Lose a Marathon Mini Challenge - Week Three

The mini challenge for this week is:  Too many times while dieting, we plan our healthy meals, but breakdown with hunger in the middle. Snacks are vital to keeping your energy up and controlling appetite between meals. A healthy low-calorie snack can get you safely from lunch to dinnertime without a chocolate raid. So this week's challenge is to create 7 different snack ideas that are appetizing to you. Keep them under 200 calories per serving. Be creative and yummy. Plan one for each afternoon (or morning) this week, so that you look forward to snack time. If you're on the go, package them all up so they are easily accessable

Now, I don't usually eat a lot of snacks during the day.  I used to when I worked because it was so easy to just grab a granola bar, beef jerky, chips or ice cream because it was so easily accessible, but since I'm home most of the time and I don't keep a lot of snacky stuff around the house (I know, my kids think it's horrible), I don't have to worry about getting the urge to snack.

Before I decided to start losing weight and get in shape, I could go through a box of snack cakes in a day.  I'd wash it down with a can of Mt Dew.  It was pretty disgusting.  I know, I shouldn't talk about myself like that, but that's really how I feel when I look back.  I was 270, but I always picture myself as the glutton from the movie Se7en.

Anyway, from time to time, I do have a craving for a snack and I usually have a banana or cottage cheese on hand.  Those are my go to snacks.  So, even though I'm not a typical snacker, I decided to do the challenge and at least create the seven snacks, even if I wasn't planning on eating them.  :)

1. medium banana and 2 tablespoons PB2 (150ish calories, give or take)
2. 2 tablespoons 1/3 fat cream cheese and 3 celery stalks (170 calories)
3. cottage cheese and peas (190 calories)
4. 2 graham crackers and 2 melted marshmallows (170 calories)
5. turkey and cheese roll up with salsa (130 calories)
6. 8 club crackers and spicy mustardaise sauce (200 calories)
7. popcorn and m&m's (200 calories)

Okay, so I know that all of my snacks aren't exactly nutritious and healthy, but man, are they good.  I especially like a salty and sweet combination.  :)

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I want to thank you all for your thoughts and comments about my first 5k.  Looking back, I did my best, considering the circumstances and conditions.  I'm taking the rest of the week off from running and plan to hit the road again starting Monday.  There's another 5k that some friends want me to run in August but I already have a race planned in August, so I'll just have to see what weekends they fall on - maybe I'll do both.  Who knows?

Anyway, I forgot to post a couple pictures yesterday and since I haven't posted pictures of my kids for awhile, I wanted to show you my cheering squad:

Ben, in his daddy's arms

Kaiden, Brandon and Kyle