Pure Lyft Review

I got the chance to sample Pure Lyft Energy Sticks.  I stuck it in my purse and ended up testing it out while I was waiting for Kaylee at swim practice.  It gave me just enough of a pick me up.  

I have been trying to cut back on soda and MiO and this was perfect.  The energy is an all natural green coffee bean extract.  It has vitamins A and B, and no calories.  It has just as much caffeine as a tall cup of coffee.  You just put the stick in your drink and let it sit for atleast 20 seconds.  I stuck it in my water bottle and just left it there.

I love this stuff.  I will definitely be buying more of these.

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Vega Sport Preformance Protein #FuelYourBetter

Since I am a SweatPink Ambassador I occasionally get the opportunity to review products.  I love product reviewing!  Honestly I haven't recieved a product to test and review that I haven't loved.

The review opportunity this time came from Vega Sport.  I could pick from the many Vega Sport products.  I chose the Recovery Protein.  Have you ever felt this way?

I know I do from time to time.  The theme of this campaign was #FuelYourBetter.  I drank it after each of my workouts.  {I normally have a snack at 10 after the gym} 

I definitely noticed that I wasn't as sore for the 12 days that I drank it.  It honestly helped me so I could hit the gym the next day, and the next day, and the next day.....

What is Vega Sport Performance Protein?  Well, it's a plant-based {vegan} protein powder.  It has 5,500 mg of BCAAs {Branched-chain amino acids} and 5,000 mg of glutamine {another amino acid} per serving. 

Vega Sport Performance was created to:

• Improve strength and exercise performance
• Repair and build muscles
• Reduce recovery time between training

Vega Sport Performance Protein is great because it only has 0.2 grams of fat per serving.  Perfect for people like me with fat issues.  

For more information on Vega Sport Recovery Protein and all the other Vega Sport products click HERE

Protein + Caffeine = Road Trip Bliss

Hey guys!  Sorry it's been so long since I've posted.  Life has been crazy recently.  Sunny's birthday, Easter, studying, training, cheer competitions....it's been full steam ahead with no option of stopping.  

I love protein powder.  It's so versatile and it's great for someone like me who doesn't necessarily get their daily protein needs in.  Ken likes it mixed in with his morning coffee.  It's his breakfast, and it makes a good creamer.  

When we went to Kissimmee for Mantha's cheer competition last month I didn't know if the room had a coffee pot.  {I know it sounds crazy to think that the room had a full kitchen and no coffee pot.}  Luckily, I had recieved a free sample of Nature's Best JAVAPRO Caramel.  It's made by the same company that makes IsoPure.  

JavaPro = Coffee + Protein

Each serving of JAVAPRO contains:

• 20 grams of high quality whey protein complex: a combo of whey protein isolate, whey protein concentrate and whey protein hydrolysate
• 80 milligrams of caffeine
• Only 110 calories (compare that to your local barista's mocha!)
• 1.5 grams of fat and 2 grams of carbs
• Amazing, full-bodied real coffee in every serving.

It was delicious!  It actually tasted like a caramel iced coffee.  It makes you feel like you're drinking a Dunkin' Donuts, or Starbucks iced latte early in the morning.  It feels so sinful but it isn't.  I actually mixed it with milk instead of water.  {I just personally think protein powder tastes better that way}

It comes in 6 different flavors (Espresso, French Vanilla, Latte, Caramel, Mocha, Hazelnut) and is sold at GNC, Vitamin Shoppe and a few online retailers.  

For more info on JAVAPRO or any of Nature's Best's products click the link below:

Nature's Best Website

What's your favorite protein powder?

Veggie Power!

Disclosure:  Smoothie King provided me with a $25 gift card to review their smoothie.  The opinions are mine.

I was really excited when I heard about Smoothie King's new Veggie Power line of Smoothies.  A yummy way to eat them without actually feeling like you're eating them.  It is also a great way to sneak vegetables into your kid's diet.  

Smoothie King has come up with 3 different flavors.

Apple Kale Kiwi -- Deliciously defending your immune system with tangy Vitamin C and free-radical fighting antioxidants.

Berry Carrot Dream -- Powerfully packed Vitamin A for strong eyes and skin, plus heart-healthy fiber for a lean digestive system.

Carrot Kale Crush -- A mighty serving of veggies, plus our Slim and Trim Vanilla Protein Blend for a strong body with fearless immunity. 

All 3 flavors have 280 calories in a small and 0 grams of fat!  One of these make a perfect lunch!  

