I came across an article on potato chips today that I wanted to share. The article is about the effect that potato chips have on weight gain and even goes on to say that potato chips are worse than soda, candy, and ice cream. Much of the reasoning behind it is portion control. Who can really just eat one chip? I have found myself saying, "wow, this must have been a small bag of chips," or "They really don't fill these bags up anymore." When I grab a bag of chips, half of the bag can be gone in minutes. When we buy chips, we buy "healthy" chips but I believe at the end of the day they are still chips and the bag can be devoured in one sitting easily. When we pack a lunch, I will bring Pirates Booty and the girls will polish off that bag instantly. I have never really had a sweet tooth but I have always loved chips and have found them to be a weakness. I buy the baked all natural kind and even veggie straws but we eat way more than the portion. It is very hard to have portion control when eating chips and such. Who really counts out their chips and eats only one handful?

For those of us who are disciplined, the article says eating a serving a day of about 16 chips will lead to a weight gain of over 1 and a half pounds in 4 years. Now I may not eat chips daily but I do eat them and usually eat more than a serving. This really made me think. I do believe there are healthier choices out there in the chip department. Plain old potato chips are much worse than pirates booty or veggie straws but in the end avoiding chips might be my new goal! 

I find many other things in the article interesting. I like how it looks at the effects of diet over a time period. 

At the end of the day cutting out the processed foods and eating the fresh stuff is the big secret to maintaining weight over a long period of time! Who would have thought?

Below is the link to the article! 

http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/ap/us_med_diet_weight_gain

Happy Father's Day

This father's day I have reflected on my relationship with my own father and also the relationship of my husband with his own children. I am very lucky to have a father that I can look up to in my life and I am even more lucky that my own children can do the same with their own father. My husband and I are surrounded by dysfunctional family relationships. We love for our children to have positive role models and loving relationships with as many people as they can. I am proud to say that their own father and my father are two of these people!
Growing up, I don't remember being super close with my dad. He spoiled me rotten and I loved to work with him at his store. We spent quality time together and he did his best to support and encourage my brothers and I. As I grew older, I felt that I became much closer with him and really learned to respect him. My dad taught me to respect myself and that I could do anything and have anything as long as I wanted it bad enough and worked hard enough for it. It seems like my fondest memories of my dad will be the later memories that we have recently made. I love seeing him as  a grandfather to my own children. I get many laughs out of the things the girls say about him and how he reacts to them. I laugh when he gets irritated with them and sort of yells at them. It was the same way he yelled at me so many times and I think it is hilarious now. I love that my children think they have to yell as loud as they can when they talk to him so he can hear them . I love how he has multiple deserts for them to have and he allows them to bend the rules. I will never forget him giving them dinner of smartfood and pie on his bed while he babysat them.
My dad has always been a runner. This is something I picked up later in life and has become my passion. Over the last few years, my dad and I have been able to go for runs together when we visit. Every time we go for a run he points out that this may be the last run we are able to go on together. I have always sort of laughed at this statement. I understand he is getting older but at the same time I don't. On our last visit with my dad, Ella got to go on a run with him. That was a very special thing to me. Ella has become a running partner to me and I am glad my dad got to experience a run with her. Ella said her walk keeps up with Grandpa's pace but they still were able to experience it together. I was also able to run with him. For some reason I cherished this run a little more. These are just a few of the moments I will remember. I wish my father a very happy father's day and I thank him very much for being my dad!
I hope one day my own children are able to reflect back on their memories with their  dad. I couldn't have picked a better father for them and he makes my job of being a mother so much easier! Happy Father's Day Morg! You are amazing with the girls and Tate!

Activity and recipe

I have never been known as one to sit and relax. I have always lived my life on the go and have a hard time forcing myself to stop every once in awhile. Our summer has started off more hectic than I could ever imagine. We don't plan for it to be but it just happens that way. I know a lot of it is because of my personality and then my children have grown used to it as well so they want to constantly be on the go. Now that we are 3 weeks into our summer break and we seem to have not taken any time to just sit back and relax my activity this week is to find time to do just. We are such an active family and love doing just about anything that keeps us on the go. However, I am now realizing that it is just as important to have a day of doing nothing and going no where. I am going to try my hardest to dedicate one day a week this summer to doing nothing at all. I know it is going to be extremely difficult but think we will all benefit tremendously. I was talking to Ella about this yesterday. I told her we need to just relax and not do anything for a little bit. It then turned into a  game of what relaxing means because she doesn't like to just do nothing it is boring. We decided that on our "off" days it is still ok to play in our yard, play with our neighbors, go the the neighborhood park, and things around the house like bike ride and go for a run. So I guess an off day is just not getting in the car and going somewhere but it's a start for us!

Recipe

One of our favorite things to have for dinner are stuffed peppers. The other night I made them but didn't have any brown rice so I made them with Quinoa. We all loved them.

I boil my peppers for about 10 minutes to soften them up then I set them aside until the stuffing is ready.

For the stuffing I brown ground beef, and saute mushrooms and onions. I season with red pepper and garlic. I boil the Quinoa and then add that to the pan of meat. I add a little marinara sauce and mix it all together. Then I stuff the peppers and top with a little cheese and back until the cheese is melted and they are warm all the way through.

The girls aren't a big fan of the peppers but love the stuffing.

