A Smaller Target

Product Alert: Power Crunch Sale!

Weight: 195.2

When I went to All Star Heath to order a couple months worth of my favorite calcium, I noticed that the Cinnamon Roll flavor of Power Crunch bars is currently on sale. And I do mean sale as the price for a box of twelve is currently $4.50.

This price is due to them having a sell by date of 7/24 -- but as I keep mine in the freezer anyway, that's fine by me. They're pretty yummy.

(By the way, I like buying with All-Star Health because their shipping charge is only $5.95 however much you order. Good deal!)

Product Review: Dove Sugar Free Chocolates

Paul and I have been to see two movies in the past couple of weeks.  The first, The Prestige, we saw in Westwood Villiage.  The film was great -- it's a nice, tight little picture with a good script and wonderful performances.  If you miss it in the theaters -- because I don't think it will have a long run, catch it on DVD. 

Even better though, when we went to Rite Aid before the show so we could get drinks, I found some new sugar free chocolates.  Candy is a big favorite food of mind, but post-op it gives me rather nasty gas (not a good idea for a movie theater).  Worse still, if I eat sugar I crave sugar which sometimes (often?) starts me on a bad eating jag.  Sadly, for the most part, sugar free candy is terrible -- with either a terrible taste, weird mouth feel or both.

What we (did Paul see them first or did I, not sure) found were a new sugar free chocolates made by Dove.  The come in three varieties: chocolate, raspberry and mint.  I chose the mint creams because I'd been jonesing after some mint melt-a-ways I'd seen earlier at the grocery store.  They were great -- dark chocolate shell covering a minty chocolate center.  There was nothing about the taste or texture that gave away that these were any sort of sugar free product.  In fact, I think they're better then chocolates from a drug store usually are.  But best of all, I was able to slowly eat three during the film and not feel a compulsion to eat the entire package.

My one gripe, if I  have one, is that I could do with them being a little less sweet.  But then I tend to like my chocolate to be in the 70%+ cocoa variety.

UPDATE: I've since tried them all.  The chocolate and mint are favorites, the raspberry is too sweet tasting for me.  But then I'm not a big fan of fruit and chocolate.

Product Review: Mrs. May's Pumpkin Crunch

Weight: back to not knowing since I'm not going to the doctor's today (I miss my scale!)

So last week I was going to buy some latte at the local boba (no, I don't do boba -- post-op it's sounded sort of scary for some reason) and saw little packets of something called Almond Crunch made by Mrs. Mays.  It looked okay, but the carb / protein ratio didn't do it for me and so I put it back.  Then I picked up some other bag labeled "pumpkin crunch."  The 9g of protein versus 8g of carb (and one of those carbs is from fiber so doesn't count) looked lots better.  So I bought a bag. 

Can I just say that this stuff is really really good?  A bit sweet, a bit salty with a nice little crunch.  The pieces are small, but you get to have 7 as a serving and the packages each have about 2 servings in them.  It's not peanut brittle (and for my RnY friends, there is "cane juice" (read: SUGAR) listed in the ingredients, but for me anyway this is a definite snack for the times when I want something sweet.  And because it's sweetened with "cane juice" there isn't that artifical sweetner aftertaste.  Bonus?  Pumpkin seeds are apparently very high in iron. 

And here are the numbers:

Serving size: 7 pcs
Amount Per Serving
Calories	164
Calories from Fat	98
Amount Per Serving and/or % Daily Value*
Total Fat	11g (17%)
Saturated Fat	2g (10%)
Cholesterol	0mg (0%)
Sodium	41mg (2%)
Total Carbohydrate	8g (3%)
Dietary Fiber	1g (4%)
Sugars	4g
Protein	9g
Amount Per Serving and/or % Daily Value*
Vitamin A	0%
Vitamin C	0%
Calcium	2%
Iron	25%
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2,000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower based on your calorie needs.

Product Review: Hope For the Sloppy

(I know I know... all this quiet then two in one day.  I'm either blogging or not I guess.)

I have a favorite skirt that's brightly embroidered white linen.*  I love wearing it, however I know as soon as I put it on, the odds of coffee being spilled by me or someone else and landing on my clothes are about 100%. 

