I recently discovered these new granola bars from the folks over at Quaker. They are called True Delights, and boy are they! They are currently available in the following flavors:

Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond
Toasted Coconut Banana Macadamia Nut
Honey Roasted Cashew Mixed Berry

I haven’t tried the cashew mixed berry bar yet, but I have tried the other two flavors. I thought they were both amazingly good, but I think the coconut macadamia nut flavor won the flavor test (for me) by a nose. These really do seem more like a candy bar almost, yet coming in at only 140 calories each, it’s a nice sweet treat that won’t blow your calorie budget. Each flavor also provides 3g of total dietary fiber.

For those of you on Weight Watchers, these bars come in at 3 points each. That makes them a bit higher in points than some other granola bars, but I really think it’s worth it now and again for a really nice treat. These are way better than the typical granola bar, in my opinion.

Oh, by the way, if you click the True Delights link mentioned earlier in this entry, you can actually get a free sample. Just fill out their online request form and they’ll send you one of their Dark Chocolate Raspberry Almond bars.

I just thought I would share a new veggie burger I found with you all. It’s a new flavor from the good folks at Boca Foods. It’s the new Boca Savory Mushroom Mozzarella veggie patty. I’m generally a fan of Boca products and this one did not disappoint either. So, now I have another variety of veggie burger to add into my rotation.

Here is the description of this product from the Boca website:

“A tasty blend of real oats, mozzarella and three kinds of mushrooms with savory hints of thyme and oregano.”

For those interested, here is the nutritional breakdown per patty:

100 calories
2.5g fat (0g trans fat)
4g fiber
13g protein

Get it? Gnu … new? Sometimes I crack myself up. And, yes, before someone leaves a comment, I do know it’s pronounced g-nu and not like new. ;)

Ok, admittedly it probably wasn’t that funny, but I thought it was clever. I did indeed try a new snack today. It was a Cinnamon Raisin bar from Gnu Foods. I was a little skeptical about it at first as I have very fond memories of my grandmother’s oatmeal raisin cookies with cinnamon, but I have to admit it was pretty tasty.

On top of actually being tasty, the vitals on this are really good as well. It’s baked, made from whole grains (whole rolled oats, organic whole wheat flour, wheat bran, organic kamut, psyllium, flax, millet), 100% fruit juice sweetened, contains no HFCS (high fructose corn syrup), and has 0 trans fat. As if all that were enough, each bar also contains 50% of the daily recommended amount of fiber!

Another thing I really like is that these bars are all natural. Every ingredient on the list is something I know or can at least pronounce. There aren’t any bizarre ingredients that make me feel like I need a degree in chemistry to know what it actually is.

Here’s a quick rundown on the nutritional information:

Serving size: 1 bar (45g)
Calories: 130
Total fat: 3g (0g saturated fat, 0g trans fat)
Cholesterol: 0mg
Sodium: 30 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 32g
Fiber: 12g (8g soluble, 4g insoluble)
Sugars: 11g
Protein: 3g

All in all, I give it two thumbs up. These bars can be purchased online, but I can also buy them locally at Trader Joe’s and at The Vitamin Shoppe. I did a quick search and saw they can be purchased by the box (16 bars) from Amazon, too. Just a reminder, it’s always best environmentally to purchase locally when possible.

Here’s a pic of what I had as an afternoon snack today. I forgot to bring a snack from home, so I resorted to checking out the vending machine at work. *gasp* Here’s what I ended up selecting:

Fortunately for me, it was indeed stocked with a good supply of Snyder’s pretzels. I haven’t had pretzels in a while, and these were pretty tasty. They weren’t too bad a hit nutritionally either. The whole bag (about 8-10 decent-sized pretzels) came in at 180 calories, 1.5g fat, 2g of fiber, and only 180mg sodium. I’ll definitely have to keep this in mind if I’m ever faced with this dilemma again!

I found these bars at Target last week. Even as good as the Pumpkin Pie ones are, I think I like the Dark Chocolate Coconut ones better since I’m such a fiend for dark chocolate. They’re only 2 Weight Watchers points, so I don’t even have to feel guilty eating them.