Since Ken and the girls were all off today I decided it was a good day for smoothies.  I ordered the Apple Kale Kiwi.  It was delicious!  Sweet from the apple with a hint of tart from the kiwi.  If I hadn't been told that there was kale in it I honestly wouldn't have known.  Ken was actually surprised at how good it was.  Both Sunny and Mo agreed that it was delicious.  I think I will be headed back to Smoothie King soon to try the other 2 flavors.  

My New Toy

Ever look at a dog and think "you don't look like a (insert name here)"?  Well, that's kinda what happened with Astro.  We just couldn't get in the groove of calling him by the name he was given (even though I really actually liked it).  So, after debating on it for over a day Ken suggested the name Buddie.  For some reason the name fit.  So, that's the story of how Astro became Buddie.

Buddie is a chewer.  The first day we brought him home he managed to chew up an MP3 player cord and Ken's computer cord (oops!).  In order to keep my house from being destroyed we rope him off in the master bathroom area when we leave.

Tuesday I realized my gym workouts were going to have to stop until Buddie gets a little older and can be left home for longer periods of time.  Because Ken doesn't want to hear me complain about not getting my workout loves me, he bought me this.....

A 100 POUND BARBELL SET!  You will never guess how much this cost.  I was shocked by the price.  $40!  It's was a steal.  You can get it here but, it was $10 cheaper in the store.  

It's a nice starter set.  There are 2 25 lb weights, 2 15 lb weights and 2 10 pound weights.  I would recommend it if you want a simple set.  The bar isn't TOO sturdy {it's actually 2 pieces you bolt together} so I wouldn't recommend adding too much extra weight to it.

I'm super excited because I managed to beat my personal best deadlift weight.  I deadlifted 50 pounds.  I know it's not alot but normally at the gym I only do 40 pounds.  

Here are a few moves to get you started

Arms
Standing Row
Bent over Row
Curls
Bench Press
Shoulder Press

Legs
Squat
Hack Squat
Lunge
Deadlift
Bulgarian Split Squat
Straight Leg Deadlift

I will post a formal workout soon for y'all.

My Favorite Christmas Gift -- A review

Due to me being sick I never told y'all about Christmas.  I honestly recieved most of my Christmas list.  

One of the best gifts I got was from my parents.  It's a Polar FT4 Heart Rate Moniter watch.  I love it!  And it's PINK!  

I was a bit hesitent about the chest strap at first though.  I wasn't certain it wasn't going to be annoying.  To be honest, I didn't want one.  After you put it on you actually forget you are wearing it.  

I have used it every time I've worked out.  This is a great starter heart rate moniter.  When you have your chest strap on it tells you your heart rate, calories burned, the length of time you are in your heart rate "zone", and the length of time you've been working out.  

Using my moniter actually motivates me to workout longer and harder.  I love watching the calories rack up.  Normally I'm bored at the gym after about 20 minutes and I have to fight with myself to stay another 10.  The last time I went to the gym I did 45 minutes and only left because I had errands to run.  

My only wish is that the watch had a few more features.  The type of feautures you'd find on a typical watch, stopwatch, alarm, that type of thing.  But overall, I am very pleased.  

Polar has recently released their mobile tracker app, Polar Beat, for the Samsung Galaxy S4.  It allows you to track all your data, plan out how many calories you want to burn, analyze your workout, and even share your stats via Facebook and Twitter {do you follow me on Facebook and Twitter??  You should!  Check below for the links to both pages}.  You need one of their Bluetooth enabled chest straps though.  I think that one will definately be on my birthday list.  

But, I would highly reccommend the Polar FT4.  I give it 2 thumbs up and 5 stars.




Links

Polar FT4
Fat Free Queen Facebook
Fat Free Queen Twitter

Dunkin Donuts Blogger Event

I was invited to attend Dunkin Donuts menu tasting.  I was really excited because I had been invited to previous Dunkin events and I couldn't make them.  I brought along my taste testers because I wanted to be able to know what everything tasted like and let y'all know what's good.  

Dunkin Donuts recently brought out the Spicy Smoked Sausage breakfast sandwich.  All 3 of the girls and Ken enjoyed it.  This was actually surprising because Kaylee isn't a huge fan of things that are spicy.

Yey coffee!  The one thing I could try!  And try I did.  They have 4 flavors for the holiday season.  There's Red Velvet, White Chocolate, Peppermint Mocha and Eggnog.  The eggnog is ONLY available in select markets, such as Jacksonville - Palm Coast.  Lucky me!  Ken really enjoyed the Eggnog latte.  I was a fan of all of them.  I honestly don't think I've found a Dunkin flavor I HAVEN'T liked!

