Jenn's Menu & Lifestyle Blog

I woke up feeling lighter and more energetic after reducing my sodium for just one day. The hardest part about this challenge is my love for cheese, bread, milk, condiments like mayo and mustard, Quorn and other meatless alternatives and cereal. Most of these are loaded with sodium, but I work around that with the low sodium or no salt added varieties as often as possible and by rationing them out a little more carefully. For instance, I’ve learned that most Swiss and fresh mozzarella cheeses are much lower in sodium than any other cheeses (around 30-80mg per serving) and Swiss also comes in the ‘no salt added’ variety. For now, I’ll just budget half a serving of cheese or make it my “main” sodium of that particular meal or snack where everything else in the meal should be little to no sodium. It’s a juggling act, but it gets easier with practice. I’m still going to allow some days here and there to be higher-than-usual, and I’m ok with that as long as I’m staying around my target most of the time. The human body only needs about 500mg of sodium per day, more for athletes, so I’m not too concerned about going too low either. The 500mg minimum can be attained through a few Tablespoons of grated parmesan cheese and a cup of milk. Sucks how quickly it adds up!!

I started my low sodium day with some low sodium toast and almond butter:

2 slices Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain low sodium bread (160 cal, 0mg sodium) with 2 TBSP MaraNatha creamy almond butter (190 cal, 65mg sodium). This 350 calories morning snack doubled as my pre-obstacle course meal. It held me nicely but after 60 minutes of my obstacle course, I wanted to have another smallish snack before my heavy duty workout, so I had 1 Fage Total 2% yogurt with side peaches (130 cal, 40mg) topped with fresh fruit salad:

OMG! YUMMMMMMY! So decadent that this would make an impressive dessert at a dinner party or for a holiday. Delish!

Before I went downstairs, I prepared my post-workout meal so that it would be ready to go after my shower. I decided to make homemade black bean burgers, not really knowing how they would turn out because I didn’t follow a recipe and I’ve never made them before.

Black Bean and Multi-grain Tempeh Burgers

1 can Eden organic no salt added black beans (350 cal)
1 block tempeh (480 cal)
2 egg whites (40 cal)
60g diced red onion (30 cal)
1 TBSP extra virgin olive oil (120 cal)
1/4 cup (30g) whole wheat flour (100 cal)
Garlic powder, Mrs. Dash southwest, chili powder, paprika, white pepper (season to taste)

Makes 8 burgers, 140 calories each

1. Break up tempeh in large bowl; add in all other ingredients and mix together well
2. Form 8 patties
3. Bake in oven on 425F for 15 minutes, flipping halfway through or fry on stove top in nonstick pan with EVOO or cooking spray

My mom asked if I put chocolate chips in them LOL. They look just like oatmeal chocolate chip cookies! Unfortunately, not quite the same taste but delicious in their own right.

Then I headed downstairs to do upper body strength training, 20 mins on recumbent bike and another 60 minutes of obstacle course. I actually did it in this order: upper body strength training, 30 mins of obstacle course, 20 mins on bike and another 30 mins of obstacle course. All sweaty and limp, I came upstairs to take a shower, but first I preheated the oven and made butternut squash oven fries. My mom peeled the butternut squash for me while I was working out, so all I had to do was bake them on 425F for about 25-30 minutes while I took a shower. If you’d never made butternut squash fries, they are super easy! You just peel the squash, then cut them into French fry shapes, them coat them in EVOO and bake until desired tenderness or crispiness.

In between showering and getting dressed, I popped the baking sheet lined with nonstick foil and the bean burgers into the oven, so everything was nearly done when I was. YAY! When the burgers and butternut squash fries were done, I reheated some leftover broccoli in the microwave for a few minutes and then plated everything:

Just before I took them out of the oven, I added 14g Cracker Barrel white cheddar cheese (60 cal) to mine and then placed it on 1 Ezekiel 4:9 sprouted grain roll (170 cal) with 1 pineapple ring (30 cal)

They were REALLY good!!! Dustin described them as a “fun taste adventure”; they start out sweet with the pineapple and then a little spicy when you get to the burger. Yummm-O!

The butternut squash fries:

I pre-measured 220g for my portion which is only 99 calories, plus 1 teaspoon EVOO (40 cal)

Everything comes to just 569 VERY-filling-calories !! This was my last meal of the day, I was FULL! But I did have a little dessert of cookies and milk. There’s always room for dessert LOL. I ended the day at just a little over 1000mg of sodium and around 1600 calories. I was exhausted, so we went to sleep early. I woke up 5 hours into sleep and had another bean burger; I was hungry! hehe Then went back to sleep.