Packed Lunch

Now that summer is here, it seems like we are almost always packing our lunches for picnics here or there. Our summer days are full of adventures and we are always bringing lunches along whether its eating at the park, the pool, zoo, or on a hike. We get sick of packing the same thing over and over again so I wanted to share some of the things we bring along. The girls get sick of having sandwiches everyday so we try to mix it up as much as possible. Here are a few of our favorites.

Rice cakes with peanut butter or jelly
Cheese and meat rolls- sandwiches without the bread
Sweet Potato Sticks- Cut raw sweet potatoes into slices- Kinda like carrots- crunchy and yummy
Tuna and crackers- we make tuna salad and brink crackers to scoop it with
Ants on a log- celery with peanut butter and raisins- we skip the raisins
Apples and peanut butter
noodles with Italian dressing and veggies
veggies and hummus
chicken salad- I use leftover chicken from dinner and add different things every time depending what we have.
corn chips and avocado slices or guacamole
almonds
trail mix
hard boiled eggs
cheese cubes
Odwalla smoothies

We kind of rotate through this list and try to keep it different every day. These are some of our favorites though and alternatives to chips and sandwiches. For a treat, I pack my homemade cookies or dark chocolate squares.

The Grand Ol Buffet

While vacationing in Florida, my children were exposed to buffets. I remember as a child, my favorite restaurants were buffets. I am not sure why but when it was my turn to pick a restaurant, I always chose a buffet. We had a buffet in town called Bonanza. You could order a meat entree and then get the buffet with it. There was a salad bar and pasta along with many side dishes and desserts. I remember going there with my grandmother and she would always take a couple of pieces of bread home in her purse for later. Then when I moved to NY, we had a buffet called Ponderosa. The kids in the family would take turns picking a restaurant when we went out to dinner. I always picked Ponderosa and remember my brothers always getting mad that I chose there. Ponderosa was along the same lines as Bonanza. Then there were the chinese buffets. I have always loved chinese food so give it to me in a buffet and that was my ideal meal as a child. Reflecting back on this, I am not quite sure why I liked them so much. I actually forgot how great I once thought they were until my 5 year old was introduced to them and fell in love with the idea. My memories of buffets came back to me and for a child they are the perfect dining options.
On our first day in Florida we were all hungry after a day on the beach. Maya wanted chinese noodles so my dad suggested we try this great chinese buffet. Morgan and I agreed thinking we could eat rice and still follow our gluten free/sugar free diet. My dad took Ella up and Morgan took Maya up while I waited with Tate. I was soon joined back at the table with two little girls that had the biggest smiles on their faces. Ella said this is the greatest place. There are so many things to pick from and you can try it and not eat it if you don't like it and then go back and get more. When she said that, I realized exactly why I loved buffets growing up. There were so many things to pick from. You didn't get in trouble for wasting your food. You could go up there as many times as you want and try so many different things and eat lots of your favorites.
Later on that week, after spending a day at the museum, we were starving again. This time we went to the Golden Corral. Now this was a place I had never been to before but went upon much pushing from my father. I had a lot of laughs while experiencing this buffet. My husband ate 2 plates of fruit, I had 1 plate which consisted of a salad, Ella had some pasta and fruit, and Maya ate fruit, hard boiled eggs, and olives. I laughed at my daughter's choices. I did not put limitations on them and walked through the whole buffet line with them. They could have had fried chicken, french fries, pizza, mac n cheese and so on. But no they choose plain noodles and fruit.
While I was grunting and groaning at the food selections, my dad told Morgan this is probably the first and last time he will experience this restaurant with me. Yes, that was very true!
My dads argument makes sense though. The buffet is very economical. For a family of 5 to eat there it cost $30. If you are disciplined and have self control it is a great choice. The problem is it is so easy to over indulge yourself and make bad choices when everything is limitless and at your finger tips.
So on the last day of our trip, we let the girls pick where they wanted out go to eat. Maya wanted to go to the place where she could have Chinese noodles and fruit and Ella wanted to go to the place where she could try a few things and then go get some more if she wanted. So back to the Chinese buffet we went. My children will probably not visit another buffet until we visit Grandpa again. In fact Ella doesn't even think they exist in Colorado and that is ok with me.

Colorado or Florida

We are very grateful to be on vacation in Florida! Being here makes me remember all of my years spent here and makes me think what it would have been like if we decided to stay in Florida and raise a family instead of moving to Colorado. We have spent every day at the beach. It provides endless hours of entertainment. We build sand castles, collect shells, go on walks, swim, float and my all time favorite- go for bare foot runs. I think I could run for days straight if it I were bare foot running on the beach having the waves chase my footsteps.
We really enjoy it here and the activities and it is fun to be here with the kids. I find it a lot harder to eat healthy here. The grocery stores do not have the healthy variety like they do in Colorado and food is more expensive here. There is a lot of fresh fish and seafood and many fresh fruits. But you have to really look for things. In Colorado we can go to the local grocery store and get pretty much anything we are looking for. If we can't get it at the local grocery store there are a few health stores we can go to that aren't completely out of our way. Here the local grocery stores don't have much and there are very few health food stores.
It makes me realize how lucky we are in Colorado. Colorado is one of the healthiest states to live in and now I see why just comparing it to Florida. I do love Florida but I also love Colorado. I miss the mountains and the hikes and the cool evenings in Colorado. I have always said Colorado is an amazing place to live and the only thing that would make it nicer is if there were an ocean!
I am very happy to call Colorado my home but Florida will always have a special place in my heart. I wonder what other states are like compared to Colorado and Florida? I have never really taken the time to think and food and fitness in others states before and how it compares to what Colorado has to offer.