Next up, the donuts.  There are 3 holiday donuts.  The Red Velvet Drizzle {that Sunny is showing you} is a red velvet cake donut drizzled with cream cheese frosting.  The red  one {I forgot the name, oops!} is a yeast ring donut frosted with a cherry glaze.  And lastly the Holiday Star {that Kaylee is holding up} is a yeast star shaped donut frosted with green icing and filled with a Bavarian Kreme.

They were loved by all of my taste testers.  Ken liked the fact that the "red one" had a nice light cherry flavor.  It wasn't too overpowering.

It kind of upset me that I couldn't try any of the donuts.  I love donuts.  But, in typical Fat Free Queen style I came home and started baking.  I really wanted to give y'all a filled yeast donut but, I tried 4 different recipes and used 99% of my flour and nothing would work.  I guess yeast donuts are not meant to be fat free.  So instead, I bring you an AH-MAZING chocolate buttermilk cake donut hole.  I used my cake pop pan to make them but, you can also use a donut maker, a donut pan or a mini muffin pan.   I'm giving you the whole recipe but honestly, I only made a half batch.  At 25 calories each I wish I had made a full batch!

Chocolate Buttermilk Donut Holes
Adapted from Ina Garten's Beatty's Chocolate Cake Recipe

Servings: 108
Calories: 25.6
Fat:  0.1 g

Carbs: 6 g
Sugar: 3.9 g
Protein: 0.6 g

Ingredients
1.75 cup flour
1 T cornstarch
2 cups sugar
.75 cup cocoa powder
2 t baking soda
1 t baking powder
1 cup skim milk mixed with 2 tsp white vinegar
.5 cup fat free sour cream (you can also use Greek yogurt)
egg substitute to 2 eggs (or 2 egg whites
1 t vanilla extract
1 cup coffee

Directions

1. Preheat oven to 350 and spray your pan
2. Whisk together flour, cornstarch, sugar, cocoa, baking soda, and baking powder
3. In a separate bowl mix together milk, sour cream, egg substitute, vanilla and coffee
4. Mix wet ingredients into dry
5. Put 1 T into your cake pop pan and bake for 15 minutes until they are done.

Do you like coffee?  Do you enjoy seasonal flavors?  What's your favorite seasonal flavor?

Update 12/18/2013:  I found the notes I took at the event.  

• Did you know there is no non-dairy option at Dunkin Donuts?  
• The Red Velvet and Eggnog, Pumpkin Mocha and Red Velvet flavors will only be around until the end of December.  They will be bringing out a completely new flavor in January {I'm so excited!}
• The glazed donuts have less fat then the raised ones.  The cake soaks up less fat than the yeast.

I'm BACK!

My crazy weeks are done and I can focus again on y'all!  Honestly, nothing exciting has happened over the past few weeks.  This post might be a bit long due to the fact that I have a ton of recipes to share. 

Let's start with the Superbowl.  I never have enough friends to have a party but I love the idea of Superbowl party food.  So, I did a themed dinner that night.  It was delicious.  I did Spinach artichoke dip, homemade tortilla chips, cauliflower buffalo bites, and portabello pizzas.  The recipes for the dip and the buffalo bites are located below the picture. 

SkinnyTaste: Buffalo Cauliflower
SkinnyTaste: Spinach and Artichoke Dip

Oh and I did some angel food cake cupcakes with team colored sugar on top.

Next up, the Korean New Year, Seollal.  I made Bibimbap and chamchi-jeon (Korean tuna cakes)  except I did them with crab because I was in a crabby mood.  I didn't get a picture of any of it.  It was actually gone too quick. 

ZenKimchi Chamchi-Jeon

Oh and I just have to show you this!  My father and mother in law sent this to Sunny last week. 

 
Her own hanbok!  Isn't she simply adorable???  

Fast forward a few days to Valentine's Day.  To Ken and I this day has become just a day for the kids.  And it's honestly all about the candy.  We exchange cards and he will buy my flowers but, it's nothing major.  This year I gave him a bag of Snickers with a reason why I love him for every piece in it.  He gave me a bag of Valentine's Day 3 Musketeers.  I think I've talked about 3 Musketeers before.  Each piece has under 1 gram of fat so, I can still have chocolate without causing myself pain. This year he bought me a bag of Strawberry Dark Chocolate ones.  They are amazing.  I have dubbed them the "poor man's Russel Stover" because they taste so close to the high end strawberry cream chocolates.   I eat one a night.  I would highly recommend them.  7 pieces has 6 grams of fat and 180 calories.  That means 1 has 0.86 grams of fat and 25.8 calories.  Not too bad right?  Healthiest candy I've found so far.

