Recipe: Roasted Chicken

This week I have been cooking up a storm. And since I haven't posted in awhile, I wanted to share with you my favorite Roasted chicken recipe. It's super simple to put together! So here we go...

 It should come out looking something like this  ^.^  So yummy!

Ingredients:
1 whole fryer chicken
2 lemons (cut into 8 pieces)
2 yellow onions(cut into 8 pieces)
2 garlic cloves (crushed)
1 tbs of Italian seasoning
2 tbs vegetable oil
1 tbs salt
1 tsp pepper

Directions:
First start by preparing the veggies. Cut the lemons, the onions, and the garlic and set aside. Next prepare the seasoning rub. Mix together the Italian seasoning mix, the oil, and the salt and pepper in a separate dish and set aside. Next is the cleaning of the  chicken. Yes, this can get a little messy, but it has to be done. Remove all of the insides from the chicken and remove any excess fat from the body of the chicken. Make sure the outside of the chicken is dry. You can use a paper towel to blot it dry.
Now stuff the inside cavity of the chicken with half of the onions, garlic, and lemons. The other half will go underneath the chicken to serve as a rack. Now take half of the seasoning mix and rub it underneath the skin of the chicken breasts. And rub the other half of the mix all over the outside of the chicken.
Bake at 450 degrees for 1 hour and 30 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow it to rest for 15 minutes...and Enjoy!!!
I hope you all like this recipe and give it a try. The leftovers are perfect for re-make meals. I will be posting a re-make meal using the leftovers of this chicken shortly! 

 This is how my dinner ended up looking. I served it with brown rice and broccoli. You can also make a quick pan sauce out of the drippings from the pan that you roasted the chicken in. Just remove the drippings and place it in a saucepan. Skim the fat from the top, add additional onions (optional) and chicken broth. And voila a quick pan sauce to serve with the chicken!

To Health, Love, and Happiness,

Calorie Commando!

Today I start preparing for my new weight loss journey! I've found that if you devote a little bit of time preparing before starting a new adventure, than you will set yourself up for success. So, with this said, I spent the day gathering up as much information as possible on how many calories I should be eating and how much fat grams one should consume in a day.

 A women of my age (24), height (5 feet 4 inches), and weight (196 pounds) should consume approximately 1500 calories per day in order to lose weight, this is based off of this website.

Now let's discuss fat. This was a little trickier, and required some math. But no worries, It is just two steps and you can find those on this site. First, you must find your total calories from fat. In order to do this you take your total amount of calories per day and multiply by 30%. So in my case it would be 1500 calories x .30 = 450 calories from fat. Then you take this number and divide by 9 to find how many grams of fat you should consume per day. So 450 calories from fat/ 9 = 50 grams of fat per day!
Anyway, I hope this information has helped you out!

To Health, Love, and Happiness,

The starting line...

Hey everyone! This is my first ever blog post. (YAY!) I am new to blogging, so I will be learning as I go. This blog is intended to help motivate me to lose my post pregnancy weight. Before getting pregnant I weighed 176 pounds, which was already over a healthy BMI for a 5 foot 4 inch female. SIDEBAR: A healthy BMI ( Body Mass Index) for a female who is 5 feet 4 inches is 140 pounds. Click here and here to help you calculate your BMI.

With my pregnancy I gained 34 pounds bringing me up to 210 pounds! That was the heaviest I've ever been in my life. But during pregnancy it is expected to gain a large amount of weight.
Now my post pregnancy weight is 196 pounds. My goal is to lose 56 pounds, which will bring me down to 140 pounds. That is within a healthy BMI! I hope to do this by the summer. My baby, my sweetie, and myself will be traveling then to Montana to visit family. I plan on attaining this goal through a low calorie, low fat, clean lifestyle. First I would have to work on the way I eat. Then when I get the ok from my doctor, I will add in various workouts. 

I just wanted to share with you all my goals and where I have been weight wise in the past year. Anyways happy blogging, and follow me if you want to share in this journey!

To Health, Love, and Happiness,