Skinnier Chicken Taquitos

Skinnier Chicken Taquitos

prep time: 10 minutes     cook time:15-18 minutes     serves 5

You will need:

• 1/4 cup red onion chopped
• 1/2 cup tomato seeded and chopped
• 1/2 cup corn frozen and thawed
• 1/4 cup cilantro chopped (use less if you want, but I'm crazy about this stuff)
• 1 tablespoon your favorite salsa
• 1/2 cup nonfat Greek yogurt (you will think it's sour cream I promise)
• 1/2 cup jack cheese shredded
• 1 lb. boneless skinless chicken breast cooked and diced
•  1/4 tsp cumin, oregano, garlic powder, and cayenne
• 1/2 tsp chili powder
• 1 package small whole wheat tortillas (10) 

 *It may seem like a lot of ingredients, but most items if not all should be pantry staples.


Preheat oven to 400F and line a cookie sheet with aluminum foil.  Mix all ingredients together in a large bowl.  The mixture should be moist but still able to hold its shape.  It is important to seed the tomatoes but also to make sure there is no extra moisture from the thawed corn as well.  The Greek yogurt and cheese will act as a binding agent for all the ingredients.  The mixture should look something like this.  Tasty huh?

Once mixture is combined spoon a little over a tablespoon onto center of tortilla, roll up in the shape of a cigar and put seam side down onto cookie sheet that has been lined with foil.  Once you have prepared all taquitos, spray the tops with cooking spray.  This will ensure that the tops brown and get crispy while the filling melts.  Bake taquitos at 400F for 15-18 minutes or until tops are golden brown.

Once baking process is through, allow them to cool on the cookie sheet then enjoy!  Serve with your favorite salsa, sour cream, or even guacamole. I named these skinnier because they aren't low low in calories, but I used real wholesome ingredients and didn't sacrifice taste.  Many recipes call for cream cheese and over amounts of shredded cheese, but not these babies.

Here's the breakdown per serving, 2 taquitos:

Calories:  260 

Carbs:  27g

Fat:  8g

Protein:  35g

*Check out that protein count!  Awesome! Please remember the nutrition info is based on what I used, if you deviate the recipe expect different counts.  Also, this does not include the information for whatever you choose to top your taquitos with.  Enjoy and stay active! 

Weighing out my options

     I have never been someone that was ever physically huge, but that doesn't mean I have liked my body.  I was always bigger in the hips than my friends in college and just accepted it.  I always knew what styles of clothing I could and couldn't wear.  I would go shop at the store and love something, but knew I would never be able to wear it because I needed to hide a part of my body I hated.  Until recently I was truly unhappy with my body.

     I like to know the expectations in life and accept them.  My weight loss journey has been that way too.  Like I said earlier I have never been obese and I do not pretend to understand how that feels, but as a woman I know how it feels to be uncomfortable in your body.  I've always been fleshy through the hips and big in the thighs and no matter what I tried in the past to get rid of this problem it was always there.  I was never able to feel better about my problem areas, I just hid them or made jokes with my friends about it.  All of that ended a few weeks ago.

     As I said in my last post, I have been journeying to put things in perspective in more ways than one.  I have revitalized myself, my feelings, and my heart.  So why not work on my body too?!  Why don't I try to change the way I feel about my body so that I can represent the way I feel in my heart?!

     Well, you better believe I've been doing it.  Slowly but surely I have been able to manage my stress, adjust my sleep schedule, be besties with my treadmill, and even know what I am eating.  It is an amazing feeling to wake up and feel like you can tackle the world because you feel so put together.  I have tried working on my fitness before, but not like this.  Now I feel like I would be a disservice to myself if I didn't maintain myself this way.

     Since I left my job at Verizon Wireless it has been a huge change.  I am no longer so stressed to go to work, I have a set schedule, and I even like what I do.  I am not saying my new job is perfect, but considering where I was I feel like I have been given a break.  It is amazing how stress can take such a toll on your body and mine was suffering.  I think that in itself was a huge factor that changed my success with weight loss.