Woo hoo!! For the first time in more years than I care to remember, I actually LOST weight over Christmas week. I went to my Weight Watchers meeting this morning and I was down 2.4 pounds this week. I even had two holiday luncheons with which to contend this week and still managed to pull off a great loss! I guess that thing about mental rehearsing really works. Who knew?! ;)

I also thought I would share a few food pics. Since I live alone, I definitely didn’t have the big spread that most people enjoy on Christmas, but I was pretty happy with my holiday meal. I cooked up a couple of small ground turkey breast patties that I seasoned with a bit of salt, pepper, and rosemary. Along with that, I had a baked sweet potato (topped with brown sugar & cinnamon) and some peas with mushrooms & thyme. A little bit later in the afternoon, I had one of my pumpkin pie smoothies for dessert. Here are a couple of pics:

After I finished my meal, I settled in with some knitting for the rest of the day. I still have lots of the Noro Kureopatora yarn in my stash so I decided to whip up a pair of socks that I can wear around the house or with my Birkies. I’m more than half done with the first sock, so they are coming along nicely. The worst part about knitting socks is losing one’s motivation after the first sock is finished, so I’ll have to keep a close eye on myself to make sure I don’t end up with an orphan.

I know it looks like I have some holes in a few places, but I really don’t. There are some pretty nubby parts of the yarn that are a cream color, so that’s what you’re seeing.

I hope everyone had a wonderful holiday with their friends and family. Here’s to a safe, healthy, and happy 2009 for us all!

Not much going on for me today other than work. I’m hoping to get out of here at a reasonable time so I can get in a workout tonight. I was lazy this morning and didn’t get up in time to get one in before leaving for the office.

I also wanted to share a new food find. I went by Trader Joes today on my lunch hour to pick up a few things. I went by the aisle with the protein bars to pick up a few of my beloved Z Bars from Clif. (Yes, I am fully aware they are for kids, but they’re tasty!) While I was there, I noticed a new bar called Nectar Cacao which was also by Clif. Two things immediately caught my eye. 1) The flavor was “Dark Chocolate Walnut”, and 2) it was organic. After checking the nutrition label to be sure it would fit into my food plan, I decided to pick one up to give it a try as my afternoon snack today.

When I got back to my office, I started looking more closely at the label. I was amazed when I noticed it claimed to have 2 servings of fruit. I was thinking, “Ok, how the hell does this have 2 servings of fruit when it’s dark chocolate walnut? I flipped over and looking at the nutrition label more closely and was shocked to find that the primary ingredient is actually organic dates! YAY!! I love dates! You just HAVE to love a product for which the entire ingredient list is organic dates, organic walnuts, organic unsweetened chocolate, organic cocoa, and organic vanilla. Not a single artificial ingredient in the bunch and no high fructose corn syrup!

When snack time rolled around, I opened up the bar. It was a bit smaller than I was expecting (1.6 oz./45g), but still not bad for a light snack I think to myself. I’m not going to kid you, it definitely had more of a date taste than it did a chocolate taste. Fortunately, since I love dates, that was fine by me. I thoroughly enjoyed the bar, and with it’s 6 grams of fiber, it was pretty filling as well.

Here are the overall nutritionals: 160 calories, 6g fat (0g trans fat), 27g carbs, 6g fiber, 18g sugar, and 3g protein. For those on Weight Watchers, that makes it come in at 3 points. Even though it’s a point higher than my Z Bars, it was definitely a nice change of pace and I loved that I got in a couple of fruit servings to boot. All in all, I’d give it 4 out of 5 stars if I were rating it. I definitely want to check out some of the other flavors now, too.

I forgot to mention a few days ago that something odd happened to me on Friday. It’s only happened to me one other time in my life, so it was pretty monumental to me. I got a speeding ticket. So, on Wednesday, July 16, I’ll be heading off to traffic court. Since I’ve never had a single infraction on my driving record since moving to California over 11 years ago, odds are definitely on my side that the judge will let me go to traffic school to avoid having a point go on my license. The lesson learned here for me is to not get so involved in watching the traffic when merging onto the freeway that I forget to watch my speedometer. Oh, yeah, and if I’d stop being such a damned lead foot, it wouldn’t hurt either.

If you happen to live in an area with a Jamba Juice store, you are in luck! Tomorrow (April 8, 200 until 10am, they are giving away their new breakfast yogurt blends. You can walk in and get a free 12 oz. juice. They are made with soymilk, nonfat yogurt, and frozen fruit. They sound pretty damn tasty, too!

