Better Late-Night Munchie Solution

I love sweets and I usually get the munchies late at night. Since using the free MyFitnessPal iPhone app, I realized that these munchies (brownies, cookies, ice cream, chocolate) are the single worst thing for pushing me over my weight-losing daily caloric intake. It's time to find a substitution.

My solution:  Cuties (clementine mandarins from November through January and W. Murcott mandarins from February through April). Small, seedless, sweet, easy to peel, and healthy. Cuties taste great, and surprisingly, they thoroughly satisfy my sweets cravings. I also found that eating a Cutie after my daily noon-ish workout helps to curb my afternoon appetite until dinner time.

And unlike juice with its empty calories and no real nutritional benefit, Cuties contain fiber and flavonoids (found in the white pulpy part). Flavonoids work together with the juicy orange-colored sections (containing vitamin C) to support your body's health. Synergy! When the pulpy white part of the orange is removed in the process of juicing, the flavonoids are lost in the process.

Below is the partial nutritional content of one (1) Cutie, according to the company website:

Calories:  40	Total fat:  0.25g	Potassium:  200mg
Total Carbohydrate:  8.5g	Daily Fiber:  2g	Sugars:  6.5g
Protein:  0.5g	Vitamin A:  1%	Vitamin C:  145%
Calcium:  2%	Iron:  1%

BEST Grilled Cheese Chicken Sandwich

We all know grilled cheese sandwiches aren't the best for our waistlines, but they taste so good! Here's a quick and easy way to make a satisfying 505 calorie grilled cheese chicken sandwich using some better-for-you ingredients. This is by far my favorite grilled cheese!

• 2 slices Natural Health Nut bread (sold under the brand name Arnold's or Brownberry)
• 3 slices Velveta queso blanco cheese
• 6 extra-thin slices Boars Head buffalo chicken breast
• 1 tbsp Land O Lakes all natural spread with canola oil

Preheat your skillet to about 225 degrees. Lightly butter one side of the bread slices and put them in the skillet, butter side down. Add one and a half slices of Velveta to each slice of bread, then top each with 3 slices of loosely-piled chicken. Cover the skillet and allow the bread to cook to a golden brown. When golden and crusty, gently put the sandwich halves together, chicken side in. Slice your sandwich in half and enjoy!

Water, Water Everywhere

Since January 1st, I've lost 5 pounds! I have to attribute some of that weight loss to drinking more water.

I love 100% fruit juice (which I assumed was a healthy option when compared to soda and sweet iced tea) and really have no taste for plain old water. The only time I would drink water was after I brushed my teeth for the night, or when I'd wake up in the middle of the night with stiffened tight calf muscles (After years of randomly dealing with this problem, I found that water helped relieve the pain immediately).

It wasn't until recently that I was made aware of the high caloric content of 100% fruit juice. This choice in beverage was adding hundreds of calories to my daily diet, and providing nearly no nutritional benefits. Yummy, but not good for you. Drink more water!

Water facts:

• The human body is made up of 57%-75% water
• The earth holds 326,000,000,000,000,000,000 gallons (i.e. 326 million trillion gallons) of all forms of water
• 70% of the earth is covered by salt water (that's 98% percent of ALL water on the planet!)
• 2% of the earth's water is fresh water
• Of that 2%, 1.6% of the fresh water is frozen in polar ice caps and glaciers
• 0.36% is hidden underground in aquifers and wells
• About 0.036% of earth's total water supply is found in lakes and rivers