As Good as Godiva?

Good morning! How is everyone doing today? My legs are no longer tired from earlier in the week; I am so glad I did an elliptical workout yesterday as an easy cross training day. It is about 40 degrees this morning which means I can venture outdoors for a short run before I get busy with my day.

You know how I love Sunday for the coupon section in the newspaper? Well, I think Thursday is right up at the top of the list with coupon Sunday.

Thursday mornings the circulars arrive advertising the local stores’ upcoming sales. I peruse all of the circulars, making a list of the best pricing for products I normally buy.

A good sale excites me. I can’t lie. In fact, last week’s sales were so great that I already went back to one grocery store two times so that I could restock before the sale ended.

Call me crazy. Go ahead. But how much did you pay for your cauliflower? 98 cents a head like me? Or 99 cents a pound for giant granny smith apples? 

See. Now you understand.

Only one problem – my refrigerator is totally not built for healthy eaters, let alone vegetarians or even for “an apple a day keeps the doctor away” followers.

Hmm. Now this is an interesting thought. Did you ever look at how a basic refrigerator is structured? I mean, I don’t have a Sub Zero but from my experience, the more I think about it, refrigerators for the most part give you a basic “crisper” drawer for your produce. As if I could even fit 4 of my big apples in there. Let alone everything else I buy.

I am a vegetarian/clean eater living in a carnivore’s processed food world I tell you. Add this to being a lefty in a right handed world and man, I have some serious problems.

Even my freezer can’t handle all of my frozen bags of vegetables. See that mess? I hate a mess. I have to work on organizing it (or at least eating everything on the bottom shelf today).

If you look closely, you will notice a Chobani bite in the freezer.

I highly recommend that you stick a few of those bite containers on in and try it frozen. Just shove it in there like I did.

Delicious.

We all know my son and I are huge fans of the Chobani bite. Raspberry  with dark chocolate chips to be specific (although we intend to try all of the flavors very shortly).

I recently asked my son if he wanted a Chobani bite in his lunch box (I try to mix it up and not overplay the snacks because then he gets sick of the same thing every day).

His response to the question – “Yes, yes make sure it is in there. The raspberry dark chocolate flavor tastes exactly like my favorite dark chocolate truffle from Godiva only it has got to be less calories and less expensive.”

Either he has a career in marketing, as a food critic or he just hangs out with me too often.

I then decided to freeze the yogurt and see if he would like it that way as a dessert option for after dinner. I used to love to freeze chocolate puddings back in the day so I figured why not give this a try.

His response to eating the yogurt frozen – “OMG this tastes just like the Krackel candy bar.”

Is he one with food analogies or what?

Now, Krackel isn’t raspberry in flavor, but the chocolate pieces throughout the Chobani yogurt does definitely give off that same textured crunch as a Krackel, especially when frozen.

And look at this –  I didn’t even know Godiva had a dark chocolate raspberry ice cream flavor. (290 calories, 16 grams of fat, might I add). 

We all know I am not against the occasional indulgence but on a regular basis, especially as snacks/desserts to have on hand in the house, I would much rather my son eats a frozen greek yogurt (that he is truly thrilled to be eating) than a chocolate bar or ice cream.

If you are looking for a high protein, filling (and no artificial ingredient) snack, I definitely recommend the Chobani bite yogurts – storing some in your refrigerator and some in your freezer.

Besides great nutritional content and tasting great, I like freezing snacks like this because they take longer to eat and trick you into thinking you ate more than you did simply based on how long it takes to finish it.

They say it takes 20 minutes for your brain to even register that you are full.  My little man shovels food in his mouth as if he is part of some eating contest. He is often finished with his meals and snacks so fast that he thinks he is still hungry.

Doesn’t this happen to all of us when we eat too quickly? I always tell him to give his brain a chance to register it is full.

By giving him a snack that forces him to slow down, he is not only quiet for a much longer amount of time but his brain is able to let his stomach know he is full by the time he is finished.

I have a lot of questions today:

Do you have enough room in your refrigerator?

Do you ever snacks that aren’t traditionally meant to be in the freezer?

Are you a fast or slow eater?

And, have you checked out my new page, Slam Book? It is still a work in progress but it is a fun way for you to get to know more about me.

**All thoughts, opinions and direct quotes from my son in this post are our own, Chobani did not compensate us to write this specific review.

Spinning Three Tip Tuesday!

Tuesday is that random day in the week where you aren’t quite close enough to Friday yet you can’t even recall the weekend that just passed. Nothing too exciting about Tuesday until lately…

Enter Spin Tuesday. I just love Ernie, the spin instructor at Lifetime.

It has become my standing appointment where I inform people in my world, “please do not call me, text me or expect me between the hours of 9:45am-10:45am – got it? Thanks”.

Now, before I get to some fabulous tips for today, can we please discuss the new Chobani Bites? I normally eat plan greek yogurt and mix in my own fruit and toppings to avoid what  I feel are pointless added sugars.

If there are going to be pointless sugars, let me be in charge of adding them, right?

HOWEVER –  I used the coupon that I posted on facebook to buy a 4 pack  of the Raspberry with Dark Chocolate for my son figuring it was a new, different and decent snack for school.

I was opening my plain greek yogurt this morning and the raspberries and pieces of chocolate from the Chobani Bite container were calling my name.

I had to open one and taste it. Let me just say, yum. Delicious. You must try it. Now.