Today was no exception -- and it wasn't even me that spilled the coffee but some goon at Coffee Bean who was too busy trying to hit on the high school girls there to notice he was slopping on me until it was too late.  I'd resigned myself to a day with a 3 inch long by one inch wide coffee stain down my front when help arrived. 

Seems our office has these little towelettes called Portable Shout Wipes.  They're like the little wipes that you get with messy food except that they're apparently for stain treatment.  I'd seen commercials for them but didn't believe it would really work.  Let me just say they do.  It's not perfect, but after a few minutes use, my coffee stain has faded so much that really only I can see it. 

This product could change my life.  Really.

---

*Note: Please keep in mind I live in Santa Monica and work in Los Angeles.  It's freaking 85 degrees today here.  Southern California definitely doesn't follow tradition fashion rules about fall clothing and Labor Day. 

Product Review: Jay Robb Strawberry Whey Protein Powder

Weight: 182.8 (slowly coming down... we'll see if I can make my 170 goal by the end of August).

Well, this was disappointing!

The other night Paul and I were at our local Wild Oats buying a few essentials and I noticed they had Jay Robb protein on sale.  Not a huge sale mind, but about two dollars off the regular price.  Now as I wrote here, I love Jay Robb's Vanilla Whey.  But it's normally more than twice the price of my faithful friend, IDS Cinnamon Vanilla so I don't have it very often.  So when I saw the sale I was pleased.

Problem?  They were already out of vanilla.  So, given that I normally use Jay Robb with frozen fruit blended in, I bought a pound container of the strawberry.  Since then I've tried with blended strawberries, raspberries and just plain.  My verdict is in and it's that the strawberry isn't very good.  It still bends nice and smooth like the vanilla, but the strawberry flavoring gives it a weird synthetic, almost perfume-y taste.  Ick. 

It's not the worst protein I've tried -- definitely drinkable in a pinch -- but given how much I like the vanilla, very disappointing.

In other news....

I've finally gotten around to reading some other blogs this week.  So many milestones, including Kim and Sharon's one year post-op anniversaries.  Both have always been beautiful, but wow, smoking hot babes now!  And in my off-line time, I sadly missed Bronwen's news of her surgery.  I'm glad it went well and that your loss is off to a great start (and I'll change that link when I update my typelists). 

I can't explain completely why I'm blogging less.  Part of it is certainly that there have been a lot of losses lately and that I'm working more and (importantly) am busy enough at work that blogging from there isn't an option.  Another part is that I'm way less focused on my weight loss surgery / recovery just now.  And in the back of my mind is the fact ::waving:: that my grandmother's party made it clear to me that (thanks to my mom) a lot of my extended family read this blog.  I'm not sorry about that, but it sounds weird to say, it's hard to imagine them reading some of this stuff... I feel kind of boring most of the time.

Anyway...

Vendor Review: All Star Health

Weight: 185.8 (down from a horrifying high of 191)

I'm back on the low (well, let's say lower given how high they must have been) carb thing.  While I did manage to use Fitday most days, I haven't yet made it back to the gym -- though the weather's been so nice I've been on some good walks. 

I found a new vendor (well, new to me) called All Star Health with a $5 flat delivery rate and good prices on stuff, especially the Twin Labs Chewable calcium citrate that I like so much.   They're located close to me (in Orange county) so I get stuff the day after it ships, though it also means I have to pay sales tax.  At first I was just ordering the calcium from them (they charge $7.25 for a jar of 60 as opposed to the $15 I was paying at Wild Oats), but then I realized they carried some of the other stuff I use a lot of.

So what did I buy this month?  4 jars of 60 calcium citrate wafers (that's about a one month supply) for a total of $29.00,  5 pounds of IDS Cinnamon Vanilla protein powder for $40.  This is not as good as Bariatric Eating -- they charge $33), however when I took out the shipping costs (as I was going to be ordering the calcium anyway) it was still cheaper to go with All Star.   And a box of Strive Chocolate PB crunch bars for $18 (best price I'd seen them for).  The total with shipping and sales tax was $97.  Not too shabby.

I wish they carried the Jay Robb protein and I feel a little disloyal to Bariatric Eating, but I have to save when I can.  So long as I'm going to be ordering my calcium from All Star, I might as well make use of that flat rate shipping thing.

