Creating a Low-Calorie Fajita Salad with LoseIt

Tracking calories for prepackaged food is easy, but what about when you combine a whole bunch of ingredients for a family style meal? This is one of the most common questions I get – and I’ve got the answer!

I believe most people just guess their way through the calories, which allows too much room for error. But, the LoseIt app makes tracking calories easy – even when you are following a recipe or, like me, making things up as you go!

Steve and I are always on the go, and yesterday was no exception. We just got back from shooting some movie clips for a halloween flick and we were hungry, so I needed to whip something up fast. I decided to make some quick and easy chicken fajita salads. It had to be quick, because I was STARVING – and it needed to be easy, because I was EXHAUSTED! (It’s hard playing dead you know) ha

Although I always prefer fresh produce and meat, I always keep some Tyson precooked chicken or frozen chicken tenderloins for emergencies to help me make a quick creation.

I opened the LoseIt app on my iPhone and clicked on “More” at the bottom of the screen. Then I chose “Edit Foods & Exercises” to get to “Recipes”. As I added ingredients, I just simply scanned each food item with the LoseIt barcode scanner and it automatically added the nutritients to my recipe.

After I cooked up the fajita topping, I needed to know how many servings it made. I guessed it made 4 or 5 servings, but I wanted to be sure since we are counting every calorie we eat right now in preparation for Steve’s bodybuilding show coming up. I weighed one serving to get an idea of what i was needing for my salad. Then I weighed the entire mixture and divided it by my serving size to see how many servings it made.

After I tallied the servings, I inputed the servings in the app and that was it! I was all done and ready to eat! Here was how how I made this simple delicious salad on the fly.

298-Calorie Quick & Easy Fajita Salad

FAJITA TOPPING
makes 5 1/2 servings
One Tbsp Olive Oil
Bag of Tison fajita chicken strips
1 Onion
2 Green Peppers
Fajita Seasoning
Lime Juice to taste
TOTAL: 990 calories = 180 per serving

SALAD INGREDIENTS
for 1 serving
Organic Mixed Greens, 20 calories
1 Tbsp Light Sour Cream, 20 calories
1/2 Tomato,  11 calories
1/4 Avocado, 57 calories
2 Tbsp Salsa, 10 calories
Top with a little Lime Juice
TOTAL: 118 calories per serving

118-calorie salad mix, topped with 5 ounces of fajita topping totaled 298 calories of deliciousness! 🙂