Foodie Penpals - May Reveal

Great news! I didn't get shafted this month! My penpal actually sent me a box! Although apparently, I forgot to take pictures of it :(

This month my box came to me from Pennsylvania! It included:

• Tasty Kake Fruit & Yogurt Bar - Not pictured because I devoured it instantly!
• Jovial Pasta 2 serving pouch
• Rockin'ola - Chocoberry Granola
• Bari Biscotti 
• Kameda Crisps - Sweet Chili

I'm super excited to try the pasta but honestly, I think I was more excited that it came in a little sampler size, haha.

Below are some pictures of the box I sent out! My penpal never told me if they got the box, so I hope they enjoyed it.

Product Review - Quest Protein Bars

If there is one pre-packaged convenience food I love, it's protein bars. They seriously make my life so much easier. I started eating them about a month in to my weight loss journey because my personal trainer recommended them. Why do I love them? They are are fantastic way to fuel your body and keep you full! Not to mention the fact that some of them taste just as good as a candy bar!

I'm always looking around for new protein bars to try so I was super excited when I got a Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Quest Bar in my Jacked Pack. Let me tell you, IT WAS DELICIOUS! I knew that I had to try more of these wonderful bars! A quick visit to the product website showed me that there are 12 different flavors! Unfortunately a sampler pack was a little outside the budget so instead I went to GNC where they sell single bars. They also often have a buy 3 get 1 free deal so I picked out 4 flavors to try! The following are my opinions!

Cinnamon Roll

4/5 Stars: This bar was pretty tasty, especially since I microwaved it for 15 seconds! I would definitely buy this one again!

Peanut Butter & Jelly

3/5 Stars: This bar smelled like jelly but really only tasted like peanuts. Definitely messed with my senses. I didn't microwave this one because a hot PB&J just didn't sound appealing. That being said, it was a little harder to chew. Not bad, just not my favorite.

Apple Pie

5/5 Stars: This bar was great! I microwaved this one and my only complaint was that it probably could have used another 5 seconds. I loved that this bar had pieces of dried apple in it! I would gladly buy this one again.

Mixed Berry Bliss

3/5 Stars: I would say this bar was the disappointment of the group but I'm giving it 3 stars because it didn't taste bad, it just wasn't what I expected. I was thinking this bar would be more like a taffy, brightly colored. Instead it was granola colored and had pieces of dried fruit. I didn't microwave this bar and it was incredibly hard to chew. Next time, I'll be passing this one up!

I can't wait to go back to GNC and get 4 more to try!!

Until next time,
Lauren

 

Tasty Tubers

This week I challenged myself to start every breakfast with a piece of fruit and have a veggie with every lunch and dinner. I have to say, I'm doing way better with the fruit than the veggies...I'm not really surprised though. One of the biggest challenges for me with veggies is that since I am cooking only for me, when I make a recipe I have to eat all of it. It gets kind of tiresome. This week I decided to go with sweet potatoes and broccoli! Both of these are veggies that I did not like until I started cooking them myself. Let me tell you, roasting a vegetable is like the best thing since sliced bread. I love to eat both of these if they're roasted! I decided to try out Cinnamon Chile Roasted Sweet Potatoes because along with sweet potatoes being a nutrient packed powerhouse, both cinnamon and chile are also great for you!

What you'll need: 

Sweet potatoes - Mine came out to 45 oz without the skins

2 Tbsp Olive Oil

1 Tbsp butter melted

2 tsp chile powder

1 tsp cinnamon

1/2 tsp each ground cumin and ground paprika

1/8 tsp black pepper

1 tsp ground sea salt - I just did a few turns of my grinder

What you do:

1. Pre-heat the oven to 400F
2. In a large bowl, toss the potatoes in the oil and butter.
3. Mix spices in a small bowl and then coat the potatoes with them
4. Spread on a baking sheet and then roast 25-35 min until you like the texture. I did 30 min and stirred them halfway.

These are super tasty and super good for you! 

Enjoy!

Lauren

My KIND of bars!

I got a little adventurous in the kitchen today.

Have you ever had a KIND bar before? They are seriously one of my favorite snacks. If you haven't tried one, I really don't know what you're waiting for. My personal favorites come from the KIND Plus line, where you can find bars with added protein. They are all delicious though.

Back to the adventure! Today I tried my hand at making a homemade version. Like always, my inspiration was something I found on Pinterest. Since these are fruit and nut bars, you can use whatever you prefer or have on hand. My recipe is as follows.

What you'll need:

I pulsed my nuts for just a few seconds.

1 cup mixed nuts - I went with half almonds and half cashews.

1/2 cup seeds - I went with sunflower.

1/2 cup dried fruit - I chose raisins.

1/3 cup honey

1/3 cup molasses

A pinch each of sea salt, black pepper and cinnamon
Optional chocolate for drizzling!