     Sleeping has always been an activity that I have loved.  Even as a child I always fell asleep in the car on trips and sleep on planes, so as an adult things did not change.  It is amazing though how when you are able to change your sleep patterns how much more rested you feel when you wake.  I feel like sleep directly correlates with stress, so two birds with one stone.

     When I bought my treadmill I knew I would use it, but little did I know that I would become infatuated.  I love being able to DVR my favorite tv shows then watch them while I am running or walking.  I also never knew I was the type of person to need a washrag while working out! Haha!  Makes me want to train for a half marathon or something crazy like that.  It started out as lets see if I can do 20 mins, now it's more like let's see how long it takes me to get to 4 miles.  What an awesome feeling!

     Lastly, I have been measuring my food and tracking what I eat.  I've read for years in numerous magazines that keeping a food journal helps I didn't really believe it.  All of this changed once I started doing it.  It's amazing how eye balling a cup of rice and measuring it look very different.  I've been using MyFitnessPal app for Android and I love it.  I can check calories wherever I am and add my own recipes.  I am not a crazy person about tracking my calories, but it is the easiest way to really see what you are eating and what you need to change.  Heck, I ate a piece of cheese pizza today at work and was like holy cow 260 calories, really!  It just makes you aware.

     I have lost nearly 12 pounds since I left Verizon a little over a month ago and I feel like a million bucks.  I have about 10 more pounds to go, but all in all my health comes first.  Its not about the weight really or even the clothes.  To me it's more about feeling so confident in my body that my insides show.  Since I've been tackling those emotional insecurities my body is the next natural change.  I'm not aiming to be extremely skinny, I love my curves way too much for that.  However, I am shooting for fit.

After all,  skinny people look good in clothes, fit people look good naked ;)

But the most exciting, challenging and significant relationship of all is the one you have with yourself. And if you can find someone to love the you you love, well, that's just fabulous

Carrie Bradshaw

Strong at the broken places

I have a hard time believing that it has been nearly a year since I was last on here, but here goes nothin...

Recently it seems like everything has been broken and reformed.  I truly mean that in every sense, my body, my emotions, and relationships have all been broken and shaped into something else.  All seemed to be perfect and ideal in my little world, population one.  That was until of course it wasn't so perfect anymore.  I hurt the person closest to me through things that would force even a hermit crab to never leave it's shell for a brighter home.  You can always tell when a person emotionally becomes unavailable to you and seems stoic, but I never dreamed that I was the reason.  It pangs me even now to believe that I could have been so rigid and demanding that he would shut himself off to protect himself from me.  This is something I didn't realize until it was too late.

God works wonders everyday and perhaps that is something I had long since forgotten until the very next day He spoke directly to me.  With my head and heart in a million different places, I still found myself in church.  It was instantly as the message was given that I realized at that particular moment everything that I had become and how it had affected every relationship in my life from the one I lost, the one I had with my family, and even the one I had with myself.  It was during the messages that the leader discussed climate in relationships and the two types of ways people choose to deal with conflict.  Well folks you have conflict enjoyers and conflict avoiders.  It was easy for me to see which category I was in and that my nature forced the other party into avoidance.  My rigidness, lack of thoughtfulness, and selfishness did this.  He also spoke about how GOD leverages conflict for a happy ending and that is something I can believe in.

The following week I was back in church so eager to hear the next steps and be one step further on my journey towards being my true self, the self GOD had intended.  This service was amazing and more beautiful than the last.  Jeff Henderson talked about HOPE and how that will change your heart.  He discussed the steps to changing the climate in your relationships and that climate dictates the forecast.  It's amazing how such a simple concept can mean so much.  Hope pushes negative climate out whether that's bitterness, pessimism, arrogance, or what not.  Those feelings keep hope from entering our heart and crowd our relationships.  Next he discussed the steps to finding hope and driving negativity out.  It was like a revelation spoken from him just for me to hear.

