People keep asking me how I lost/am losing weight so I am going to try and do more posts about it because apparently telling y’all to get off your asses and stop eating shit all the time is not working, even though that is all you really need to know.
This is my new favorite thing. I’ve always liked brown rice but recently I have phased out white rice completely and now I am obsessed with it. It was not until a few months ago that I realized how many different things you can take out of your diet and replace with a brown rice alternative. For instance, I usually have organic water crackers with hummus, one of my favorite things to eat. They are very low in calories, but they’re white, and I wanted to find a whole grain alternative, so now I eat Brown Rice Snaps and I actually like them a lot better. In addition to that I have switched from normal rice cakes to brown rice cakes, and now I have found the holy grail: Brown Rice Pasta.
I am not a huge fan of whole wheat pasta. I either eat normal pasta or none at all. A huge dish of pasta with a ton of sauce is one of the main things I want to eat all the time, so it’s really REALLY annoying that it makes my stomach feel like that of Fat Bastard’s from the Austin Powers films. I know everyone loves pasta, not just Italians, but I am Italian and can tell you there are few things better in life than eating, especially things like fat-laden meats, pasta, mozzarella, etc.
So I was really REALLY anxious to try the brown rice pasta and now I am in heaven because it tastes almost exactly the same as white pasta. It doesn’t have that…I want to say… nutty? flavor of brown rice, it just tastes like pasta. If you put a low fat fresh marinara on it, it’s so ridiculously good, I really can’t even tell you. I also like it with a LITTLE bit of olive oil and some spices, or with (again a very small amount) of margarine and salt. I can eat brown rice on its own but the pasta I need something on it, so that’s what I do. If I wasn’t trying to lose weight, I would probably eat this pasta with whatever sauce I wanted, so try that for a healthy alternative. I think if it was slathered in my favorite sauces I would not even notice it was brown rice pasta. One of the other great benefits of brown rice is that it is really filling so you can have a smaller amount of it and really fill up. One of the #1 things I HATE about being on a diet is feeling hungry in the evenings b/c I don’t want anything to sit in my stomach all night, and if I have this for dinner I’m usually fine.
If you eat meat and want a healthy version of spaghetti and meatballs, also get the Trader Joe’s turkey meatballs. Two of them are 100 calories and they are a pretty good size. I couldn’t believe how much I LOVED these meatballs because I am used to fresh, homemade beef meatballs made by the amazing women in my family, so I side-eyed frozen turkey ones. Well it just goes to show how much I know because they are totally delicious. Watch it with the Trader Joe’s frozen section though, just because it says organic and all that doesn’t mean it’s great for you, look at the Nutrition Facts. I mean, ALWAYS do that of course, but especially don’t be fooled by stuff like that.
If i’m being honest with myself, I’m probably eating too many products made from brown rice, but it’s so good for you and is helping my weight loss along fantastically so I’m not going to stop until I see something negative happen.