How to be a TOTAL LOSER Meal Plan Post - Number One

Happy Wednesday, everyone! So, you've read my book "How to be a TOTAL LOSER," and you're working on your meal plans! That's great! I'm excited for the journey you're on. This post is a little refresher on what not to do when you're cooking your awesome fare. If you don't have the book yet, what are you waiting for? You can get it on Amazon here or directly from my website here (if you buy from me, you'll get SIX new recipe cards every three months--free). Ready? Grab your coffee or tea, and let's get going!

These are just a few tips on items you can use to replace those calorie-heavy ones you might be using today.

Say your meal plan for the day looks like this:
Breakfast - Apple Pie Overnight Oats
Snack 1 - 1.5oz Peanut Butter and 6 Crackers
Lunch - Tuna sandwich with lettuce and tomato, an apple, and 3 stalks of celery
Snack 2 - Carrots and ranch dressing
Dinner - Steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, steamed broccoli, and peas
Snack 3 - 5 cups of popcorn

Now, that's one hell of a great meal plan, but it's what goes into those foods that you need to watch out for. Let's examine each one separately.

Breakfast:
Apple Pie Overnight Oats
If you're using honey or sugar to sweeten, try using a whole, mashed, very ripe banana instead.
Rather than just using plain yogurt for the creamy article, use low-fat Greek instead.
Instead of whole milk, add 2% or some yummy unsweetened vanilla cashew milk.
Using these substitutions can cut half the calories of the meal while still giving you the dairy, whole grain, and fruit you need.

Snack 1
1.5oz Peanut Butter and 6 Crackers
Go for a chocolate peanut butter smoothie (the recipe is in your book) instead, get the peanut butter you're craving, and save over 300 calories.

Lunch
Tuna sandwich with lettuce and tomato, an apple, and 3 stalks of celery
If your carbs for the day were met by breakfast, try putting your tuna into the lettuce instead, and topping it off with the tomato. If not, be sure you're using whole-grain bread (you need the whole grains in your diet, but oats are also whole grains).
Don't peel the apple, the peel contains most of the vitamins.
Use fat-free mayo for the tuna. Get a good brand, because the generics taste horrible.

Snack 2
Carrots and ranch dressing
Carrots! Yay! Swap your ranch for the calorie-and-fat-free variety (it actually tastes really amazing), or grab the new Greek low-cal dressing, and save about half the calories of the other stuff.

Dinner
Steak, mashed potatoes with gravy, steamed broccoli, and peas
Grill the steak, and leave off the butter (use heavy seasoning instead).
Bake your potatoes rather than boiling them, and then crack them open, leaving them naked (no butter or milk).
Use pre-packaged brown gravy mix that you can season to your liking (when you make brown gravy at home, it adds a TON of calories because of the oil and flour you have to use). Pour over the potato!
Don't put anything on your veggies except a little salt and pepper.
If you do these things, you'll cut more calories than you realize (you're using your app, right?).

Snack 3
5 cups of popcorn
If you're not using an air-popper, you should be. There's one on Amazon that works in your microwave and it collapses for easy storage, and it's not expensive at ALL. No oil or anything is required. I love mine. Salbree is the brand name, and I got non-GMO organic Jiffy Pop to go in it (remember that thing about corn and GMOs from the book? Yeah...).
Five whole cups is packed with whole-grain goodness, and it's just 31 calories per cup, popped.


 Those are just a few hints you might find useful when prepping your meals!


What do you think? Anything to add?

Be sure you've requested the spreadsheet that goes along with the book. It'll change the way you do everything!

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo

Living in the Authorverse

Happy Tuesday, good people of the blogosphere! Is it Friday yet? Ha! Just kidding. We have four whole days of awesome ahead of us; keep it up! You're going to do great things this week! While you're here, why not read through my rambling post for a few minutes? I'm gonna talk about living in the authorverse; you know, that realm where all the writers dwell, silently waiting for their chance to jump into the spotlight in some way or another. These are things I've learned over the past six years. Ready? Grab a blankie, and let's get going!