There is a strawberry-banana blend called Sunrise Strawberry. The 12 oz. size will set you back 200 calories, 0.5g fat, and provide 3g of fiber. They also have a blueberry-strawberry blend called Bright Eyed & Blueberry. The 12 oz. size for it will set you back 180 calories, 0.5g fat, and will also provide 3g of fiber. For those like me on Weight Watchers, they work out to 3 points each.

I’m planning to cruise by and pick one up on my way to work. I’ll post my thoughts after I’ve tried one. Given how much I like their Jamba Light line, I’m hoping I’ll like these just as much.

For more details, check out the Jamba Juice website.

Until next time …

I received my Silkweaver grab bag that I ordered recently in the mail yesterday. I didn’t get around to really looking at the fabrics until today. I think most of them are fabrics I can definitely put to use. Here’s a photo of what I received:

Today has been a fairly low key day for me. I got together with Darla for a late breakfast. While we were there, she showed the the fabric and fibers she’s selected for the Quaker Turtles from Ellen Chester of With My Needle. I also handed off her copy of the Hannah Beeby 1816 chart to her. We’re both participating in a SAL that starts tomorrow, so we decided to order together to save ourselves a little bit on shipping.

I have managed to get in some time on Dazzle the past couple of days, too. It’s too dark tonight already to try and get a decent photo, so I’ll take one in the morning to post tomorrow. It’s really coming along quite nicely, IMO.

On the weight loss front, I tried a really tasty new cereal yesterday. It’s Fiber One Caramel Delight. For a high fiber cereal, it was amazingly tasty and nothing like a typical cereal from that category. I don’t know how often I’ll actually eat it with milk though. It’s definitely one of those cereals that will be tasty dry as a crunchy snack food. Here are the basic nutritional stats for it:

Serving size: 1 cup
Calories: 180
Total Fat: 3g
Fiber: 9g (Total Carbs: 41g, Sugar: 10g)

Saturday’s WW stats:

Total Points: 31.5
Exercise: 2 miles walking & 35 mins bike riding – 4 APs
Weekly Points balance: 35
Water: 64 oz
Days OP: 20

Until next time …

Ok, I’m a very happy bunny right now! Any of my long time blog readers will know that I’m a big fan of the Clif Organic Z-bars. Yes, I know they’re “intended” for kids, but I think they’re great for adults as a healthy snack. They’re organic, baked, whole grain, trans fat free, have no high fructose corn syrup, have no preservatives, have 12 vitamins and minerals, and (the best part) taste great, in my opinion. What’s not to love about that?

Anyway, I normally buy these bars in bulk at Trader Joes. Buying them in bulk doesn’t save me any money as they still charge me 49 cents each for me, but it does save me making so many trips to Trader Joes. ;)

I recently purchased a box from Amazon (worked out to the same price per bar as TJs) when I was ordering something else so I could qualify for free shipping. As a result of that purchase, I got an email this morning recommending a few other similar products. One of these other products was a variety pack of Z-bars. I was thrilled seeing that they offered the variety pack as I can only buy boxes of a single flavor at TJs. So, I click on the link to check it out. Once I get to the page to read about it, I notice that not only is it a variety pack, but it’s part of their “Subscribe and Save” program. It’s basically an auto-ship plan where you pick the quantity and frequency you want and they just automatically ship it to you and charge your credit card when they do. The best part? When you sign up, you save 15% off the regular price AND get free shipping on every order! Yes, I immediately signed up.

So, I’ll be saving money, I’ll have more of a variety of flavors, and they’ll be shipped right to my door each month. Yes, I’m a very happy bunny right now.

Ok, on to the food journal …

Breakfast:
Coffee – 1
Egg beaters – 1
Bac’n – 2

Lunch:
Veggie quesadilla – 4
BAS w/2% cheese & salsa – 2

Dinner:
Veggie burger – 2
FF Pringles w/salsa – 2
Baby carrots – 0
WW ice cream bar – 2

Snacks:
LC light cheese – 3
Nonfat milk – 4
Cookies – 4

Total: 27
Exercise: 45 mins elliptical – 3 AP
WPA balance: 35
Water: 72 oz