I have lost a lot of weight the last half of 2014 by eating apples and steel cut oatmeal all day beyond eliminating milk and substituting with unsweetened almond milk. I was never hungry and lost 24 pounds. An apple is usually 60 calories, a cup of steel cut oats and groats (cooked) is 150 calories, and this recipe makes the best of all my favorite ingredients. This recipe is low in fat and averages about 100 calories per cup. You can even douse it with almond milk [to make your all important moat around your castle] and still only up the calories maybe by 15 more. If you want to top with with a low calorie ice cream just make ice cream with your almond milk and a little vanilla stevia sweetener. A scoop of that would only be maybe 20 calories.
As far as apples go-I learned to like them so much I bought a french fry cutter meant for potatoes and re-purposed it to make “Apple Fries” and I use this to cut my apples for this recipe (with the skins on!) Regarding maple syrup I find Log Cabin Sugar Free is great in flavor and beats all other fake maple syrup brands hands down. Log Cabin Sugar Free is like 20 calories for a half a cup! It really caramelizes well and makes this recipe so great.
So staples in my diet? Steel Cut Oats, Groats, Almond Milk, Log Cabin Syrup and plenty of honeycrisp apples. The Westin french fry cutter I use is in this link at Amazon, and no, I do not sell Westin products.
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Recipe for Oatmeal Apple Betty – Low Calorie
Makes at least 12 servings