Recipe Tuesday :: New Year's Tuna Sandwich

Welcome to the New Year!  As with everyone we are back to eating healthy and trying to lose weight in this house.  There are many diets out there and it can be hard to stick to them for the long run but I'd like to share what has worked for us.  Mom and I have eaten the balanced diet for a few years now and it is really something you can use to change your habits and not just "diet" for a while.  It encourages more protein to keep you from being hungry, eating smaller meals more often, lowering your fat and carbohydrate intake and not throwing your hands up and quitting when you've cheated a bit.  The basics are that you should balance your carb-protein-fat intake to 40%-30%-30%.  This has also been called the Zone Diet and we use the FormulaZone website a lot to help us make meals that are balanced that we want to eat.  We have a whole binder full of breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks that we can pick through and put together quickly and easily.  If we do have a long hard day and can't find the time or energy to cook dinner we do pick up something for dinner, but with this diet you just eat your next meal as a balanced one and you are back on track.  Granted you can't do that every day but as with everything moderation is key.  Mom and I got serious about balancing our meals again after a Christmas season filled with goodies, as you've all seen on these Recipe Tuesday blogs, and we already feel more energetic, less emotionally tied to food and just more positive about life.  So I'm going to be sharing some of our favorite balanced recipes here on the blog throughout the year along with the other less balanced ones!  I hope you enjoy them and that they inspire you and help you on whatever diet plan you choose!

We got into quite a rut before Christmas, eating the same things over and over, which is the first sign that the death of your diet is coming.  We splurged all Christmas long and the scale showed the errors of our bad ways.  So at the beginning of the year we came up with some new ones and this has been one of my favorites.

I've never been a huge fan of tuna, mostly because of the pungent smell, but also the flavor that seemed to linger....all day.  We started off by choosing a higher quality albacore tuna and then I mixed in some of what I like to call "Janelle's Amazing Guacamole."  Really it's just an avocado mashed up with garlic powder and pepper to taste.  It really thinned out the smell and taste of the tuna and made it taste divine.  Seriously I was singing the praises of this sandwich for the rest of the day!

Balanced Tuna Sandwich

1 slice Dark Sweet Columbia River Bread
1/2 package (2.5 oz) Premium Albacore Tuna
1/2 to 3/4 Tablespoon light mayonnaise
1 Tablespoon avocado (mixed with some garlic powder and pepper)
Alfalfa sprouts

Mix up the tuna with the mayonnaise and avocado.  Mound onto 1/2 a slice of bread.  Top with sprouts and other 1/2 slice of bread for an amazing sandwich.  You can add 1/2 a pack of sliced apples or about 1/2 of a medium apple.  This lunch works great for two people!