100 calories, 8 grams of protein. Chocolate included. Need I say more?

If you have yet to “like” The Cookie ChRUNicles on facebook, do so asap so you can get the coupon link and save yourself some money.

Moving on, it is time for my ever- fabulous tips of the week.  If you have missed the past few Tuesdays, I forgive you. Click here.

This week’s topic and tips revolve around a technique I have learned while studying to receive my certification in Nutrition for Optimal Health, Wellness and Sports.

We all know that people often look to lose weight the quickest and easiest way possible. Choosing a fad diet, crash diet or food elimination diet doesn’t work.  You know this. I know this. Everyone knows this. Yet over and over it seems to be the chosen route rather than just choosing to adapt a healthier lifestyle.

Diets don’t work long term. Balancing healthy choices (with your occasional favorite indulgences) and an active lifestyle does.

But it takes time. Nothing is a quick fix. Expecting a 10, 20 or 30 pound weight loss in a week  is not realistic.

Adjustments, changes and weight loss does not happen overnight. Expecting immediate results will only backfire, especially when you want to maintain any type of weight loss.

How about making small changes. Small changes add up and lead to big (and lasting) results.

How do you do that you wonder? How do you go about making the small changes that will lead to your big results?

START, STOP, KEEP

Each week, sit down and think about your goals using the following 3 steps:

1. Start- think of one thing you can start doing in the week ahead. Foe example, maybe you can eat more fruits and vegetables, drink more water  or start exercising for 30 minutes a few days a week.

2. Stop- now think of one thing you can stop doing in the week ahead. Maybe this means you can cut out a bottle of soda a day, cut out a processed snack or pack your lunch for work instead of eating out.

3. Keep- now think of one positive thing you currently do and keep doing it! Maybe you already exercise, drink your daily cup of Green Tea, eat your daily apple – keep it up!

At the end of each week, re-evaluate. Set new goals for yourself each week using Start, Stop, Keep.

Such a simple yet effective method to start on a path of healthy, easy to adapt changes rather than some crazy low carb-low food-only eat grapefruit or bananas at 3:00 pm diet.

I think we can all do this, even if we aren’t looking to lose weight. It is the perfect opportunity to give thought to our lifestyle and habits.

I need to know:

Have you ever tried a fad diet?

Are there things in your life that you can start, stop and keep doing?

Breaking News

I can see the headline now:

34 year old single mother of one forced to file bankruptcy due to extreme over-expenditure on produce. According to court documents, Child Protective Services is looking into case to determine if all child support funds were spent to support extreme produce and organic foods habit.

If only I could have found a coupon for apples, lettuce, spinach, bananas, squash, potatoes, berries, broccoli, cucumbers, carrots…this all could have been prevented.

Speaking of blueberries, I may have to start rationing. You see, when I spot this large container in my kitchen, I think I can go to town with myself and not portion control the berries as is required when they are in limited supply during their off season.

Just because the stores are stocked again with the big container, doesn’t mean we want to spend $4.99 every 2 days.

Not very cost effective or budget friendly.

So…before I head to this morning’s spin class, I am browsing through this weekend’s coupons that were delivered to my doorstep. And, once again, most of the options are the big brand, empty-calorie, processed foods made with ingredients no one can pronounce.

Is it any wonder the obesity rate is on the rise? Not to mention, is it any wonder the statistics show that a large percentage of America’s obese population are of lower income status? 

Who can afford a healthy diet these days? Let alone piece of fruit? Especially with no coupons? (This can be my argument in court!)

It is not easy to keep your house stocked with healthy options when the weekly sales and coupons are marketed towards the empty-calorie, processed, packaged foods.

And, most people don’t have the time or desire to shop around each week to 5 different stores to seek out the best deal on the items they want to buy. I must admit, can get tiring.

Now, while I can rant on and on about this topic as I seem to do lately on Sunday mornings, there are some easy steps  worth mentioning you CAN take to start saving some money. And, I am happy to get you started on your path to healthier coupons:

First and foremost – Make a list of the brands you typically buy. Then, do a google search using the brand name and throw in “coupon” as part of your keyword search. Several pages of different coupon sites will pop up for you to click your way through.

Go directly to a brand’s website –A majority of brands do offer coupons on their websites, and, on a regular basis.

Below are some of my favorite brands that I am often able to locate coupons for: 

Dr. Praeger’s, Nature’s Path, Applegate Farms, Muir Glen, John McCanns Oatmeal, Country Choice Organic

The following links are for sites I print coupons from on a regular basis:

www.coupons.com –  (Now don’t get all print happy here- a lot of the coupons are not wise choices! Be selective!)

www.mambosprouts.com

www.stonyfield.com

www.target.com – Yes, Target offers some great coupons available on the web only!

You may have to register for some of the sites to receive/print the coupons/offers (but any link I provide must have a minimal registration process because I have zero patience for the whole registering thing).

And, if you are on facebook, “like” The Cookie Chrunicles today for a great coupon link posted this morning for a Chobani Bite 4-Pack!

Listen, this all may seem time consuming – it really isn’t and it is so worth it when you get to the register. Just pick one time a week to sit down and do your searches (and if your time slot happens to be during work hours, please don’t blame me when your boss catches your computer screen displaying yogurts).

Enjoy your Sunday!

I need to know:

 Do you try to stick to a weekly grocery budget?