So I LOVE cinnamon rolls....but hate the fact that they are filled with calories, fat, and sugar....so I took the flavors that I love and translated them into my morning cereal.......the results were delicious!

What You Need:
- Bowl of your favorite not-already-flavored cereal (I used my usual All-Bran cereal)
- Skim Milk
- 4-5 Dashes of ground cinnamon (I like plenty in mine)
- 1/4 tsp of vanilla extract
- handful of pecans (optional)

What You Do:
- Add the vanilla to milk
- Add cinnamon to cereal
- Combine Vanilla/milk with cinnamon cereal
- Top with Pecans
- ENJOY!!!!!

This recipe...as you can tell...like most of my recipes....is pretty obvious...however, I really hope these recipes inspire people to create healthier versions of their favorite treats..such as cinnamon rolls....so that you can enjoy the flavors and not the fats! I hope you all are sparked by this!!

So I'm fighting off a case of the summer flu (thanks to the preschoolers at work!), so I decided to make myself some lentil soup. I love lentils for their lack of fat and abundance of fiber and protein (1 serving- .25cup- has only 80 calories with about 10g of fiber and 10g of protein!!!). I added lots of veggies in mine. I really wanted to make it with chicken or veggie stock, but I realized I was all out so this was prepared with water and lots of seasonings.... this recipe is very easy and very flexible.

Servings: 3-4 (about 1.5 cups each)

What You Need:
- 1/2 cup dry lentils
- 4 cups water (this can be altered depending on how thick you want the soup)
- 1/4 cup carrots; chopped
- 1 cup celery; chopped
- 3 garlic cloves, chopped
- 1/2 cup corn
- 1/2 cup peas
- 1/2 yellow onion; sliced
- 2 oz. of any pasta (optional) (I used Japanese noodles for mine)
- salt, paprika, garlic powder, and black pepper to your liking

What You Do:
- Put lentils in water and boil over stove.
- Once water boils, reduce to simmer and add all seasonings and ingredients- except for the pasta
- simmer covered for 40 min, or until the lentils have cooked
- add pasta to the soup and let it simmer until cooked
- Serve and enjoy!!

Tip: to make things more interesting, take sliced bread, wheat or white or any kind of sliced bread will do. take chunks of the dough inside and roll them into little m&m sized balls and serve them with the soup...the flavors of the soup get soaked into the balls and they turn into cute little dumplings!

I hope you will enjoy this recipe, as I certainly am right now.....I actually feel a bit better!!

Pictures will be posted later...but imagining this is not so tricky anyway since all this recipe has issssss

What You Need:
- 2 plums....or any stone fruit, diced
- 1 stalk celery, sliced
- sugar or any sweetener

What You Do:
- Mix, Eat, Repeat!

I do not know if there is actually a fruit salad out there that incorporates celery...but it really is a good combination! The celery really enhances the fruit flavor and is very refreshing. I do not know how exactly I thought of this up......actually, I just remembered.....I was thinking of celery and peanut butter and how it would be good with honey or sugar as well.....then i thought of taking out the peanut butter and how sweetened celery would taste, and thus from there the addition of fruit seemed like a natural choice.

I suggest you try it if you like stone fruit and celery! let me know!

Okay....so for those who read my Luna Bar reviews.....THANKS! and for those who commented...THANK YOU EVEN MORE!......as of late I have to admit, you all know I love my Luna Bars but I switched over to Larabars the past couple of months and still have my drawer FILLED with them.....they are tasty tasty bars (especially Cashew Cookie...highly recommended)..... but I stopped by the store this morning in search for something chocolate and decadent....and I bumped into 6-pack boxes of Clif Zbars that were on special at the end of the aisle. As I bent down to pick up the boxes without spilling my coffee I noticed "chocolate brownie" and "120 calories"......... I expected that of the 120 calories about 80 of it would be fat calories, but I was very surprised to see that there are actually only 25 fat calories (3g total fat/ 1g sat fat). As someone who is trying to live in a low-fat lifestyle I was very satisfied with this.......

........so since the calories and fat content was good.....and also because it was on sale, I picked up a box of chocolate brownie.....

I saw that Fitsugar also wrote in a blog as well about Cilf Zbars and I have to say that it is great that there are no corn syrup like things, no trans fats, and include ingredients that are pronounceable as well as organic....plus there is 30% calcium and other vitamins as well.

