Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Leah is Lazy Product Review: "Healthy" snacks

As part of my ongoing efforts to get healthier, I'm kicking off January with a detox. I've done a detox every year for the past three years, and the idea is to cut out all of the bad stuff and give your body a chance to cleanse and heal. I cut out booze, caffeine, dairy, soy, gluten and processed sugar for anywhere from 21-28 days and usually end up feeling great, having healthier skin, shedding some lbs and having more energy. The problem with it is that on Day 29 I usually go right back to pizza with a side of extra dairy and double gluten, and a pitcher of beer followed by an ice-cream sundae, please. This year, I'm planning on keeping it going for the most part past the 21 days. I will resume drinking on occasion (you know, "Because it's Tuesday! Huzzah!"), but otherwise I'm planning on sticking with the no-gluten, no-dairy, no-caffeine and limited sugar for the long term. BUT!!! Past experience tells me how this will end if I'm all "Will now be food Nazi. No! No! NO!" about it, so in an effort to forego the kneeling prostrate in front of the baked goods case at La Boulange while gently weeping and shoveling cheese danish into my piehole, I've decided to take a different tack on this detox. I'm still avoiding all of the things I should be, but "technically" I'm allowing myself some sweetness in the form of gluten free/vegan/dairy free bar-like items. (OK, I'm cheating. I have to cheat  MYSELF in order to stop myself from derailing my detox and plan for super-fit new me. How messed up is that? Whole other post). Now, I'm not going to detail calories, nutritional value or any of that, because I just care about getting something that tastes better than fruit does and makes me feel less deprived. Here's what my exhaustive research has come up with:

Taste: I hate nuts, but can sometimes stomach them if they're all ground up and you can't really taste them too much (almonds are sort of the only nut this works for, btw. Yes, I hate peanut butter. I know that makes people angry and astonished, but it's true). This was far too nutty for me. Gross. That was all I could taste. Aborted after first bite.
Consistency: Not bad. Like a regular bar.
Overall: Would probably be fine if you like nuts. 2/5

Taste: OMG, this was a brick. Honestly, I thought I'd break a tooth trying to bite into this. Once I did, the raspberry flavor was pretty mild and not bad, but I can only imagine what kind of magical saliva you'd need to have to break this down. Now, perplexingly, the package says "Eat crunchy, or rehydrate", which I at first thought was a mantra for life or something (you know those hippies), but after my initial attempt at biting, I figured it was meant for the bar. Fine! Good to know. Um, except, except, HOW do you rehydrate? Because let me tell you, sitting at your desk and pouring water on the bar results in a pool of water on your desk and nothing much else it seems. I thought the website might be able to enlighten me, but no. Do you soak it in apple juice? Is there a rehydrator I know nothing about? Was I sick for that day of Goddess school when you learned about rehydrating snacks? I don't know, but I do know anything I have to work that hard for is not worth it. Binned after two bites. I guess I'll just go eat an apple. Jesus.
Consistency: SOLID! Solid as a rock. Maybe better once rehydrated, but come on now!
Overall: Big fat fail.0.5/5

Taste: Again with the nuts!! This one had the added difficulty of also having approximately a million toasted sesame seeds which make it taste even nuttier. It lived up to the name with huge chunks of cherry, but again, not too edible for someone who hates nuts.
Consistency: Weird. Sort of sticky. Actually, now that I think about it, it seems like a million sesame seeds held together with honey. The cherry chunks were a nice diversion.
Overall: Once you get past the sticky consistency, not too bad. 3/5 but mainly because I <3 cherries.

Taste: I actually got this one in a gift basket over Christmas, and was pleasantly surprised. It does contain dairy, so no good for my current detox, but the nuts in here were barely detectable, the consistency was good and it was very satisfying. Not too sweet, even with the choclate.
Consistency: Great. Just like a trail mix bar. Substantial size also. Would be good for hiking.
Overall: Will do business again. They have a fig flavored one that's dairy free but not gluten free, so I'd like it if they had one that encompassed both, but can't fault them on taste. 4/5

Taste: TOTALLY like a candy bar. Delicious!!! Now, with 12g of sugar, it really IS a candy bar, but hey, no gluten! no dairy! This was formulated by a guy who used to be a big partier in Miami, but then became all healthy and whatnot and moved to Asheville, NC (of course he did! Not that Asheville's anything but awesome you know. The H/BF and I had a blast there one night on a road trip from SC to TN. Very cute litte town. Just basically like a Berkeley-like enclave in the middle of a very red state). I wouldn't say one of these a day is any better than a Twix a day, but if you want to feel like you're having something that is at least all organic and made with natural ingredients, this would be what I'd pick.
Consistency: Sort of like the crispy bits in a 100 Grand, only more condensed. Solid. Satisfying.
Overall: A++. Def. will do business again. 5/5

So, there you have it people! If I plan on making this eating healthier and working out thing a lifetime commitment, I need to face facts that occasionally I'm still going to want pizza, or La Boulange, or a loaf of bread, or a giant wheel of Brie, or candy or what have you. Taking the baby step to at least search out healthier candy is a start.

Let me know if you guys have come up with any other gluten free and/or dairy free picks that you like!


Friday, January 8, 2010

Moving forward, Looking back


So! That happened. Holidays and gift-giving and traveling, and hosting and eating too much, and drinking too much, and oh, the drinking! Oh, the eating! It seemed like 2009 just evaporated, and in reviewing, I feel like I spent so much of it waiting impatiently for it to be over. Sorry, 2009!! As it turns out, while you may have been a historically shitty year for some people, you didn't treat me half badly.  The first half of the year was spent preparing for and having a wedding:

Awwwwww! I CAN HAZ WEDDING RING NOW?


