Homemade Mexican Viniagrette Salad Dressing

I have found the perfect homemade salad dressing container where you can shake and pour and it’s so easy to clean up!

I got this on Amazon here and after reading the reviews I clicked order right away.  It has a wide opening to add ingredients and a wide spout for chunkier herbs and onions to get through.  Also, dishwasher safe!

Here are my ingredients I added for my Mexican vinaigrette salad dressing.  Olive oil, lime juice, shallots, cilantro, garlic, oregano, roasted ground cumin, a little bit of salsa verde and some chipotle hot sauce.  Added all of the ingredients gave it a shake and it was ready!

I made a black bean tostada salad similar to this one here and used this as the dressing.

Cleanse Day Three

Results from our 3 day cleanse:

• My husband lost 4.5 lbs
• I lost 5.4 lbs

Woohoo!  That is an average of 1.8 lbs a day for me.  I lost 3.6 lbs on Day 1.  I lost 0.8 lbs on Day 2.  I lost 1 lb on Day 3.  I think my husband didn’t lose as much because he was left to his own to make a couple of his meals and he has never read the Sass book.  We finished our cleanse on Sunday night and I worked all day Sunday and fell asleep early so I just got 3 meals into the day and my husband made himself a Mexican salad while I was working.

Here were our four meals:

Breakfast:  Cottage cheese with pineapple, blueberries and almonds seasoned with Vietnamese cinnamon and vanilla extract.

Lunch:  Strawberry goat cheese salad with almonds, parmesan cheese and homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner:  I skipped this meal and my husband made his own salad.

Snack:  Strawberry, blueberry, banana smoothie with avocado and Vietnamese cinnamon, vanilla extract, yogurt and milk.

We woke up early Monday morning and worked out.  As soon as we got back, the coffee was set to brew and I popped 2 beautiful slices of fresh whole grain bread from Whole foods into the toaster.  I couldn’t wait to have a crunchy, warm slice of bread and it didn’t disappoint.  I put a little olive oil on it and topped it with a slice of smoked gouda cheese and had some fresh pineapple as well.  I relished every single bite of it!

I love eating the 4 small meals spaced throughout the day.  It really does fuel you and we both felt a difference in our energy levels.  It’s just a lot of work preparing 4 meals a day completely from scratch.  Overall, we were both very happy with our weekend cleanse and the true test will be to see if the cleanse weight loss stays off until Friday.  I have 3 more lbs to go to get back to my pre Thanksgiving day weight.  Damn you holiday wine, cheese and desserts!  I better be good this week too.  We have a reservation at my favorite Italian restaurant Friday night for our anniversary/Valentine day celebration.

Cleanse Day Two

I lost 3.6 lbs in 24 hours!!!  Boy, do I LOVE cleanses.  Since it was Saturday night we decided to head out for a Cleanse Date Night to Saladworks.  I explained to my husband (who has been a vegetarian for almost 2 days at this point — a record for him)  in the car that a cleanse dinner is a salad with vinaigrette with non meat protein with an unsweet iced tea and no carbs.  So, he steps up and orders a chicken Caesar.  Ugh.  I give him the look and he then orders a healthier salad with chicken and ham and balsamic vinaigrette but fails again at the register with a wheat roll and an Arizona sweet iced tea.  To which he gets the look again and he shrugs and says at least he didn’t get the white roll.  I’m sure with his splurge he’s still going to lose like 25 lbs in 3 days.  I hate men and their metabolisms.

Back to the cleanse, Here were our four meals:

Breakfast:  Coconut Milk Strawberry Yogurt (Greek Style) with strawberries, blueberries and Vietnamese cinnamon.

Lunch:  Strawberry goat cheese salad with almonds, parmesan cheese and homemade balsamic vinaigrette.

Dinner:  Greek Salad with unsweet iced tea from Saladworks.  (The aforementioned meat salad with sweet tea and carbs for my husband)

Snack:  Pineapple, blueberry, banana smoothie with Vietnamese cinnamon, vanilla extract, yogurt and milk with a side of 2 tablespoons of sliced almonds.