Florida kills me sometimes.  The other morning I woke up and it was 34 degrees outside.  34!!  I decided it was the type of day that called for chili.  Well, by 2 pm it was around 65 degrees.  Definitely not typical chili weather.  But, despite that, I still made it.  I was amazed at how it turned out.  It was really good awesome!  I took a few big risks with some of the ingredients.  Kaylee and Mantha aren't normally fond of sweet potatoes (that's why there's only 1/2 of one in the recipe).  If I had been making it for me I would have added a whole one.  The soy crumbles aren't normally liked by non-vegetarians.  But, even Ken raved about it.  Note about the Crumbles.  If you are seriously on a no-fat diet then you need to buy the BOCA soy crumbles.  They are the only ones that have 0g of fat.  I picked up a different brand and didn't pay attention so that is why there is extra fat in the recipe 

Veggie Overload Chili
Serves 10 calories 136 fat 1.09 grams fiber 6 grams protein 12.2 grams

Ingredients
1 large onion, chopped
2 cloves garlic, minced
1 tsp ground cumin
1/2 tsp dried oregano
1/4 cup chili powder
1/8 tsp ground cinnamon
2 bay leaves
12 oz Ground Crumbles Meatless (1 bag)
2 Tbsp tomato paste
1 Tbsp cocoa powder
12 oz dark beer
.25 sweet potato, cubed
1 cup corn (fresh, frozen or canned)
16 oz mushrooms, quartered
42 oz Diced Tomatoes 
16 oz tomato sauce 

Directions

1. Saute onions, sweet potato and garlic until golden.
2. Add in the spices and cook for another 2 minutes
3. Stir in tomato paste and meatless crumbles
4. Next put in chocolate, beer,tomato sauce and tomatoes bring to a boil then reduced and simmer for 30 minutes
5. After 30 minutes add the corn, and mushrooms.
6.  Bring back to a boil and simmer for another 15 minutes

 I have a post in the works about regaining motivation.  I kist my motivation a few weeks ago while I wasn't blogging (hmmmm, I wonder if there's a connection?  I hadn't thought of it before now)  I bought myself a new pair of pants for the gym in order to get myself pumped.  

I bought them at Target for $20.  They are made by Champion and they are AH-MA-ZING.  When I worked out in my other capris I kept having to adjust them every 10 minutes.  The only time I had to adjust these was when I got out of the car and when I accidentally pushed them up.  I have one problem with them though.  They are made of 84% polyester and 16% spandex.  I'm very paranoid about them getting snagged.  

That's my February in a very big nutshell.  How has your month been?

Scrumdiddlyumptious Bar (A Product Review)

Scrumdiddlyumptious....great word isn't it??  That's the best word I can find for the Krusteaz Raspberry Bars I made yesterday.  These were a total surprise.  I love surprises.  Unexpected surprises are the greatest.  But food surprises are the best of the greatest. 

When you're on a special diet food surprises don't come very often.  And 99% of the time they don't come in boxed form.  Most boxed baking mixes say they have 0 grams of fat but then they call for melted butter or oil or something else that's a dietary deal-breaker.  Finding a TRUELY fat free packaged baking mix that I can add fat free substitutes to is truely next to impossible.  

That's one reason I love Krusteaz.  They have alot of 100% fat-free baking mixes.  Brownies, muffins, pancake mixes, and more.  They also have a few that can be altered to be fat free and still taste 100% delicious.   Take these raspberry bars....

I was looking for a healthy(ish) dessert for the grils last nite and found the box of raspberry bars.  I looked at the nutritionals and was surprised that they only had 150 calories per bar.  (Mine have less because I cut mine into 16 squares instead of the 12 that the box tells you to do.)  Then I noticed that the mix was fat free.  I looked at the ingredients and it called for melted butter.  : (   As we know, melted butter can be replaced with applesauce.  I just happened to have a jar of applesauce in my pantry so, I used it.  I substituted the applesauce equally to the butter, and followed the directions on the box.  They came out delicious!  

Mine definitely weren't as pretty as the ones on the box but, I have a motto, "it doesn't matter if it's pretty, as long as it tastes good!"  These received 2 thumbs up from the whole house.  

So, if you're looking for a yummy fat free box mix, turn to Krusteaz.  Their mixes would be great for holiday parties if you don't want to make something from scratch! 

**If anyone from Krusteaz is reading this:  If you need a tester for your fat-free line, my family and I are 150% willing to take on the job. **