We all look forward to the weekend so we can relax, sleep in (if we don’t have children!), and do whatever we want to do. But if you’re new to eating healthy, you might be a little afraid of the weekend because with the routine goes the packed lunches, the planned dinners, and the smoothies for breakfast. We used to feel the same way. We didn’t want to eat completely unhealthy but we also didn’t want to feel like we were on a diet and couldn’t eat a pizza if we wanted to. So we do a little bit of both.

One of our favorite weekend things to do used to be going to Chili’s for lunch. Lunch is good for us because our kids are little and we like to put them to bed early. Then we looked up the nutrition guide online for Chili’s and that was the end of that.  The queso dip, which was my favorite, is scary bad for you!!!!!! So we stopped doing that, and that kind of sucked.

But then we found an alternative.  There is a new little place we found that we love:

This place is tiny and doesn’t have a lot of options. But its owned by a young, married couple with their 6 kids and we like them a lot. The food they have is good. My favorite smoothies they have are The Crazy Monkey (I ask for NO agave) and The Hulk.

They also add their daily menu on Facebook so you can see what they have on Saturday and choose whether to go there or not.  Unfortunately they are closed on Sundays.

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Green-Shack-Juice-Bar/224242410971869

For the rest of the weekend, our suggestion is try to pay attention to your choices. If you go out to dinner and eat pasta maybe try to avoid the bread. Or add more veggies to your meal than you normally did. Instead of having a mixed drink with tons of sugar in it…have a glass of wine instead. Or if you go to a cuban restaurant, try to avoid the rice. We have grown to love black beans as a soup instead of on top of rice. Orlando can confess he thought that would never be possible and yet he loves it now!

If you’re having dinner at home with friends, experiment with a cool new meal like the cauliflower pizza. http://www.recipegirl.com/2012/01/16/cauliflower-crust-hawaiian-pizza

And don’t forget to carve out a little time this weekend to plan your meals for next week. Maybe even visit a local farmer’s market and check out some interesting vegetables or fruits that you can try.

Have a great weekend!!!