Thought for the day?  When this canister is gone, I will have gone through 40 pounds of protein powder (mostly IDS and Jay Robb) in the last 18 months!

Product Review: Jay Robb Vanilla Whey Protein Powder

Weight: 203.4

As I mentioned in this post when we were in England, I brought a new protein powder with me.  This was not because I was having any problems with my faithful Vanilla Cinnamon from IDS.  Instead it was because I needed something more packable.  The Jay Robb came with a recommendation from a trainer at my gym and it was sold in a packable one pound container at Wild Oats. 

Despite the trainer's recommendation, I wasn't hoping for good things.  From what I've heard and experienced, most off the shelf protein tastes pretty bad.  Plus, it's sweetened with stevia, a natural sweetener I'd had no experience with. Still, I figured, I could drink it for a couple of weeks while I was away.  I'm far enough from my surgery that I'm not super sensitive to taste and smells anymore. 

So, that said, this protein was such a pleasant surprise.  It's easily the best vanilla protein I've tried, hands down.  This includes my beloved IDS btw.  Jay Robb's is very fresh smelling and tasting with no protein smell or aftertaste.  My first few drinks with it were blended with frozen berries (which it does beautifully in a blender).   Blended with soy milk and 1/4 cup of frozen fruit it makes a wonderfully thick, spoon-able smoothie that tastes rather like raspberry sherbet to me.   It was also pretty good blended with unsweetened cocoa powder.

Yesterday was my acid test.  I blended the Jay Robb with 6 ounces of soy milk and 2 ice cubes.  Even without any doctoring, it still tasted great. 

The numbers are pretty great.  One scoop of Jay Robb has:

• 113 calories
• 0.5 grams of fat
• 3.5 grams of carbohydrate
• 24 grams of protein

My two cautions are, first that I don't think it's nearly as good blended with cold coffee as the IDS.  The trainer I spoke to said that stevia has a slight licorice taste and that he thinks that it may conflict with the bitter taste of coffee.  That may be it, but for whatever reason, this isn't a good vanilla to mix into coffee, in my opinion.   Second, it does blend pretty thick.  Blended IDS has the consistency of milk.  Jay Robb has the consistency of ice cream, especially when mixed with frozen berries and / or ice.  That makes the Robb protein more filling, so it may not be as good for very recent post-ops.

The final downside?  Like most of the better tasting protein powders, it isn't cheap.  It sells for about $19 for a one pound container. 

One of the reasons I'm writing this review has ended up being the fact it's sweetened with stevia rather than either aspartame (Equal) or sucralose (Splenda).  Neither one has ever been a problem for me, but I've read a number of places that both sweeteners can cause some people to get headaches and have other immune system reactions. 

So there ya go!

 

Product Review: Strive Protein Bars

I've said lots of good things about Power Crunch bars and they still are very tasty and have great numbers.  However, I've gotten kind of tired of them, plus they aren't all that filling and sometimes I want something more satisfying.  I do like the Rockin Roll bar, but it isn't easy to find them. 

Strive protein bars are sold at the bookstore at UCLA (which has an amazingly large assortment of protein bars, including Power Crunch, btw).  They've got pretty good numbers:

• Calories 200
• Fat 9g
• Carbs 24 (claims that "net carbs" is 4g)
• Protein 20g

And some flavors taste pretty good.   I like the Banana Split and the Peanut Butter Crunch.  Dark Chocolate Raspberry is pretty good too.  The Berry Crunch however is beyond terrible.  So nasty I didn't even finish 1/2 of the bar and I was HUNGRY.   All are covered with chocolate (or something like it) and have protein nuggets that are kind of like rice crispies that keep them from having that protein bar loaf of goo mouth feel.

Now when I say these taste good, I mean that for what they are, an on-the-go protein source, they aren't bad tasting and can totally work when I have the munchies.  But these don't taste like candy and never do anymore than protein drinks, even the best of them, could ever be mistaken for something from In 'N' Out.  That isn't to say they aren't good for what they are.  But when I read sites where someone describes a protein bar or drink as tasting like candy, all I can imagine is that the author has been away from the real thing for too long to be able to taste the difference anymore. 

