Millville GetBalance Chewy Granola Bar Review

Starting to look a little overcast this morning thanks to Irene, I suppose, of course we're far enough off shore that it's not forecast that we will be effected, thank goodness. We do have friends and family on the coast though and we hope that the storm leaves them safe, with at the most, minimal damage. Prayers are with everyone who will be effected by Irene.

Now about yesterday, breakfast was not a Banana Pudding smoothie. It was a smoothie and there was a little banana in it, but it was more or less a Tropical smoothie with pineapple and shredded coconut which I threw in the grinder along with my oats and ground flax. I don't mind a little texture, but I do like my smoothies as smooth as possible.

 

 

For lunch I had the last of my tomato soup. I also fished an Asiago cheese bagel out of the freezer which I defrosted spread with butter, garlic and Parmesan cheese, then I stuck it under the broiler for a few minutes.

 

The bagel toasted up nicely. I love that Panera's Asiago cheese bagels don't have the hole in the middle. I sort of wish they all came that way.

 

My honey and cinnamon came in a cup of peach mango green tea yesterday. I needed a little pick me up as well. I love that the green tea only has 15mg of caffeine per serving. I've also cut back to 1 tea bag per large cup of tea. It's just a good and my tea goes farther.

Yesterday afternoon we went to Aldi's. One of the things I got was Millville GetBalance Chewy Granola Bars. There were several choices of granola and cereal bars, but I preferred the nutrition and ingredients of this one. I bought the Trail Mix bars, having as you can see, almonds, cranberries, & raisins. With only 130 calories per bar, they make a great snack. They have only 3g of fat and 5g of sugar. To make it even better this little bar also has 4g of fiber and 6g of protein. It's low in sodium and if you're worried about it, no high fructose corn syrup. These are very similar to the Kashi TLC trail mix bars with slightly less calories and sodium and at about 1/2 the price($1.99 for Millville's).

 

 

They are small, but if I remember correctly so were the Kashi bars. Here it is next to a stick of gum. This was my "tied me over 'til dinner" snack. I haven't tried them all, but this one was yummy.

Dinner, I cooked. I know it's hard to believe, but I did. I do cooked, just not as often, now that I'm older and it's just me(eating veggies that is). I made my Sweet & Sour veggies and the veggies looked so good going into the pan I just had to get a shot. Lovely, huh?

 

Not too bad after being cooked either.

The sweet & sour veggies over brown rice. This was an excellent dinner. I really should cook more often. I forget how much better it is.

Well, that was my day in food. I think it went rather well. We didn't get to go for our walk though. Lucas had homework and I'm not brave enough to walk by myself. I did a little Zumba around the house though, but I didn't really sweat like I normally do, a sign that I didn't do enough. How about some comments today? Just say hello, whatever. Happy Friday!!

Cake And Ice Cream

It's dark inside this morning, no sun out to brighten up my living room. Looks like were in for some rain today. I usually don't have to turn on any lights until evening, except in my windowless bathrooms and kitchen. One day I will have windows in every room. I count on the light for taking decent photos. I hate using a flash. Yesterday was a pretty good photo day as far as light goes.

I had a banana pudding smoothie minus the wafers. I added a spoonful of FitNutz peanut butter mix to it. It's peanut powder you mix with water, but I just added it to my smoothie. It tasted different from my normal peanut butter, but not bad different. It just doesn't have all the fat or as much sugar as regular peanut butter. It's also gluten free & low in sodium. I like using it in my smoothie. I can save my regular peanut butter for spreading.

 

 

Lunch was quick yesterday. We'd decided to go to the grocery store and I didn't want to go hungry, so I fix a Veggie Patch veggie dog with vegetarian chili, mustard, & onion. It needed slaw and I had planned to make some, but never got around to it and didn't really have time right then.

 

I got ice cream while we were out, to go with the birthday cake. I tried Aldi's French Vanilla. Let me just say, it's not Breyers, of course I didn't expect it to be. Normally I buy Breyers Vanilla. It's my favorite, but I only buy it when it's on sale. There are a few off brands that come close, but Aldi's is not one of them.

It served the purpose though. The cake needed some moisture. I think cake should always be moist. My favorite cakes are ones that are really moist, like apple cake, tres leches cake, cake with pudding or jello, etc. What's your favorite cake?