The Greek Salad from Saladworks had so much dressing on it I couldn’t finish it and I even asked him to go light on the dressing.  Despite that I did really enjoy our healthy Saturday night out.  Although, last Saturday night out was much more fun and included chili relleno and tequila.

The smoothie was so delicious.  I cut up a fresh pineapple and threw in about 4 blueberries and a half of a banana.  Yum.

I did the Tone it Up girls Yoga workout again.  The link is here.  The weird seductive intro I could do without and the rose petals scattered about remind me of  the 90’s cheesy glamour shots.  Otherwise I really love it and check out her downward dog.  Impressive!

 I can’t wait to weigh in tomorrow morning and get the final results!  Also, I can’t wait to eat carbs again even if it is brown rice, corn tortillas and whole grain bread.

Also, when we got home my husband really did not know that Caesar dressing is bad for you.  Good thing I’m the cook in this family.

Cleanse Day One

Friday we started our Sass inspired Cleanse.  I created a menu with no carbs and more variety of food compared to the 5 Day Fast Forward Cleanse.  Here were my four meals.

Breakfast:  Strawberry Parfait with Vietnamese cinnamon, vanilla extract and sliced almonds.  Coffee with 2% milk.

Lunch:  Kale Salad with homemade vinaigrette, black beans, Salsa Verde, Roasted Cumin, Peppadew peppers

Dinner: Mexican Salad with homemade lime vinaigrette, romaine lettuce, salsa, black and kidney beans, avocado, cilantro, roasted cumin and cheddar cheese

Snack:  Smoothie with a half of a Banana, Strawberries, Frozen Mango, Vietnamese cinnamon, vanilla extract, yogurt and milk with a side of 2 tablespoons of sliced almonds

I was very sore from working out on Thursday so I did 20 minutes of yoga in the morning.  Have you seen the Tone it Up girls on Bravo?  I love those 2 perky trainers.  They have great youtube videos I’ve been checking out.  This is one of my favorite yoga workouts because it has most of my favorite poses:  cat pose, triangle, runners lunge, pigeon pose, spinal twist and one minute of meditation.  Check out the link below.  Namaste!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uBl2SSOjLYE

I made a pitcher of unsweetened iced tea with passion fruit and black tea, sliced lemons, limes and oranges.  Here’s a better recipe but I didn’t have the apple juice, frozen raspberries or mint.  http://bloggitude.com/2011/01/18/my-sangria-tea/.

I made our smoothies with our new personal blender that arrived yesterday.  You can only make one smoothie at a time but it’s easy to clean and easy to maneuver because it is very portable.

My husband had to go to work so I made him a Kale salad.  Kale holds up really well all day with dressing on it.  It doesn’t wilt.  I didn’t have a to go container large enough for the salad so I threw his into a huge Ziploc with strawberries, goat cheese and almonds.  They have plates and forks at work.  He wasn’t forced to eat his cleanse salad out of a Ziploc bag.  Also, below I sent him off with a yogurt, Ziploc of 2 tablespoons of almonds and a banana.

Overall the first day went great.  The lowfat yogurt had too much sugar in it so next time I would go with nonfat but my goal with this cleanse was to find quicker solutions for a cleanse that has variety.  I can tell by the end of the day I feel lighter and more energetic.

What our new blog is all about!

I wanted to give you an update about the new changes and what the new blog is about.  It’s a blog with attitude as I’m sure you can tell by the new name:  Bloggitude!

My sister Kerry visited me for a week over the holidays and she is full of personality and so funny.  Also, she is my go to girl for fashion, hair and makeup advice.  She lives a 12 hour car ride away so I text her pictures from dressing rooms constantly asking for advice on clothes.  So, here we are.  Sisters with no filters.  She is 3 years older than me with 3 human being kids and I have 3 furry kids (my ragdoll cats).  We are excited to be blogging about a wider variety of things and I will also be covering the Sass (Formerly Cinch) Diet.  We are so excited!