1. Authors are a Rare Breed
Seriously, if you've never met one of these formidable creatures in real life, you're missing out. One minute they're shy and hiding in a corner, and the next minute they're blowing your mind with their knowledge base, talking to you like you've been chummy forever, and breaking out their (usually pretty bad) dance moves from the 80s. Of course, that outgoing behavior may be alcohol related, which brings me to my next item.

2. Authors are Prone to Drinking Massive Quantities
This is something I didn't know was a thing until I attended my first author conference. These ladies finally get out of the house, sans kids and husbands, and go all out. I watched someone literally fall all over herself (and the floor) that year. It's related to a taste of freedom, which brings me to my next item.

3. Authors are Chained to Their Laptops
I'm not kidding. Getting an author away from the computer is like prying a lollipop out of the hand of a toddler. Whoever referred to something easy by saying it's "like taking candy from a baby" has obviously never tried to take candy from a baby. Authors are the same way. Threaten their computer, and you may just get stabbed. This is because our laptops are literally the surrogate mothers of our children, the bearers of our blood, sweat, tears, and time stolen from our human families, which leads into item four.

4. Authors Treat Their Books like Babies
You've probably heard the term "My Book Baby," but did you ever wonder why people say that? Well, it takes nine months to grow a baby, and it takes nearly the same amount of time to write and publish a book (for most people). You care for it and feed it as it grows, clean it up, dress it properly, and then thrust it into the public eye for criticism. Can you imagine if someone took one look at your actual baby, turned to the crowd, and announced that it was the ugliest kid they'd ever seen? You'd be crushed. This is how a one-star review can feel, and it leads to item two on the list above. But when said author has nothing but three stars and up, it sometimes leads to item five, however, I've found that lots of praise isn't necessary to create this mindset.

5. Authors are Divas
Duh. They have to be. They're required to sing their own praises from dawn to dusk. No one is going to buy a book the author says sucks. I mean, if all authors were self-depreciating, this authorverse would be a very bleak place, indeed. So, we're a little stuck-up and demanding sometimes. You can't be told that you have to sing your own praises every day online but then must behave humbly in person. It doesn't work that way. I've never met an author who sold a book by calling themselves crappy writers. Just saying.

6. Authors are Spacey
Yeah, we really are. We blank out on people. Not because we want to be rude, see, but it's because we're all about the stories, and sometimes, inspiration or ideas hit us when we least expect them to. We're not ignoring you; we're plotting (yes, sometimes, it's your death as a character in the book, but it's fiction! Remember that. We don't really kill people [or do we?]) what will happen next in the story. Real life is hard on us, but we can interact! You just need a little patience (or some booze--see item two). You won't find spacey characters in our books, usually, because we like to write what we don't live. This leads me to the final item, number seven.

7. Authors are Normal People with Imaaaaaaaginations
Darn good imaginations! No, we didn't really fly a spaceship to Mars or engage in a threesome with the neighbor; but if we write it well enough so you believe we did, we've done our job! We're here to entertain you and make you feel as though what we wrote is believable and could actually happen. Don't assume we've done the things we've written about in our books or that our brains even work that way. Remember, we're stepping into the character's shoes for our novels, and we see and experience the world as they would if they were real. We don't have to actually take part in something to understand what it might be like.

So, if you meet an author in the wild, approach with a smile, tell them how excited you are to know about their books, excuse any blank outs or crazy behavior, don't assume our lives are the stories we tell, and try to remember that we're showing you, and talking about, our cherished children. We'd love it if you didn't call them trolls. With a megaphone. On national television.

This, my friends, is living in the authorverse. Know the rules. Be the exception!

Do you have anything to add?

Well, that's all for today, folks! Until next time, WRITE ON!

Jo