Banana Nut Muffins

There is temptation all around me every day working in Chicago.  From the coffee shop across from my train station that has THE BEST glazed donuts, to all the food stalls at the train station, the nearly 20 restaurants within a two block radius of my office – it’s everywhere!

Lately though, I’ve had a taste for a giant muffin.  You know the ones I am talking about – the giant ones you can buy at Sam’s Club – chocolate chip chunk, lemon poppy seeds.  I did a quick WW app search and those muffins can range anywhere from 18-28 EACH.  I used to eat an Otis Spunkmeyer banana muffin and a Dr. Pepper for breakfast before high school.  😛  Of course, I was an athlete back then and I could eat whatever I wanted – oh how times have changed!

I had bananas that needed to be used up, so decided to make muffins.  Most muffins call for some type of oil or butter, but I decided to leave that out completely and see what happened.  The result?  A delicious, 5 point banana muffin that cured my muffin jones.

[mpprecipe-recipe:7]

I met my sister at WW and I was up .6 for the week.  Not bad to maintain, but looking back at my points tracker, I can see that I relied on my brain tracking, and not actually tracking on my app, and I know if I am not 95% on top of tracking EVERYTHING that the scale isn’t going to move in my favor.  

I did manage to pull away at lunch to go back to our meeting at lunch – I love our leader.  Having a great leader in WW makes all the difference!   I picked up tomato/feta soup at Pret to eat at my desk since I was so busy. 

Well, I got so busy that I didn’t eat that soup until 5:00 p.m.  

I worked an hour overtime and somehow justified that since I worked so hard and hardly had any food, that I DESERVED popcorn.  Not just any popcorn, but Garrett’s popcorn.  A small bag, but 3/4 butter and 1/4 caramel.

I normally respond to social media on the train ride home since I literally am offline all day, but I just wanted to veg out and started watching My 600 Pound Life.  

As I am listening to this woman talk about how she eats breakfast and then wonders what she’s going to have lunch, and then eats lunch and wonders what she’s going to have for dinner, all while I am stuffing my face with popcorn I realized that there was no difference between the woman I was watching any myself, other than the fact that she had 500 pounds on me.

I was literally thinking in my head “woman, get some control over your food!” as I had a handful of popcorn ready to shove in my mouth.  I stopped in my tracks, took the half eaten bag of popcorn and threw it in the garbage – well, after I poured water on it.  NOT that I would go back into the trash and fish it out, but better safe than sorry!

I got home at 7 and loved that there was still a bit of light left.  My town has a “downtown” that is really only one block long, but it’s really cute.

Thursday night is usually leftover night, because it’s a great way to use up stuff before the weekend.  I am sure I’ve talked about these tortillas before, but they are 1 smart point each, super soft and pliable and delicious.  

I defrosted this chicken before I went to work – a couple weekends ago I hit up the discount meat bin at Jewel, while this one said Today’s special, the one next to it said Buy 1 Get 1 Free – so I got two chicken breast for $1.35.  I used half of this chicken for dinner last night.

I have never heard of Cilantro’s Taco and Grill, but one of Hannah’s customers brought this to her and lucky for me, it’s too spicy for her – this dressing is amazeballs!  It’s tangy, spicy and creamy.  1 point per tablespoon.

So I made a deconstructed taco night – 4 ounces chicken (3), red pepper, romaine, carrots, cilantro, Cabot cheese (2) the Ole tortilla (1) and the Cilantro dressing for a dip (1).

My mini tacos – only 7 points for the whole plate:

It’s my birthday weekend!  My twin sister and I turn 49 on Sunday!   Hannah and Jacob have to work all day Saturday and Sunday, but they are taking me out for pizza tomorrow night at a new restaurant that just opened up in our town that has pizzas cooked in a 750 degree oven.  

Then I am having lunch with my Mom on Sunday, and depending on the weather, I may try to grill a pork shoulder Sunday night.  

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!