Also, I checked my all time stats on search terms and the number one term that brought people to my blog was Jennifer Aniston Bikini (Second place goes to Cheesecake).  So, to keep people happy (and randoms coming to our blog) I will occasionally be posting bikini pics of Ms. Aniston.

Jennifer Aniston Bikini

Funny enough she is on my husband’s freebie list of 5 celebrities where he gets a pass if the opportunity arises.

I will do another post updating everyone on my past 2 years.  I began to write it and thought it would be quick but a lot has happened and I need to edit it down.  That will be next.  I’m so excited to be back and I hope you enjoy the Cinch by Laura Blog 2.0!!!

Great CBS Report on Sugar

Cynthia Sass posted this video on her facebook page.  Take some time and watch this important report on how sugar effects your health.  Click the link below:

CBS Report

My big takeaways:

-Sugar is hidden in all of our processed foods.  Ok, I learned this from the Cinch Sass Diet.

-We used to get our sugar in small amounts of fruit.  The sugar in fruit is balanced out by the fiber & slows consumption.  Now, with refined sugar, we are overindulging in large amounts of sugar without the fiber.  Not good.

-During the fat free craze companies took out the fat & it tasted like cardboard so they pumped the fat free foods with sugar.  This reminds me of those snackwell cookies I used to love to eat in the early 90’s.  My favorite were the Devil’s Food Cookies.  Look at the nutritional info here.  First ingredient is sugar, third ingredient is high fructose corn syrup and they have 0 fat.  It is like eating a sugary piece of cardboard.

-Diet is so important.  Sugar may be adding to major diseases or even causing some.

-Sugar is addictive.  Again, I learned this from the Cinch Sass Diet.

At the end of the report it says it’s sponsored by Pfizer.  Huh?  Why is a report on the health industry sponsored by a drug company?  That’s odd.  Beyond that complaint this was great information.

Healthy Panini

I took whole grain bread & spread the bottom with a little goat cheese.  I then added chopped peppadew peppers, arugula, little olive oil & red wine vinegar then topped with some baby swiss cheese.  Put a little olive oil on the top & bottom of the bread then press down on the panini press & voila:

I came up with this on Saturday and just used what I had in the fridge.  I spent all day cleaning and was considering going out to grab something but threw this together instead.  I loved the peppery taste of the arugula with the spiciness of the peppadew peppers.  And of course cheese makes everything better.

The first time I had peppadew peppers was in the Mediterranean Veggie Sandwich from Panera Bread.  If you haven’t tried it you should.  I take out the red onions but this sandwich is fantastic.  Check it out here.  They put it on their tomato basil bread and the crust has a touch of sweetness on it.  So Yum.  I had one last week actually.  Love Panera!

A Trader Joe’s Find

Millions of peaches peaches for me-

Run out to your nearest Trader Joe’s and get this!  This is my favorite dried fruit.  Although, the dried mango at Whole Foods is a close second.

My Fave Breakfast

Pineapple with cottage cheese, almonds, vanilla extract & nutmeg.

Of course, you can’t forget the yummy coffee!  I used a whole pineapple so I have lots of leftovers.  I used nonfat cottage cheese.  The almonds are from Trader Joes.  I love am having a love affair with Trader Joes.  They have dry roasted, unsalted almonds that I use so much & love.

3 Day Fast

I completed a 3 day fast from the Cinch Diet on Feb 3rd.  I lost 3 lbs the first day then lost an additional 0.6 lbs the next 2 days.  I felt great!  My husband was on a business trip those 3 days & it’s so much easier to eat right when he is away.  When he got back he could tell I lost weight and said my face was thinner!

It’s been 2 weeks and I haven’t lost anymore but I haven’t gained any as well.  I’m pleased with that.  I made it through the Superbowl party, our 5th year wedding anniversary where my husband spoiled me with 2 amazing 5 course dinners & then of course Valentine’s Day chocolates!

Here’s our dessert course from one of our amazing dinners: