As promised, here’s my first Wednesday healthy food post!

I’ve always loved fish and seafood so when I started changing how I eat, it was pretty easy to add a little more fish to my diet. Fish is a really great part of a healthy diet – it provides a lot of protein and minerals for not a whole lot of calories. Some varieties of fish like salmon and tuna are very high in Omega3 Fatty Acids, but they also have a very strong flavor that can be off-putting to some people. If you’re unsure about fish, I suggest you try Mahi-Mahi. You can find it fresh in some stores, but you can also buy frozen filets in most grocery stores for a reasonable price.

Mahi is a milder flavored fish, and the filets are pretty thick, so they’re more “meat like” to cook and less delicate. One of my favorite things to do with mahi is to drizzle it with a little olive oil, sprinkle on some salt and pepper, and pop it on the grill over a medium-high flame. Cook it for 5 or so minutes on one side, and then carefully flip it and cook it for another 4 or 5 minutes on the other. Voila!

If you don’t have a grill or if weather prohibits cooking outside, here’s an alternative – one that I use all the time. Place your fish filets on a baking sheet (I use my toaster oven, hence the small baking pan), drizzle them with a little olive oil, sprinkle with salt and pepper, and lay some thinly sliced lemon over each filet. (Note: These lemon slices are the ones I put in a jar of olive oil about 4 weeks ago. The oil is gently infused with the flavor of the lemon and the lemon slices can be used for stuff like this – to add a nice, subtle lemon flavor to the fish.)

Bake for 15 minutes at 400F. Here’s a quick guideline for cooking fish – just remember: 6/10/400. That means for every 6 oz of fish, cook it for 10 minutes, at 400 deg F. Again, that’s a guideline – thinner filets may need less time, and thicker filets may need more, but it gives you a starting point to work with when baking or grilling fish. It worked pretty well here, as I had about 13-14 oz of fish above, and it took 15 minutes to cook through.

Note that each of these filets is about 6-7 ounces – which is about 2 servings each. Don’t let that stop you from eating a whole filet if you want. Each 3 oz has the following nutritional value: 90 cals, 2g fat, 0g carbs, 0g fiber, and a whopping 16g of protein.

For this meal, I served mine with a side of quinoa cooked in veggie broth and some steamed asparagus. Total calories for the whole meal: 480 (including an estimated 1T of olive oil for the fish and to drizzle over the asparagus). And if you’re working to increase your protein intake, this meal provides a full 33g of protein.

(Bonus healthy eating tip: Serve your meals on a salad plate, rather than using a full sized dinner plate. It makes your meal look like more, which can be an important psychological trick when you’re first starting out reducing your portion sizes!)

Enjoy!