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Watch Your Waistline at Taco Bell- Healthy Choices
Don’t think about getting a salad at taco bell if you are watching your waist line! Salads are nowhere close to a healthy option at Taco Bell!
The lowest calorie salad option is the fiesta taco salad without the shell, calculating at 470 calories and 23g of fat
… add that shell and you have 840 calories and 43g of fat!
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WOW! Eating this salad is like eating about 6 tacos!
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Not too sure what healthy options they have? Not to worry, Taco Bell has created their very own healthy choice menu!
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Taco Bell has a “Fresco Style” menu, containing 9 healthy food choices with less than 20-100 calories than the original item and fewer than 9g of fat. These “Fresco Style” food items replace cheese and sauces with a fiesta salsa made of diced tomatoes, onions, and cilantro. Here are those 9 healthy options:
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Fresco Crunch Taco: 150 calories, 7g fat
Fresco Soft Taco- Beef: 180 calories, 7g fat
Fresco Burrito Supreme- Chicken: 340 calories, 8g fat
Fresco Burrito Supreme- Steak: 330 calories, 8g fat
Fresco Fiesta Burrito- Chicken: 340 calories, 8g fat
Ranchero Chicken Soft Taco: 170 calorie, 4g fat
Grilled Steak Soft Taco: 160 calories, 4.5g fat
Bean Burrito: 340 calories, 8g fat
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I always ask for extra lettuce to my tacos. Not only does it add a little freshness to them but it adds bulk to your meal… keeping you full longer!
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Want to add a side to these healthy options? The rice and beans is your best bet. The beans are 180 calories with 7g of fat and the rice is 130 calories with 3.5g of fat.
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Other than these food items, I highly suggest staying away from those gorditas, burritions, and chalupas… they are high in calorie and fat!
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If you want the nutritional information on your favorite food items Taco Bell, click HERE
Enjoy Taco Bell… Fresco Style!
Can I Actually be Doing too Much Cardio?
Are you noticing that your cardio workouts are getting hard than they normally are?
You could be doing too much cardio. Yep, I said it… too much!
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Your body perceives exercise as a stressor, therefore too much exercise can have a negative effect on it. Your metabolism will shut down, holding into your fat and burning everything else. You are also opening up a door to injury with all the wear and tear you are doing on your body.
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If you start to feel general fatigue, irritability, physical soreness, insomnia, headaches, or you find that 
your workouts are much harder than they normally are you probably are overdoing it on the cardio. Obviously everybody is going to be different when it comes to over doing it with cardio, but it is recommended that you do no more than 60-90 minutes of cardio a day. Obviously this depends on a variety of things such as intensity, activity, and the amount of food you are in taking that day.
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It is also recommended that you give your body at least one to two rest days throughout the week. This gives your body time to heal itself and your cells can regenerate. If you are like me, you find it hard to not exercise on your days off… I sometimes feel a little guilty. So instead of heading to the gym I find activities throughout my day that keeps me active, but gives my body a rest, such as going shopping at the mall, working in the garden, or playing in the pool.
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So allow your body the rest it needs… you will probably burn more calories the rest of the week because you will have more energy!
The Skinny Bacon, Egg and Cheese McMuffin
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When being on a diet it is easy to just stick with the same old stuff day in and day out. I feel like breakfast has become so boring these days, oatmeal, yogurt, fruit. There needs to be a little excitement in one’s diet in order to stick to your plan. Weight loss and diet is a life long change… and I don’t want to be eating oatmeal every morning for the rest of my life!
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After passing by McDonalds one morning, I started craving their bacon, egg, and cheese McMuffin, so instead of secretly going through the drive-thru, I decided to make it myself at home.
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Here is my favorite Bacon, Egg, and Cheese McMuffin:
- 100 calorie English Muffin toasted
- 1 Fat Free Cheese Slice
- 1 strip of turkey bacon
- ¼ cup Egg Whites or Egg Beaters
– In order to cook the eggs so that they fit perfectly in my McMuffin I throw them in a coffee mug and
cook them in the microwave for a few minutes. Scooping the egg out of the cup gives you a perfectly
round egg that doesn’t
Calories: 195 calories
Fat: 3.5g
Voila… a Bacon, Egg and Cheese McMuffin with half the calories and nowhere near the fat.
