Healthier Living Take 1

  It's all ready September!  This means that the fall/winter feeding frenzy is about to begin!  "But I didn't meet my summer fitness goals yet!"  You might be saying (I know we are).  Fear not, for Joe and I are embarking on a fitness/wellness plan to help our lives and our waists get back on track and you can follow along with us here...

  Believe it or not, this first recipe is actually a remake of one of our favorite comfort foods - Mac and Cheese.  I know it doesn't sound like we're actually taking our new goals seriously, but after running around all of Labor Day weekend, Joe and I have both come down with some sort of sniffle, which in turn demands comfort food.  To keep us from giving up on the very first day, we turned to Spark People and their list of fantastic recipes.  Then we sat down and discussed what foods we were interested in making for breakfast, lunch and dinner throughout the week.  Unsurprisingly, the very top of Joe's list was the Baked Mac and Cheese (which I also have Pinned under Food I Need to Make).

  The recipe is easy to follow and the ingredients are pretty inexpensive, especially because we were going to make four meals (two for each of us) out of this.  We substituted healthier whole wheat shell pasta for the elbow macaroni and we couldn't find light Colby-Jack (Joe has a cheddar allergy) so we just used regular.  In the end, it came out more like a macaroni casserole then actual mac and cheese (I'm basing this off of my love for Kraft), but it was still tasty and surprisingly filling.  In the future, we might try and change the amount of cheese to make it taste more cheesy and less of the Dijon mustard.

   The final calorie count ended up being 500 calories for 1/4 of the casserole dish (using the recommended 8x8), which is exactly our calorie target for dinner.  Did I mention that this is really filling?  I didn't feel the need for a snack later (a bad habit I am trying to break myself of, even if it is fruit or veggies).  Joe and I are trying to eat based on the idea of thirds; that is that you should have a third of carbs, protein and fat to what you're eating (notice which one I put first!).  This dish probably wasn't a perfect balance of thirds, but it was pretty close.

This is what one portion of the Baked Mac and Cheese looks like.

   Aside from just changing our diets to incorporate more fresh and healthy foods and less eating out, Joe and I are working on personal fitness goals as well.  I just had my first yoga class ever today!  (Is there something easier then beginner's yoga?)  It was awesome and definitely helped me get in touch with my body, which mostly just reaffirmed how out of touch I've been!  I bought a Living Social deal which gave me a month of unlimited classes at a local gym and two free personal training sessions (which I have never done before, but Joe assures me will be awesome).  Joe has a membership to a different gym that he can go to after work.  We also intend to get more use out of our bikes before the weather turns and are trying to go hiking again soon (so hit us up if you are interested!).

  What is your favorite healthy recipe?  Do you have a health/wellness plan of your own that you're working on?  Please share it, if you do!