Asian Lettuce Wraps

Sauce:
1/3 cup orange juice
1 tbsp each sugar and rice vinegar
1/4 tsp each sesame oil and crushed red pepper flakes

Wraps:
1/2 cup uncooked instant brown rice
8 oz lean ground beef
2 tsp each minced garlic and minced fresh ginger
1 medium red pepper, cut in strips
1/2 cup scallions, thinly sliced
2 tbsp hoisin sauce
8 green-leaf lettuce leaves, washed
1 can water chestnuts

1: Whisk sauce ingredients in small bowl, set aside for flavors to blend
2: Make instant brown rice according to package, omitting butter.
3: Meanwhile, cook beef, garlic and ginger in large skillet over medium-high heat for 3 minutes. Add red pepper strips; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat and add scallions and hoisin sauce.
4: Serve on lettuce leaves, drizzling sauce on top. (I usually combine the rice and beef mixture in a CorningWare dish and serve it from there).

Yield: 4 wraps
Nutrition: 103 calories, 2g total fat, 5g protein
Source: Men's Health

What's For Dinner?

Let's face it, any time you make the attempt to get in shape, the biggest hurdle is always your diet. I'll be the first to admit that any time I say I am going to change my diet, I always end up ruining it by eating some chocolate cake and McDonald's 24 hours after I made the life changing statement. The one thing that annoys me most is when you do make the statement that you are changing your diet, someone always has advice to offer of what you should cut out of your diet. Like it's as easy as incorporating sugarless gum. Thanks for that advice, dude who is a good jelly doughnut shy of a solid 400 pounds.

There are always a few things that we can do that work for us. Let's face it though, cutting out alcohol and sticking to what we think will be a bland diet is about as boring as watching a round one match up in Women's World Cup.

So now that I've sucked out any hope of getting our diets under control, let me offer something small that we can all do and is scientifically proven to work. Cutting our caloric intake is one small step we can take that will get our focus back on what we put in our bodies. Companies like Slim Fast, Weight Watchers, and Jenny Craig have made millions of dollars by selling this idea as a complex "must join for the secret" society, when in reality it doesn't have to be that way.

We control what we put into our bodies and let's be real, that's not always a good thing. But over the next couple weeks, I'd like to see some recipes and post some myself that incorporate a few core "we already know" values along with our daily caloric count being the main focus. This is something we can get behind.