Say good-bye to McDonald’s this morning and go make your breakfast this morning exciting. . . cook yourself a McMuffin
Fat Has Some Virtues
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Fat is your WORST enemy… WRONG!
Did you know that fat actually has some virtues?
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It’s only when people consume too much or too little that your health is affected.
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Fat supplies essential fatty acids for growth, healthy skin, vitamin-absorption and regulation of bodily functions. In moderation and the right fats, you can actually control cholesterol and prevent heart disease!
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There are several different types of fats.
I’m not going to get into the chemistry of it all, but just remember than there are two categories, good and bad fats. Here is the break down:
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BAD FATS:
Trans fats
– Deep fried foods, cakes, cookies, doughnuts, crackers, chips, margarine, cheese, meat and dairy products
Saturated fats
– Whole milk, cream, butter, cheese, fatty cuts of beef and pork, coconut, palm, pies, cookies, doughnuts
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GOOD FATS:
Mono and Polyunsaturated fats (Non-Saturated)
- Olive oil, peanut oil, avocado, Vegetable oils, nuts and seeds
Omega-3 and 6
- Fish, Canola oil, flaxseed oil, walnuts, flaxseeds
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Like everything, these fats are only good in moderation! Fat should account for 20-35% of your daily diet. Here is the breakdown in grams:
1200 calories: 46g or less
1400 calories: 54g or less
1600 calories: 62g or less
1800 calories: 70g or less
2000 calories: 77g of less
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So check your nutrition labels and stay way from those saturated and trans fats! Choose meats low in fat such as chicken (white meat to be exact. It has less saturated fats), fish, and all those fruits and veggies! Cook with olive oil instead and limit the amount of crackers you are eating! Limit your butter and stay away from the sticks, they have more saturated fats!
Enjoy those “GOOD” fats!
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Boot Camp… seriously? I am not going to workout with military sergeants yelling at me because I can’t touch my nose to the floor while doing push-ups!
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This was the thought that went through my head when my brother invited me to attend his morning workout class. After much debate on whether I would be able to handle it, I decided give it a try.
Needless to say, the rest of my time visiting family in cali consisted of my brother and I waking up at 5:50am for Boot Camp.
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I absolutely loved it! EXtreme Boot Camp brought a new surprise every morning. I never knew what the instructors were going to throw at me next. We did everything from running or walking up hills, resistant training, boxing, to yoga. And let me tell you, I was so sore I could barely walk the next day!
The best part about the workout was that they weren’t intimidating at all! They were in fact, very encouraging, meeting me where I was at physically and not as a whole group.
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For those of you that don’t know what eXtreme Boot Camp is, it is an outdoor military-style fitness program. At the beginning of the session, you are put on a diet that allows you to eat within certain parameters. The best part about the diet is that you get a text message when you are suppose to be eating and with how many calories. The workouts are held outside in different locations including parks and parking lots, 5 days a week, for one hour. It’s the fastest one hour workout you will ever have in your entire life because they are so much fun!
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I highly encourage anyone that lives California to check them out because I loved it!
www.extremebootcamp.com
A pic of my brother and I just for the heck of it 
Is it ironic that I love watching the Food Network while exercising?
There’s nothing like killing your body to get healthy and fit while watching someone cook up artery clogging food!
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For those Food Network fans out there on a diet, I have found a great alternative choose where they actually cook foods that are healthy, low in fat, and calories!
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Cook Yourself Thin has come out with their own TV show on MyLifeTime. I don’t think they are airing at the moment, but you can watch them all from the web here.
There website also gives good advice on how to cook healthy on a budget, quizzes on your calorie IQ, and a calculator telling how fast you can get into those goal jeans.
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The show is based off the book Cook Yourself Thin, which gives your favorite meals a healthier and lower-calorie makeover. The three women that wrote the book teach you how to swap calorie-heavy ingredients for leaner and healthier additions. Some of the recipes include sausage dishes, chicken pot pie, banana chocolate chip muffins, and brownies.
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So, Have your cake and eat it too! ☺
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Now I’m just waiting for hungry-girl to get her own TV show