 What you do:

1. Totally optional, I pulsed my almonds and cashews for a few seconds to get pieces.
2. Roast nuts and seeds in oven, on parchment paper, at 350 for 15 minutes. Stir them at the halfway point.
3. Combine molasses and honey. Microwave for 30 seconds to make them easier to stir. Stir in spices. 
4. Combine roasted nuts and seeds with honey mixture. 
5. Pour into a parchment lined and greased baking dish of your choosing. Spread to an even consistency.
6. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes.
7. Remove from oven and allow to cool while you melt the chocolate. 
8. Drizzle chocolate over the top of the bars, or if you're like me, just dump it on there and spread it around.
9. Move to refrigerator to set. Once firm, remove and cut into desired sizes. Make sure you store them in the fridge!

 

I don't have a cooling rack, so instead I turned a muffin tin upside down! 

These make a great snack because nuts are wonderful for you! Packed with healthy fats and protein! Just don't eat half the batch in one sitting, they do pack a caloric punch!

Happy baking!

Lauren

Super-foods - Raspberries

It's been a long time since I've done an informative blog post, so I wanted to give it another try! Health and fitness are very dear to me, that should be obvious if you read my posts, so I like to share with others what I've learned along the way.

Let's imagine the following scenario:

You have had a long day at work and you want to unwind. Your favorite tv show just

so happens to be on in marathon format so you plop down on the couch and zone out.

Of course, years of conditioning and bad habits make you want something to much on

so you ruffle through the pantry and come out with a bag of chips/package of cookies.

Four hours and eight episodes later you finally shake the crumbs from your shirt and only

then do you realize that what started out as a full bag of snacks is now just a crumb filled wrapper.

If you're anything like me, this is when the guilt sets in. I'll be quite honest, I've been known to sit down to Supernatural on Netflix with a box of Crunch N' Munch and come out with a tummy ache and empty box. Mindless snacking is something that I personally feel we as a society do way too much. But, bad habits can be hard to break so instead I'd like to introduce you to the solution. 

Raspberries!

Why raspberries you ask? Oh friends, let me tell you how wonderful these little gems are!

Nutritional Facts for Raspberries

Let's say our serving size is 1 cup, trust me that's a generous serving.

• Calories = 64, one raspberry is one calorie!
• Fiber(grams) = 8
• Sugar(grams) = 5.4

Okay, what is so special about that? Instead of just flat out telling you, I'm going to compare that data to a personal favorite of mine, grapes. See if you can't spot the differences.

• Calories = 104, approximately 3 calories per grape
• Fiber(grams) = 1.4
• Sugar(grams) = 23

Holy cow look at the difference in sugar content! About half as many grapes(approx 34) has more than 4 times the amount of sugar as 64 raspberries. If that wasn't enough, look at the fiber count, the raspberries pack a huge punch! Not only do you get to eat more, but you're going to stay full for a lot longer! Want me to sweeten the deal a little? That one cup serving of raspberries has 44% of your daily Vitamin C in it!

Ways to Use Raspberries

• Add a few berries to your morning cereal! 
• Use them in your morning smoothie to add fiber and help you stay full on busy days!
• Add them to 1/2 cup of ice cream to help satisfy your sweet tooth!
• Crush them up and make your own raspberry vinaigrette!

I could go on and on with ways to use raspberries, but I really only want to stress one way. Remember the scenario from earlier? What if you replaced those chips with a carton of raspberries? How much better would you feel about yourself, even if you still ate the whole thing? I wouldn't be too worried about that though, all that fiber will have your tummy telling you to quit long before you reach the bottom of the carton. 

I hope you enjoyed this post, and maybe even learned something? My inspiration and nutritional info came from the following sites:

http://www.fitsugar.com/Foods-Lots-Fiber-30493499?image_nid=30493499

http://www.nutritionvalue.org

Thanks for reading!

Lauren 

 

Chocolate Protein Fudge

If you read yesterday's post you know that I promised you a guilt-free dessert. To be honest, guilt-free and dessert together scare me. I mean, what's so special about it that you can really not feel bad about eating it? Are you hiding broccoli in it? Ew...

Don't worry friends, no broccoli. I promise. See? There is no broccoli pictured! This Chocolate Protein Fudge was a recipe I found on Ripped Recipes. I follow them on Instagram, which is dangerous if you have little self-control once you see food.

What you'll need:

1 oz nuts - I used my favorite, cashews!

1/4 cup milk - I used almond milk

2 Tbsp cocoa powder - I actually used cacao powder

1 tsp honey

2 scoops chocolate protein powder - I used Optimum Nutrition Extreme Chocolate

2 Tbsp peanut butter - I used natural chunky peanut butter

What you do:

1. Pulse your nuts in a food processor just enough to get chunks. You can skip this if you want whole nut pieces in your fudge.