As for taste? All I can say is that I am craving for more!! The chocolate flavor is great, very decadent and chocolate-y. Unlike the original Clif Bars with chocolate flavor on it, the Zbars have sort of like a smooshy, creamier quality that regular chocolate has that I really really love. Since I bought them in the morning, I left them in the car while I was at work and the chocolate drizzle melted a bit, but nonetheless the bar was super tasty and it was like eating a fudge brownie with oats mixed right in.......another thing I liked about the bars- you can chew on the rolled oats as the chocolate melts in your mouth.

Since the caloric value is half of that of a regular Clif bar (which I reallyyyyyyy like) yet even more tasty, and the low sat fat content, I will definately be buying more of these bars! They are small enough to just chuck in your purse and to snack on when on the run or just crave something sweet and chocolate-y without feeling too heavy from too much fiber/protein or guilty from the fat content.

I can't wait to try the other flavors!

For those who love brownies as much as I do, you may think that the title of this review is INSANE, but, uh, it's true! Glenny's...the same company that makes those yummy Soy Crisps make 100 Calorie brownies...I don't know how long these bad boys have been around, but I just noticed them and so I bought a few...uh like 5!

Now here are some stats on this lovely treat:

Calories- 100
Total Fat/Sat Fat- 4g/1g
Fiber- 7g
Sugar- 11g
Protein- 4g

Now the size of the brownie is pretty much the size of a typical brownie and the taste is fine. Honestly it isn't as rich as a typical brownie, but it wasn't like cardboard, it wasn't dry, and it did have a real brownie taste. Another good thing about the brownie is if you look at the ingredients there are lots of organic products like organic cocoa, organic soy flour, and such. The only con about this that I see is that it contains eggs, milk, soy, and wheat so for those allergic to such things.

So WHAT does your momma tell you? Well I wish mine certainly told me to eat my vegetables more often when I was little. Growing up in an Armenian household, we ate a lot of meat and little veggies...and we ate more red meat than any other kind...so it is no wonder my family history involves a lot of heart disease and high cholesterol. Luckily for me, I have really revamped my whole lifestyle when it comes to eating this past year. I'm 5'4"..at my heaviest I was 152lbs, I have hypothyroidism too so I feeling super sluggish, and I was a size 12...after making very minor adjustments to my diet...such as cutting out the many servings of apple juice I would have throughout the day....I went down to a size 10, 148lbs...

Back in August of 2006, my parents who were fresh off their trip from Aruba, told my sister and I that they were going to Aruba again next year and that they are going to take us....I do not know why exactly, but this was when I had my eatingstyle epiphany and decided to really get healthy. So not only did I cut the juices, I decided to drink my servings of water, not eat after 7pm, and another important thing...EAT BREAKFAST..which I hardly did before. However the main thing I had to teach myself was to eat more vegetables!!!

I think we can take veggies for granted sometimes....I use to think "they're veggies, eating them will not make much of a difference, it's not going to make me full, it won't make me feel better..I just don't see how this is going to happen." But as much as I kept thinking that to myself, I still forced myself to eat more carrots and broccoli, peas, corn, beans, asparagus, and others and eventually I started to enjoy eating them.....and guess what? I even started to feel full from them and see how they do make me feel a lot better compared to eating meatloaf for dinner.

Of course with plenty of walking/running, I was able to go from 152lbs to 123lbs....it took a long time...about 6 months...but it's worth it because during those long months you train your brain to like healthier foods and to not like the foods you use to eat before, and thus I know I will be more likely to keep this weight off and not gain it back...because I now <3 vegetables!

I especially love to eat steamed veggies...I buy these boxes of frozen veggies from green giant or any other brand from the market and they come in the microwavable pouch that steams in the microwave....i usually have a box of that (there are many varieties..such as Asparagus with no sauce shown below) as my main entree for dinner, and whatever my mom cooked for the night would be my small side....if you like your veggies as a snack I suggest you eat them raw because the crunch factor of food is what we look for in snacks to satisfy us (chips, pretzels, popcorn, candy...mostly crunch!).......for meals I suggest either steamed, grilled, and also raw veggies...any way you like it, just eat it! and eat more of it!!!!!! so do what your momma has told you, or tell yourself...EAT MORE VEGETABLES!!!!

Thank You.

Today I had the Toasted Nuts and Cranberry flavor of the Luna Bar...but was it as good as the perfection know as the Sunrise Luna Bars????.....read and find out!!!