 

I was feeling lazy as usual, so for dinner I just heated the rest of my pizza. I haven't really been in the mood lately to fix salad. I'm always in the mood to eat it, but fixing it is a different story, even with the bags of lettuce, you have to cut up carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, etc. The bags with other veggies in them usually only have cabbage & carrots with iceberg lettuce, which is my least favorite lettuce. Maybe I will start cutting up veggies ahead of time, so that all I have to do is mix them together. I will just have to be sure and eat them quickly because, precut veggies don't last as long.

I will see if I can't put today a big salad today. It's Zumba day and I think if I'm going to exercise I should try to eat better. I have too many leftovers and after today they're outa here. Speaking of outa here, that's me as soon as I post this. Happy Thursday!

Relaxing Easter Sunday

This morning I had a simple strawberry smoothie. The house was warm this morning, so it was nice to have a cool creamy smoothie to drink. Smoothies are wonderful if you are in a hurry. They only take minutes to throw together, then you can pour it in a to-go cup or drink it down in a couple of minutes.

What’s in the glass

Diced Fresh Strawberries

Old Fashioned Oats

Dannon Vanilla Yogurt

Milk

Ground Flax

Honey

Ice Cubes

For lunch I had leftover Tilapia, green beans and mashed potatoes.

I had lunch on a small plate. I’m hoping to keep from gaining anymore. With leftovers it will be hard to lose.

I only brought home one piece of the cake for me and I had it later in the afternoon as a snack and that big gob of hot fudge doesn’t help, but I used my share of it too.







I got some shots of the cake today from the side, but my piece doesn’t show the green swirls very well and most of my minty cool whip topping was stuck to the container lid or smashed into the cake.

Being more well behaved, I had a salad for dinner.

What’s in the bowl
Spring mix lettuce
Cucumber
Carrot
Roma Tomato
Bell Pepper
Radishes

I had spicy ranch dressing and imitation bacon bits on top. The ranch we picked up at Aldi’s. We hadn’t tried it before. It was pretty good. I like their light ranch also, but they didn’t have the spicy ranch in a light version. I enjoyed my salad, especially the cucumber. I've really been in the mood for cucumber lately.
If you’ve been keeping up with the blog, you probably know that I’ve been trying out Windows Live Writer. I sent out a test post today. That went pretty well. Tonight I am using it for the entire post, photos and all. So far I am not impressed. I’m not sure I have it figured out yet though, but it’s not going smoothly. I would love to have an online version, so that I could see an actual preview of the post on blogger. As is, I have to post a draft to blogger or publish. Any corrections must be made via blogger. I also found after publishing the test post that the fonts look very large in WLW and very small on the blog. 

Another thing I am not liking are the photo size issues. The photos are made smaller when uploaded, but appear larger on the page before being published. I’m not sure yet what they will look like online. I plan to post a draft before publishing. (Luckily the photos are alright, but I had to re-size them individually before posting the draft.)

I guess improvement will be slow with lots of mistakes. I really wish I had someone, who knew more about blogging, to help a little or give me some tips. I guess I will be doing some online research. Well, I am off to post the draft and tidy up the blog before you see it. This should be interesting. Wish me luck. Let me know what you think. Does the text need to be larger? I don't see well so I always think it needs to be larger.


Now, if all goes well, I am off to do a little yoga and my weights and upper body exercises. I haven't managed to increase the weight yet. I working with 8lbs. I've found names for the exercises, in case you're interested. I've been doing triceps kickbacks, single arm row, lateral raises, and hammer curls. If that doesn't tell you, I suppose you can google them. Maybe later I will post a description and/or photo. Night y'all.

Trying To Eat Healthier

Another day of catch up. I thought this one was going to be a late post as well, but if I hurry I might just be able to relax a little. This morning was not welcome. I did not sleep well at all. Soon after I finally got to sleep, it was time to get up. Surprisingly I have felt pretty good for most of the day. I have been tired, but not stressed or irritable. I fixed myself a trail mix bagel with Omega 3 peanut butter and fruit 'n' fitness snack mix sprinkled on top. I even felt good enough to dress it up a little....my very on little sun. Who says "don't play with your food"?