This tendency is one of my few gripes with Bariatric Eating and VitaLady's sites.  They're great and do wonderful work, but I think they raise the expectations of recent post-ops way too high with copy that suggests that any sugar free protein product is going to taste exactly like a dessert.  Especially if you either still eat or remember how real sugar tastes.  But you know what?  I don't think we should expect a quality protein product to taste just like candy or dessert.  That's not its function, you know?  If it tastes good enough that I can get it down and find it mildly enjoyable, that should be enough, in my opinion.

So anyway, Strive protein bars.  A pretty good on-the-go protein product.  But not a candy bar. 

Product Review: AdvantEdge Protein Drink

Weight: 242

Last month when I went to support group at USC Hospital, one of the members had brought in all his premixed protein drinks (he wasn't using them anymore) to give away.  Naturally, even though I have some powder of my own, I took some -- two mocha and two chocolate. 

The good? The drink box style is very quick and portable.  It's got good numbers, 110 calories, 3 g of carbs and 15 grams of protein.  And chocolate or coffee a great flavor options for me. It's wonderful to have protein in the 'fridge that I can just grab and go with.  The small opening is perfect for a straw which makes them great for drinking on the bus.  But....

The bad?  They don't taste great.  And I can't freeze them and make them colder, though they definitely taste like they would be improved by being colder.  I could pour them over ice, but that sort of defeats the purpose of having something I can grab and go with.  The price isn't great either, though I've been told I can watch around and get some sale sorts of prices.  Still, the difference in cost between prepared drinks like these and a tub or protein powder is huge. 

The ugly?  The texture is slimey.  Really, it just feels bad and leaves my mouth feeling coated with what I assume is protein goo. 

So would I buy it?  I'm not sure.  Maybe if I were traveling and needed something portable.  But I'd like to try a few other brands.  And find something that was less... well, slimey.

Old Faithful: IDS Cinnamon Vanilla

Weight: 254.4 (it keeps going down! Yay!)

I've tried a lot of different protein powders in the last month.  But I keep coming back to IDS Cinnamon Vanilla.  The others:

• UNJURY - waaay too sweet and smells funny
• Matrix - very bland
• Nectar - truly terrible in every way
• Protein Delight - not bad... but not as good
• Elite - bland -- I couldn't even taste the chocolate!
• Isopure - zero carb ready to drink smelled funky (this according to everyone in the car with me when I opend it.
• Atkin's in a can - ick.  Again with the smell.

I like all the flavors of IDS I've tried -- the Belgian Chocolate is great, as is the Banana and Cappuccino.  In fact, I think the chocolate is my favorite in and of itself.  But, given that I'd just gone through my entire supply (3 huge containers, one of chocolate, one of vanilla and one of banana, plus several sample packs) why did I order 2 more containers just of the vanilla?

Because I've found it to be the most flexible.  One heaping tsp of cocoa and I've got chocolate.  An ounce of sugar free raspberry and I have raspberry.  And if I make it with coffee or even with a tsp of freeze dried instant expresso, I have a protein latte.  It also mixes well with fruit for a more smoothy kind of drink.

I can make them with a shaker and I have a couple of them, but I usually use my blender.  I put the powder in first, then my soymilk (or coffee if I'm using it) and whatever flavorings I'm adding.  Sometimes I also blend in my calcium and some fruit.  I blend it for about 20 seconds.  Sometimes if I want something thicker I add a couple of ice cubes and blend some more.  Others I just pour it over ice.

I know there are a lot of people who believe that we don't need to suppliement and who get their protein from food alone.  At six months out I have no idea how I'd get enough most days without the 30 gram boost my morning protein shake gives me.  Plus, I've never been a breakfast person and this is a total grab and go meal.  I can make it in about 2 minutes and drink it in the car on the way to work. 

Bars are okay, but I only like a few of them and they're a lot more expensive on a daily basis then a shake.  Plus you get way more carbs and calories and way less protein from most of them.

If you feel a need for a shake but the only ones you've tried have been terrible, I really encourage you to order a sample pack from somewhere like Bariatric Eating (no, they don't give me a discount -- I just like them).  The difference in taste between different brands is huge.