My goal for the new year is probably the goal of many of you out there. To eat better! I’ve really fallen off the bandwagon in the healthy eating department and am ready to jump back on. But I have to say this first. I am absolutely 100% against diets. Why? Because they fail. Who do you know who has ever been on a diet, the stops that diet and remains successful  in keeping off the weight? Diets to me means Doomed Irrational Eating That Sinks. I believe that losing weight or simply maintaining a healthy life style requires the following ingredients. Toss out the word diet. Diet instantly puts an unnecessary weight and stress on a person, setting them up for failure. Set up a healthy eating lifestyle that you can follow and maintain, allowing yourself moderate amounts of cheat foods on a certain day or such. You cannot deprive yourself or you will binge. The biggest thing that helps me when I am maintaining a healthy lifestyle is not buying items in the store that I know I will have no willpower over eating if it comes into my house! I have many times walked by a bakery cake and been so tempted to buy it and just have one piece! I know I would have more than one piece, I have a sweet tooth that is uncontrollable! The other very important step in maintaining a healthy lifestyle and healthy weight is exercise. You can’t expect to just eat right and lose weight. Even a very thin person who doesn’t need to lose weight needs to exercise to maintain a healthy heart and muscle tone.

I have very much slipped with my eating habits this past year! But I have continuously exercised throughout so I am convinced to take off the 10 lbs (maybe more, I can’t own a scale) of weight I put on this year through keeping my exercise routine and starting to eat better as I used to! When you have a food blog and you truly love being in your kitchen cooking and baking, it’s very easy to gain weight! I am not waiting for the new year to start eating better, I have started this week. And don’t get discouraged if you have been good all day then cave and eat a cookie. Take an extra walk!

I was talking with my brother and his fiance recently and they mentioned these sweet potatoes she made that sounded absolutely delicious! We eat a lot of sweet potatoes and it was nice to hear of a new way to prepare them. I added the ingredients to my healthier shopping list this week and made these last night and man alive they were good! I don’t know how close they were to how they made them, but I just went with the basics they gave me and created! These are a must try! You can make a whole meal out of these potatoes, as we did! Here is what I did to make them!

Ingredients:

5 sweet potatoes, washed

1 lb ground turkey, the leaner the better

12 ounces of verde sauce

1 jar of salsa

Plain Yogurt (to dallop on top)

Course black pepper to taste

lowfat shredded cheese, for topping

fresh cilantro, chopped

Directions:

Bake your sweet potatoes at 375 degrees for approx 45 minutes. Poke some holes in the potatoes before baking. While the potatoes bake cook up your ground turkey in a fry pan until cooked through and no longer pink. Drain any grease if you have grease. Add the verde sauce and black pepper.When the potatoes are done and soft, slice them in half the long way.

Top them equally with the ground turkey mixture.

Now add the salsa over the meat, as much as you want. Here is the verde and salsa I used. We like spicy so I used hot!Now sprinkle with the lowfat cheddar cheese and bake for another 5 minutes or until the cheese is melted. Dollop with the yogurt if you wish, drizzle a little bit more salsa over the yogurt and top with fresh cilantro. This is the final product, YUM!