 

When I'm really tired, I want chocolate. Luckily I had some. 

Cake was very close to lunch, so I had leftover macaroni salad.

 

Lindsay asked me to watch Lexi again today, so that she could take Mary, who hasn't been feeling well, to the doctor. We didn't want to risk another 3 hour visit. Lexi and I enjoyed a nice play date, no pictures, sorry. We were very busy watching Dora, fixing hair, playing ball and bowling with fisher price little people, mowing them down with a 5 lb. weight. I really should have gotten pictures. 

We also had sandwiches. Lexi had a grilled cheese with pickles. I'm working on iron and vitamin C, so I had a grilled egg salad & spinach sandwich. The egg has the more easily absorb-able heme iron, the spinach has the non-heme iron which is not as easily absorbed. Vitamin C or heme iron are needed to improve absorption of non heme iron. Spinach also has vitamin C. It was a very good sandwich.

Later after Lexi went home I had a salad....romaine, red & yellow bell pepper, my last mushroom, broccoli, onion and croutons. I just remembered I meant to throw some carrot in there too, oops. I used Fit & Active Light Caesar from Aldi. I didn't care for it. It was the first Caesar dressing I've eaten that was slightly sweet, not good. I will have to tweak it to eat the rest. 

Last minute additions were ground flax and chopped walnuts. I'm also gettin' my Omega 3's.

Most people don't eat everything they should, I know I don't, but I'm trying.
What ways are you trying to improve your diet? 


Well I'm finished. I managed to get caught up after all. I was really beginning to wonder. The thing that takes the most time is deciding on a title. I always get stuck, eventually I just pick something. Thanks for stoppin' by. I can always use more subscribers. Cya tomorrow.

Groceries From Aldi

I wasn't so enthused when I woke up this morning, but I told myself today would be a good day. I had my usual bagel. I had cream cheese on it this morning. It is getting sort of boring eating the same old thing (bagel, bagel, bagel), so I will try something different tomorrow. 

It was such a lovely day. I went outside and fooled around in the yard. I am just starting to get into the habit of taking my camera with me everywhere, but I didn't think to get any pictures when I was out in the yard. I cleaned off the porch and picked up a little in the yard. My bagel wasn't doing such a good job of keeping me full. It wasn't really time for lunch so, I decide to go in and have a snack. I had the other half of the big apple, that I had yesterday and a little bowl of the banana split snack mix from Fresh Market. 

After my snack I did a few more things around the house. I figured I should decide what to have for lunch, but then (do you have "but then" syndrome), I got to reading a few of the blogs I am interested. Well the next thing I knew, it was 3pm and we were going to Mom's and I had planned to take shower first, so I had to go and take a quick shower, grab a snack and run out the door. I had some sesame sticks and a Little Debbie pumpkin cake. Sorry, no time for pics. I did get a couple of pics at Mom's of the fall leaves and a beautiful shot of the sun coming through the tree top. 

We were suppose to meet DH at Mom's. He hadn't gotten there yet, so Mom fixed us a little decaf and just as the coffee was getting done DH came in. After the cup of coffee we were off again. We had to get a few things at Walmart and then were off to get groceries at Aldi. Woohoo groceries! The bad thing is, I was starving. You just don't go to the grocery store when you are starving, especially when funds are limited. I just don't make logical choices on an empty stomach. Needless to say I will really be regretting it at the end of the week, when all I have is junk to eat. Here are a few highlights of the things I got at Aldi.

Well we jumped in the car, stomachs grrrrowling and headed home. DS, who came along, and I had to sneak us a cream puff on the way. Yummy but frozen. I don't like them thawed, but not frozen solid either. 

My mind was spinning trying to figure out what I was going to have for supper. I had all kinds of great stuff, but was having trouble deciding what would be first. I finally decided, it should be something quick, since I was so hungry. Salad was the quickest, easiest thing. I had a great big salad of butter lettuce, mushrooms, red onion, cucumber, carrot, and broccoli with a sprinkle of mozzarella cheese, ground flax, walnuts, and a little Italian dressing. It hit the spot, exactly. After that I had just enough room for the last little mini cupcake (no cuppy cake pic) . 

It really was a good day!