Then, once we got back from our honeymoon it was already June and, GAWD! can't I just have some time to not be planning a wedding and get back to normal?  The summer was a haze of returning to work, telling people about how being married is the exact same as not being married, baseball games and enjoying the sweet kiss of all the delicious gluten I'd deprived myself of so I wouldn't look like a heifer at the wedding and on the beach. Well, as it turns out, the sweet kiss turned out to be a total date-rape that left me all bloated and pudgy and gross-feeling by mid-September. Why, gluten, why? Anyway, the rest of the year was filled with the standards- work, travel for work, beginning to work out, neglecting my diet (WHAT? I'm working out now!), Mad Men Season 3, complaining about how fast the year was flying by while simultaneously waiting to be over the holidays and on to a New! Year! (pictured in my mind with jazz hands behind at all times), whic you know, would make my life different? Or something?.

So, here we are! January. In the manner of "The Secret" (which, they're making a movie? Jesus), I will now share with you all the things I envision for myself froma  workout standpoint and will make happen this year:
  • I will continue with boot camp until I notice more positive changes
    Sure, there have been changes since I started working out regularly, but the sucky part about changing your entire body is that it takes time for your fat cells to get motivated to get gone. In their defense, they've had a nice long run of it and seem pretty comfortable. Where I had envisioned working out for three months as a Mucinex-level evacuation of any squishy bits, they're instead stubbornly hanging on, and possibly migrating to other areas in the hopes I won't notice.Let me reiterate, I've seen a lot of positive changes since I started working out, but, because it wouldn't be real unless I could complain about it, let me get that out of the way right now.
    Silver lining: thighs have definitely slimmed down a lot and saddlebags be-gone! Yay!
    Way to never miss the grey cloud: my thighs were never my biggest concern
    Light at the end of the tunnel: those squats have most certainly helped a LOT with my butt becoming its own separate entity, and not just a mass that seeped onto my thighs (hmmmm. Could've maybe chosen a better word than "seeped", but sorry, you're stuck with that image now)
    Oncoming train moment: fat from my ass may be stubbornly climbing to settle on heretofore not problematic "love handles"
    Exciting developments: Arms are certainly firming up and my back is showing signs of improvement also.
    Way to complain anyway: Um, the other flabby bits are still there. But getting less flabby.
  • I will continue to work on my push-ups
    Kelly showed me how what I thought was a kick-ass (if assisted by my knees resting comfortably on the floor) push-up was in fact all wrong, so now I'm doing this variation where my hips are low to the ground and my poor little elbows flail wildly while I manage to depress myself about an inch towards the ground and scream in pain. This is the year I make push-ups my bitch.
  • I will be less likely to give in when things are hard or boring or not fun
    Without getting all "Eye of the Tiger" on you, this is one thing working out has really helped me with. The H/BF and I have a running joke that if something is hard you should just quit, but I've mentioned before how I've been amazed by what pushing myself can do. Mental game and blah, blah, blah, feelings of pride, accomplishment etc. Which is a good thing to apply to everything really. Work is boring and not interesting? You know what? That's ok. Do it anyway. Just delve in and keep going and then your day is over and before you know it you've made a dent in your workload and you feel good that you didn't spend 6 of your 8 hours ensuring the Internet is still there. (It is by the way)
  • I will start supplementing boot camp with other exercise
    Sneaky, sneaky exercise! I started off thrilled by making it to class three times a week. And I still am, but gradually all those damn endorphins and the changes you start to see really do start to become something to look forward to. Then, before you know it you're thinking "maybe I should take a yoga class on Tuesday/go for a short run/go for  hike/ride a bicycle" or something similar and that's why exercise is a gateway drug. When will I indulge all of my bad habits if good habits are trying to force their way in? Crap!
  • I will start eating healthier more consistently
    See above re. gateway drug. I'm currently doing a detox (no booze, caffeine, gluten, dairy, sugar) and really want to keep a few of those habits going well past my 21-day finish line. Now, let me also add that if my metabolism gets crazy fast because I'm doing all this good stuff, I will probably enjoy shoveling Milk Duds in my face at an alarming rate again. But that's OK, because if I ever get to that level I DESERVE IT. Let me be.
And just because I can, here's what I hope to get done on a non-workout personal level for 2010:
  • Try to be maybe sorta more tolerant and less easily annoyed and bitingly sarcastic about other people just trying to live thier lives. Even if that life-living includes any of the following: stupidity, mouth-breathing, flip-flops, visors, Ed Hardy, loudness, obnoxiousness or just generally being a douche. (Wow. In rereading that I realize I've just vowed to be nicer to the cast of Jersey Shore.)
  • Be a better friend and correspondent. I'm lucky enough to have a lot of friends, some living far away. My letter/email-writing is woefully infrequent although I think about them all often. I plan to do more of letting them know that. For local friends that means more time, more involvement, more letting them know they're aces also. (That sound you hear is all my nearby friends heaving a collected sigh of "Eeeehhhhmm, what's this more involvement thing?")
  • Hopefully get knocked up. There. I said it. GULP. Boy, it feels weird to think about getting pregnant on purpose when all your life you've been steadfastly devoted to the opposite. But, H/BF is awesome, would be a great Dad, we're all official and stuff, and somewhere between 30 and now my biological clock went from non-existent to powered by Timex and it just WILL NOT STOP. So there. Scary.
More on that later. I've still got those push-ups to conquer, that fat to blast, that eating healthy to start and also this blog to update more regularly.

By the way, this Workout Week in Review consisted of the following:
Boot camp x 3. I win!
Sweat x 1,000,000
Muscle soreness x 3 days of being crippled.

Not a bad start to 2010! Hope the same is true for you!