that usually means pasta with some kind of cream sauce... the calories of which add up to be more than an average person's daily required amount. Pasta is my favorite thing in the entire world - if you know me personally, you're probably laughing because you know that I could eat noodles with a little butter and a ton of parmesean cheese for every single meal. I pretty much did this during my freshman year of college when I lived away from my parents for the first time ever. I was so active though that I never really noticed a change in my waistline. Now, it's a different story. :)

I also love to cook! I have an addiction to cook books and trying new recipes. Until recently, the types of recipes I would make were not very nutritious. Delicious, but not nutritious.

I have scoured the internet for blogs and websites that promote healthy eating.  I wanted to share a couple of my absolute favorites that have been helping me stay on track over the past month. Not that I've stayed completely on track... but you know what I mean.

Cheap, Healthy, Good. "Cheap Healthy Good is a blog dedicated to the advancement of frugal, nutritious, ethically-minded food in everyday life." This blog is Ah-MAZING. Seriously amazing. I have made a handful of their recipes over the past month and can't wait to try more. I have been bookmarking healthy eating websites and blogs for the better part of a year, and have found some great ones but very rarely find exactly what I'm looking for. This one has everything I look for. Their recipes are EASY - easy enough for fast week night dinners, and they don't require fancy ingredients that are only carried at Whole Foods (which i love, but can't afford to shop at all the time). They also post great articles about healthy eating, like things to keep in mind while dining out, and they explain the reasoning behind the recipes they post. This one is one of my favorites ... 10 Cheap Shortcuts to Making Cooking Oh-So-Much Easier.

Hungry Girl. This has been one of my favorites for a couple of years. Read this section of the "Who is HG" area of the website... "Lisa is a typical woman battling the same food issues most females struggle with every day. Lisa considers herself a “foodologist,” not because she has some kind of fancy degree, but because she is obsessed with food –– how wonderful it is, and how much of it she can eat and still fit into her pants." Story of my life! Except I haven't been nearly as successful as she has at finding things that I can eat a lot of and still fit into my pants.  I fell off the HG band wagon for a while. And when I say a while, I mean 373 days. How do I know this? Because HG sends free daily e-mails with new recipes. I have a special Hugnry Girl folder in my Yahoo Mail, and there are 373 unread e-mails in it. I thought about it, and realized that number is a pretty accurate indicator of how long I haven't been giving a crap about fitness and healhy eating.

Anyway, one of my favorite things about Hungry girl is that they don't even really give you new recipes. Most of their recipes are "swaps", which means they teach you how to make something that you LOVE into something that you still love... it's just healthy this time. Like potato salad made with cauliflower, called "I Can't Believe It's Not Potato Salad" (You seriously can NOT tell!), Rockin' Restaurant Spinach Dip (one of my favorite things on the planet and only 72 calories per serving!!), and Cheeseburger Quesadillas.

There are several Hungry Girl cook books AND... (you have no idea how excited I am about this), a new Hungry Girl TV show on The Cooking Channel. I just found that out less than 2 minutes ago when I went to the website.  I am SUPER pumped about this people.

Please share with me... Do you have a favorite resource for healthy recipes? I am always looking for new inspiration! How do you stay motivated?