Crunch Factor: 4.5
Flavor Flav: 4.5
Sweetness: 4.5
Residue Factor: 5
Satisfaction Factor: 4

Overall Rating: 4.5/5.0

I was very impressed by this flavor! First off let me say that when I opened the package, I was a bit saddened to see that there was no frosting or coating of any kind; but it was nice to see that there were chunks of cranberry in the bar. The bar was crunchy, surprisingly flavorful, and the sweetness of it was pretty darn good....not too sweet, but sweet enough even with the lack of icing. Residue factor was perfect, there was no strange coating at the back of my throat when I ate this bar, unlike some of the other flavors- I attribute this to the fact that there was no icing on it. Satisfaction factor on this bar was a 4, it would have been a 5 have I not assumed there to be icing on it prior to eating it...

Also another factor I thought was interesting was that the sugar in this bar is similar to the amount in the other bars- around 9g...I assumed that it would be lower considering the lack of icing (I'm sorry I keep bringing the icing up, but i thought it was important!!)...however the good thing about this bar compared to all the others, such as the iced oatmeal raisin and the peanut butter cookie flavors....the fat content is fairly low....with Iced Oatmeal Raisin raking in 2g of Saturated Fat (10% DV)...the Toasted Nuts n Cranberry only has .5g of Sat Fat (3%)...which I really like. I know the Luna Bar people state that some fat is important for women to have, I like to know that at least some of the Luna bar flavors are lower in fat than others.

The flavor of this bar was simple, the cranberries were tasty, and the crunch of the bar and the lack of icing made it seem like I was eating a more adult bar rather than a fancy icing covered treat...and though I love those types of treats, it's nice to get a break from that and have something more simple, yet just as tasty.

ENJOY!

So I have decided to do a little review diary of all the LUNA flavors since I have recently switched over from Kashi to Lunabars...thank you everyone for any suggestions about my whole health bar debacle! The purpose of this blog series is more just to keep my ideas straight about what I like and don't like about certain flavors. Luna seems to have a LOT of different flavors, so it's kind of hard to look at the store shelf and decide which ones you like and want to enjoy, instead of picking a selected few...so Now its time to rate Strawberries and Creme!

Crunch Factor: 4.5
Flavor Flav: 5!
Sweetness: 5
Residue Factor: 4.5
Satisfaction Factor: 5

Overall Rating: 5/5.0
-- So before i go to the ratings breakdown, let me explain to you bout the Sunrise Bars....

Luna Sunrise bars are just like their original Luna bars except they are "especially made for the needs of women in the morning"....as I sit here to compare the sunrise and the original bars, the primary differences I see are:
-Sunrise has a TINY bit less fat
-Originals have more nutrients and vitamins
-Sunrise has 5g total fiber, while originals all average at 3g
-Sunrise has 8g protein while originals have 10gs on average
-Sugars are about the same on both
-Sunrise bars are slightly smaller, though have same caloric value
...so you can compare them and see for yourself that the differences are only slight, with the Originals coming out ahead because you get more bang for your buck with the Originals compared to the Sunrise. However, I must say, that psychologically, the Sunrises are useful because since you see on the wrapper and read that its for women to eat in the morning (though you CAN eat these during the day or night) it sort of puts you in that same good ole mood you get into after you had a good workout, you feel healthy and stable and whatnot.....

okay okay, time for the ratings breakdown...which is relatively simple...I LOVED this flavor! I have to admit that I already tried one of the other Sunrise flavors-Blueberries and Yogurt- and that was really really good, the falvors were that of blueberries and yogurt. Straw&Creme has a fantastic flavor, the dual layers of icing on these badboys make the bar look pretty and taste very sweet, and I reall ylike the addition of oats sprinkled on top of the icings. The bar may be too sweet for some people, as I like my things very sweet, and this bar fit the bill....but I highly recommend that you give it a try because it really satisfied my craving for something sweet and decedent in the morning!

ENJOY!

..oh and I would also like to thank everybody for the comments I have been getting on these reviews! I am glad that people are reading and enjoying this and I really appreciate all the comments and such. If you have any other suggestions for any future "health bar reviews" let me know! I am always looking for new energy/health bars to try out!

Again, hopefully people will like this little series instead of thinking its dorky...but ohhhhhh well. If you have any suggestions for a better review, feel free to message me. ENJOY!