Expectations:  This is where it starts.  We always tend to see things with some kind of expectation and all have an idea of what we want things to look like, then reality sets in.  For me these expectations included me getting my way in nearly everything to the point it would be hard for an outsider to see that I was in a relationship with another person.  I had my vision of everything and somehow the expectation that I would not have to compromise....ridiculous, right?! Yeah, I see all that now.  That expectation I had quickly turned to suffering because I lost the person I thought would never waiver, even though I brought this reaction on myself.

Suffering:  This is when I realized how much pain I could emotionally endure.  It's when the bottom of my basket fell and everything seemed completely impossible.  The feeling of being miserable forever, never feeling whole, and ultimately living a bleak life.  Jeff discussed that this is when you must trust GOD and be honest with Him about how you feel.  The idea of trusting GOD is the thing that really made me realize what my struggle was.  I was so busy trying to manage my life on my terms that I forgot about His plan for me and selfishly discounted it.  This forced me to micro manage everything small and pointless in my life, so I could feel some sort of satisfaction from it.  This came out in all aspects of my life, and was ruining any hope of peace for me.

Perseverance: This is the step where Jeff mentioned to just, "do the next right thing".  This is where I am at now, not saying that I am not still suffering because of the choices I made and people I hurt, but I know this is the only way for me to let it go and be hopeful.  By doing the next right thing you are letting GOD lead you.

Character:  This is the step you see in every Bible story, EVER!  This is the "Then GOD" moment.  When GOD shows up, grows you up, or does His shaping in you.  After this point this is when hope comes.

Hope: This is the goal.  That you would have so much Hope in your heart, that there could never be enough room for negativity to wiggle it's way in.  Hope that you can lean on GOD because He can be trusted.

Interestingly enough I still have so much to express about this journey I have been on for three weeks now.  Last week Andy Stanley started a new series and I was a little confused by the warm up to it, then it happened.  That point when I saw things so clearly it must have been waiting for me to see it.  The series is on the Age of Kings which ultimately was about all the rulers of Judah and Israel during the Old Testament times.  He was addressing the fact that each king arm wrestled with GOD and refused to let Him lead them during their reign as king which became their downfall.  He discussed who we all get so wrapped up with independence that we forget that GOD calls those into submission not for His sake, but for ours.  What a beautiful idea?! That GOD would love you so much that He would remove that burden from you.  Obedience was also something he talked about and so it seems this ties in with my area of real struggle.  Andy also explained that GOD sacrificed Jesus to us, so why would we think he would not sacrifice our wealth, relationships, etc. to get our attention on this issue.  GOD is knocking at our door not because He can't blow the door down, but because He wants us to open it.

Needless to say this has hit me like a ton of bricks and that just by knowing all this I can and am able to be better.  I have really taken this all to heart and have been working on my listening skills, my kindness, saying my prayers for GOD to have His way, and to not worry.  I recently saw an Oprah interview with the rapper 50 Cent and he said something that made a lot of sense to me.  He said, "Pray or worry, but don't do both."  I must be so trusting of GOD and His plan that I need not worry.  Even thinking about my life and my beautiful blessings I can now through new eyes see the events.  My moving to Georgia was no accident because He removed me at the ideal time and even my new job.  None of this would have been possible while working in the stress laden environment I left.  What a magical thing!

I know this has been long and I apologize.  I didn't write this in the hopes of anyone reading it, I mainly wanted to document the words swimming in my brain.  GOD is making a change in my actions, my feelings, and my heart and I don't want to be unable to recall this information.  As for the relationships, my family love me completely unconditionally and that is a gift.  I am working to improve and correct all the time when things should have been better.  Now about the one I lost,  time will tell.  Things aren't over for me and I have really been using this time to repair myself, work on my actions, and pray.  I don't want to forget anything because my feelings have not changed, but I want us to get to know each other again.  I miss my best friend and the person I planned a future with.  I want to be a team in the worst way and allow all the big decisions to work out through GOD's help and compromise with each other.  I was so selfish and that ignorance may have cost me everything, but at the VERY least I will have gained something out of this whole experience.... knowing myself.  My true, true self the way He intended.

"The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." -Ernest Hemingway