Review - Weight Watchers Whitman's Pecan Crowns

I was asked to review some new Weight Watchers candy by some of the people with Weight Watchers group.  I was given a choice of peanut butter cups and pecan crowns.  Well for me the choice was simple.  PECAN CROWNS!  I was thinking about Turtles and how much I love those and figured that these might be similar.  Not so much but not bad.

The pecan crowns are slightly larger than a quarter and are individually packaged.  I will tell you that they are not quite as good as Turtles, but they are still pretty darn tasty.  The milk chocolate on the outside is real and creamy.  There are plenty of pecans underneath and the caramel is perfect in firmness in my opinion, not to hard but not to gooey either.  So on to taste.

The chocolate and pecans were perfect and I had no complaints at all.  The caramel was not as sweet as I was expecting.  It had a bit of a coffee finish to it.  More like the caramel you find in Rienens.  So that would be my only complaint and really it is not so much a complaint as much as I was not expecting it.

Overall taste a appearance I give the product an A.  However I will tell you that these at 1 WW point per piece.  That's right a serving is one piece.  That leads us to age old problem when a serving size is not reasonable.  I think 3 pieces would be a more reasonable serving size, but that is my opinion.

So based on taste I say give these bad boys a go, but I urge you to exercise caution as with any thing like this it could be a trigger for you and before you know it your 1 point treat has turned into a 20 point debacle.

Trying to learn lessons

I gained last week and likely gained this week.  I am finding out that the more stress I have the more I eat, which in turn increases my stress regarding my weight.  Ahh the vicious cycle of weight loss. 

So here we are again.  Stressing and eating and eating and stressing.

I hope to be able to make it all clear to you guys here in the next several weeks.

Look for a review of some weight watchers candy in the next day or so.  I will also try to give you guys the attention that you deserve.  Thanks for hangin in there with me.

Weigh in tomorrow - Not gonna be good

OK the birthday week is over and it is a darn good thing.  I think I have probably put on a pound or 2 but I am not to upset about it.  I had a good time and I am moving on.

I think that is the way we have to look at things.  Moving forward, always forward.

My exercise for the week was really pretty good.  I hit the gym twice and managed to ride almost 50 miles on my stationary bike over the course of 4 rides.  One ride I knocked out 20 miles.  It was hard, but I am calling this the beginning of training for the Duathlon.

Tonight I will hit the gym and then tomorrow morning I will get in a 22-15 mile ride in depending on how much time I have.  I am looking forward to this week and making good choices.

So here's to making better choices this week and getting in  some serious exercise.  It is time to kick butt and take names.  Lets get after it!

Pound for Pound Challenge to help feed the hungry

OK you losers I think this is a pretty darn good cause.

I got an email from the people over at General Mills yesterday and was moved to go ahead and endorse this cause. The Biggest Loser and General Mills have teamed up for a pound for pound challenge.

This is how it works. You pledge to lose a certain amount of weight and General Mills will donate 10 cents for every pound you lose to a local food bank. Apparently 10 cent for a food bank will be about a pound of food with the buying power they have.

I have pledged to lose 30 lbs from a starting weight of 306. I have until May 5th to do this. So I am asking you to join me in pledging some weight loss for a couple of months. Feed some people who are hungry and feel great!

Right now people have pledged over 1.5 million pounds of loss. I hope that people can lose the weight and follow through by logging back in at recording their final loss. Even half of that 1.5 million would be awesome. 750,000 pounds of food will help. Any amount will help.

In these times when we may be making fewer donations because of our personal financial situation I think it is great the General Mills is stepping up. So lets make them pay everyone! Lose a pound or 2 or lose 10 or 20 or more. It is time to give back.

To that end I am going to up the ante. I am creating my own pound for pound challenge. I will donate 10 cents for every pound you lose between now and May 5th to Harvesters. Just do the same thing you do with the General Mill promotion. Let me know in the comments that you want to join in, how much you think you can lose, and then I will remind all of you to give me your totals as May 5th draws near. You have till Feb 15th to get your rear in gear and sign up. I will write up a separate post to refer to later with all the details.

So now. Sign up for General Mills Challenge and then sign up for mine. Make us pay.

Binge

Well is turns out the dude above from this movie and I have something in common.  We both love orange tic tacs.

Yesterday for my birthday a friend at work gave me 4 packs of Orange Tic Tacs.  I ate em all!  I have a problem with them.  I cannot stop.  So I binged on tic tacs.  The world is not coming to an end.  But beware.  when you eat 4 packs.  That is 5.5 points for you WW types. 

So beware the orange tic tac and check out that movie I mentioned above.  I laughed me butt off. 

So who love the orange tic tac?  and if you can stop a just a couple, please let me know how you do it.  I am starting to shake and am getting a little be sweaty.  I think I need a fix.

Kick Ass!

No other really no other words.  A few short comings and indulgences but for the most part I stayed on track and did a pretty decent job.  I drank probably 200 ounces of water everyday and got to the gym a bit and look what happened. 

That would be a 5.8 pound loss this last week.

KICK ASS!

As for the challenge.  Will and I are working out detail right now.  We have another challenge we are looking to set up.  We might also look to invite other bloggers to the challenge as well.  There will be an investment in this challenge but it should be fun.  Stay tuned for more information.

Have a great day everyone!  I know I am!

