Good Eating

A month or so ago, Clint's work did a body scan on him (they paid him, and any other employee who did it, to do this as part of their health initiative, cool huh?) and they checked his weight and blood sugar and cholesterol. Well, his cholesterol was 251! You're supposed to be under 100.

We were concerned, so he went to an actual doctor to talk about it, and they drew his blood to get his cholesterol checked again. We just got the results back this past week and it was 128. Not as high as 251. We have no idea why the two were so different, but either way, 128 is still above normal. The doctor also said he was not the typical body type for someone with high cholesterol. However, it does run in his family so it might be in the genes.

The doctor told him, when she thought his cholesterol was 251, to try an experiment to see if he can lower it by changing his lifestyle. Meaning: No fast food, red meat, trans fat and low saturated fat intake for 3-4 months. And exercise every day, cardio, for 30 minutes. And if all this lowers his cholesterol then he doesn't have to take medication. But once she found out it was 128, he wouldn't have to take meds anyway.

But we're still going to change our lifestyle because we still want his cholesterol to be under 100. I don't want my husband to die from a heart attack. His grandpa did, so it could happen later on in his life.

So the past week I've been learning something new. I've been researching heart healthy foods, how to incorporate more vegetables in our diet, meatless meals packed with protein and nutrients, etc. 

And I thought, hey that might be fun to photograph our new meals and post them. So here you go! I have a week and a half worth of meals that should be heart healthy.

Today's feature is Spaghetti:

I know, this really isn't the best picture because I had the idea half way through dinner, so while Clint was grabbing his seconds, I made him clean up his plate a little and I snapped a picture. Ha ha!

This is not just normal spaghetti. Instead of ground beef, we used Turkey Sausage. We normally put Sausage instead of beef anyway, so a heart healthy option is turkey sausage. And we used whole wheat pasta. Jonas picked out the "twirly" pasta for this meal. And I put peppers and onions into the sauce. I make my own spaghetti sauce. I just use tomato sauce and a small can of tomato paste with seasoning salt and italian seasoning in the sauce. And then we had steamed broccoli on the side. Easy and done. Plus Winco sells a frozen stir fry with onions, red, orange and green peppers, so I didn't even have to chop up any vegetables. Quick and easy.

I know, I'm not the best at writing a recipe. To be honest, it's a lot of work and I just don't care. Plus, when I cook I just add things in. I don't really measure things unless I'm baking. And that is why this blog is NOT a food blog. However, all the other meals I found I will link up the site so I don't have to write it. :) Even if we don't like the recipe I'll still take a picture and write a "review" about it. This is just something different to photography than showing my kids all the time. Enjoy.