2. Combine all ingredients except the nuts in your food processor and process until smooth. 

3. Stir in nuts.

4. Pour into a silicone mold and freeze 1 hour. My mold is a sweet Lego brick mold from the Lego Store in the Mall of America!

5. Enjoy.

So, how is this guilt-free? Well, one brick of fudge is ONLY 85 calories AND packs 8 grams of protein! That's pretty impressive if you ask me. This would make a great night time treat for those of you that need a little something sweet before bed. Especially if you used Casein protein instead of Whey. Why? Well, at night your body repairs the tears you made in your muscles during the day and it needs protein to do that. Casein is a slow digesting protein and will be able to fuel your body's repairs for longer than whey which is more quickly digested. Didn't know you were getting a  nutrition lesson today too huh?

Until next time!

Lauren 

Tropical Morning Smoothie

Smoothies are wonderful things! Show of hands, who doesn't like smoothies? If you raised your hand, just leave now.

What makes smoothies so wonderful? Well, for one thing, they're delicious. Aside from that they make great on-the-go meals and are also great for using ingredients you may not like to eat, like spinach. Yes, I put spinach in my smoothies. You don't taste it, I promise.

Today's smoothie is a Tropical Morning smoothie that I found in Fitness magazine. If you don't subscribe you can find the exact article here along with some smoothie tips! I'm going to go ahead and post the recipe here though because we all know I made some changes!

Tropical Morning Smoothie - Original             Tropical Morning Smoothie - My Way

6 oz plain, nonfat Greek yogurt                                          6 oz plain, nonfat Greek yogurt

1/2 cup fresh or frozen mango chunks                                3/4 cup frozen variety of mangoes, pineapple

1/2 cups fresh pineapple chunks                                         and strawberries 

1 frozen banana, chopped                                                 1/2 of a frozen banana, chopped

2 Tbsp ground flax seed                                                    2 Tbsp ground flax seed

To make the TMS put all your ingredients in a blender and blend. Super simple! I opted for only half of a banana to keep the sugar content down. I was also lazy and did the fruit blend because I didn't feel like paying for frozen mangoes and pineapples when they sold a mixed bag! This was super tasty and a little on the thick side, which I didn't mind. If it bothers you, add a wee bit of milk when blending. You could also add a little bit of coconut to this, if you want to go all out tropical island style. 

Come back tomorrow for some guilt free dessert!

Lauren

Curbing the Impulse

I have a confession to make. I am an impulse shopper. Especially when it comes to shopping online. Budget wise, I don't let it get so bad that it hurts me, but it makes it hard for me to buy things I want that are a little bit more expensive. So, I've come up with a solution! Well, at least a strategy to try.

I made this cute little visual reminder to sit on my desk! So now when I'm browsing the internet and think "Oh! I want that!" all I have to do is look to my left and decide if I want that spur of the moment item or the items I'm saving for. Genius right? I thought so too.

This was super easy to make too! All I did was buy a frame from Goodwill, make my printout in Microsoft Word and write on it with a dry erase marker. Cost me less than $3! It's by no means the fanciest thing but it'll do the job :)

I promise to have some better posts later this week! I have two new recipes to try out, so you'll definitely get to read about them!

Until next time!
Lauren

Re-dedication

Hey there guys, remember me? The author of this blog? Somehow almost half of May has gone by and I haven't blogged once...no bueno.

I'm sorry to say that today's post isn't going to be an awesome recipe or cool story. I really haven't cooked much between my roommate's mom forcing food on me every chance she gets and me going home on the weekends. No, today's blog is more of a way of holding myself accountable. You see, if I tell the world (Ha! Okay, the 10 of you that read this) my goals and then not achieve them I'll not only be letting myself down, but all of you too!

So, you may be wondering, just what am I talking about? Well friends I'm talking about my struggle to lose these, stubborn, last 10 pounds. Yep, I said it. I'm still not satisfied with my weight-loss progress. Now don't get me wrong, I'm very proud of what I have accomplished so far. It's just that in the last few months my dedication to the whole program has been a little lackluster. I still meet with a personal trainer twice a week, run twice a week, and eat decently throughout the week. The major problem has been the weekends and little binges during the day. Even though it's almost been a year, I still find myself resorting to food when I can't think of anything else to do or am avoiding some chore. We all know how that goes right?

So, how am I going to get back in the saddle, so to speak? Well for one, I'm doing another DietBet. That's where you pay into a pot and then have a certain time frame to lose 4% of your starting weight. If you'd like to join in on mine click here! Of course just that won't be enough so I'm also going back to no alcohol and diet pops, along with not buying packaged snacks at the grocery store.

With my one year mark coming up in just over a month I'm hoping this push will give me what I need to get down to my original goal of weighing 125 pounds one year from when I started. We shall see!

Thanks for reading!
Lauren