Challenge

Well today is weigh in day and there is an added bonus.  my blogging buddy Will over at 4XLT and I have a friendly wager to see who could lose the most weight last week.  The loser had to go and purchase and wear something from the opposing team on gameday. 

You see MY Missouri tigers will be traveling to Stillwater OK to take on Will's OK St Cowboys on Wednesday the 21st.  Granted neither of us will be at the game but it would do me proud to know that a Cowboy would be wear Tiger garb on gameday.

I am not sure how I did just yet as the weekend was a bit rough, but I am pretty sure I will register a small loss.  So folks I let you know tomorrow the outcome of this little wager.  Hopefully I will not have to buy a hat or shirt, but being a man of honor, if I have to I will.

Getting back on track is so hard.

Once you have fallen completely off the wagon it appears that you cannot flip a switch and get back into the swing of things.  This past two weeks has been full of highs and lows when it comes to living that healthy life that I want.  I eat great for a few days and end up blowing off the weekend.  I make it to the gym one day and then skip the next several.  I am not really beating myself up over this.  I am actually pretty pleased that I was able to make a start and get things going.  I canceled on gym membership for another and workouts begin at the new gym that is closer to home and less expensive.

So I blog this not to beat myself up, but more to record what is happening.  I think this way I can look back at this past month and realize that there are time when you are making the effort but breaking bad habits is difficult.  So I will continue to work on breaking those habits and move forward.

I hope you all had a great weekend.  I know I did!

Product Review - LJS Freshside Grille - Shrimp Scampi

A few weeks back in while in my hiatus I received an email from a very nice woman with a marketing group for Long John Silvers. She asked me if I would like to try out their Freshside Grille menu. Of course not one to turn down something free I accepted. I also told her I would write up a review on my blog about it. So here goes. First ever Confessions of the Guy at WW product review.

Lets Start with the down and dirty details

Shrimp Scampi (8 Pieces)...........110 cal 5 fat 0 fiber
Corn Cobbette (w butter oil).......150 cal 10 fat 3 fiber
Vegetable Medley.........................50 cal 2 fat 3 fiber
Rice...............................................270 cal 4.5 fat 4 fiber
Breadstick ....................................170 cal 3.5fat 1 fiber
TOTALS..............................750 cal 25fat 11 fiber

That's 16 points when calculated as a meal folks. I will leave it to you to decide on how healthy this really is. you have the numbers from the Long John Silvers website in front of you.

Now onto taste and all other things good about food. I would say that for those 750 calories that you are getting a fair amount of food as a whole, but most of it is carb and calorie laden rice. There were only 8 shrimp. They were medium size shrimp at best. If you were to go to the store these would be the ones your buying that have 30 or so shrimp per pound. The vegetables were overcooked, but that will likely very from the time of day and the restaurant. I did not eat the corn or the breadstick, but they looked and smelled just fine. Speaking of smell. There was a definite fish odor. Ideally you would not have a strong fish odor. That said the shrimp tasted pretty good. They did not seem overly salted or buttered. As I mentioned the veggies were overcooked and mushy. The vegetables consisted of green beans, carrots, and yellow squash. The rice was a brown rice that was fine. It did not blow me away nor was I disappointed.

I will say that given that I was reviewing this dish I was considerably more critical than I would normally be of fast food. Normally fast food for me is all about being fast and cheap. Most times it does not taste or look great so take that for what it is worth.

Final review. I would not order this item again. I felt like there were to few shrimp and to much rice used as filler.

Stay tuned for another LJS Freshside grill review next week because after that one I will be send out $10 in LJS gift certificates to one lucky reader.

Facing facts

Here we are.  Just after the first of the year and it has been a difficult several months.  I experienced a weight loss plateau at exactly the wrong time.  Nearing the end of the year I just lost all motivation.  I lost all will power.  And now I am finding that once you have lost it, it is very hard to get back.

So where am I at?  I gained 11 lbs in the course of 1 month and now I am trying to get back on track.  I need to rid the house of most all unhealthy items again.  The will power to say no to those foods is mostly gone.  I need to wake up in the morning and just go to the gym.  However that motivation that I once had is mostly gone.

Most importantly I need to continue on this journey.  I need the swift kick in the ass to tell me to get up off it and start moving again.  On Thanksgiving day I ran a 5k for crying out loud!

So looking back 2008 was a great year, lots of amazing things happened.  However I want to put the weight loss portion of 2008 behind me.  I was proud of what I did but that is in the past now and I have more work to do.  No more will I be complacent and say how I lost all this weight in a year.  I am focusing on 2009 now.

So lets set some goals shall we.

• 5 visits to the gym per week (30 minutes of cardio minimum)
• Today is the last diet coke of January.  No more till February, then only in extreme moderation
• Follow the WW points.  It worked before.
• Drink lots and lots of water.

Now for the good stuff

• By April 1st weigh in at 275
• 1 5k prior to April 1st
• Duathlon April 11th - Long course 3 mile run and 15 mile bike
• July 4th weigh in at 250
• Steadily increase distance and get read for the Half marathon in October.
• Return to the Turkey Trot a new man, Again.

OK I promise not to be so long, in fact I am going to get back to regularly scheduled blogging.  I am sure I have lost a lot of you but those of you who stuck around are going to be treated to an awesome 2009!

Peace
MK