What I Ate Wednesday #128: MealEnders Review & Giveaway

Lordy, how is it already Wednesday? Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining that we’re already halfway to the weekend! Today is a long one for me; I’ll be opening Athleta at 9 a.m. and closing the gym at 9 p.m. But at least I have an hour break in between, right? Silver lining, my friend. And a silver lining for you is another giveaway today! Lets get to it, shall we?

[Pre-Workout]

Super power bites save the day! You should really make them if you haven’t yet.

[Breakfast]

Standard oatmeal, nut butters, and iced coffee. It totally gets me through my workouts 😉

[Snack Time]

I was in serious need of a snack at work and luckily I never leave home without a bar. A caramel nut blast Balance Bar held me over until I got home. Unfortunately, I had to go to the store before I could have lunch so I threw some yogurt, chocolate peanut butter protein powder, and peanuts into a bowl. Deeelish!

[Lunch]

FINALLY lunch time! We’re still going through the pork and it made another awesome salad!

[Afternoon Snack]

I got some awesome strawberries from the store so I grabbed a couple of those to snack on and followed it up with a MealEnders Lozenge. Taken directly from their website..

MealEnders Signaling Lozenges are a weight management product designed to help people avoid overeating and master portion control by clearing cravings from the mouth and mind. Each Signaling Lozenge consists of two flavorful layers, each playing a strategic role in weight loss. The sweet, outer coating provides a measured dose of “dessert”, habitually associated with the end of a meal. Avoiding the “no dessert” mindset prevents a sense of deprivation, which can thwart even the most earnest weight loss efforts. The tingling/cooling inner layer engages the trigeminal nerve, clears the palate and creates a 20-minute eating pause, enabling the brain to recognize the body’s natural transition from hungry to full. By the time the MealEnders experience is finished, the body’s natural signaling process of satiation has begun. With repeated use, users accept MealEnders’ sensations as a cue to stop eating, resulting in sustainable and healthy eating habits.

Sound interesting? When I first was presented the opportunity to review them, I was a bit skeptical. That said, I’m a big fan of the post-meal mint because I feel like it helps curb my sweet tooth, so why not give them a shot? First things first, the flavors are delicious! If I’m craving chocolate, I’ll reach for a Chocolate Mint or Mocha. The Mocha and Citrus are definitely my favorites, though. Once you get through the initial sweet layer, the extra tingly lozenge inside acts as my mint. I’ve definitely noticed that these little guys have helped to curb my sweet tooth after meals!

Want to give them a try for yourself? Click here to enter my giveaway!

Don’t worry if your name isn’t chosen. MealEnders wants to put an end to overeating and believes the more people its 15-calorie signaling lozenges can help, the better! So for two weeks, all “runners up” for the giveaway will be able to buy MealEnders at 30% off. Just enter coupon code WINNER-TOO at checkout. To place your order and learn more about the product, visit www.mealenders.com.

Giveaway Update:
Due to popular demand, the Chocolate Mint flavor is currently on back order. Because MealEnders wants to be sure to deliver the products as promised, the giveaway prize will be set to go out around mid-April when Chocolate Mint is back in stock.

[Dinner]

Buffalo chicken is always a favorite in this house, so crunchy buffalo chicken is even better! And then adding roasted potatoes and brussels? We were quite happy.

[Evening Snack]
Apple + dark chocolate covered salted cashews = happy tummy.

Food for Thought

What tricks do you use to curb your sweet tooth?

What I Ate Wednesday #127: The Calm Before the Storm

Have you entered my giveaways? Enter my Peanut Butter & Co. giveaway here and my Manitoba Harvest Hemp Hearts giveaway here!

Yesterday was our last day of eating in before Nathan’s mom gets into town and we start all over again! I can’t complain, really. It is nice to have another few days off of cooking. Remind me I said that when I can’t wait for a home-cooked meal again! I’ve been killing it in the kitchen this week, though. Those restaurants will have a lot to compete with 😉

[Pre-Workout]

I’ve rationed these babies out pretty darn well! Once I sliced them up, I put them in the freezer and they’re the perfect size for a little pre-workout snack.

[Breakfast]

It really doesn’t get any better in my eyes. And I’m finally back to having a minimum of 2 jars of homemade nut butters. That’s clutch.

[Lunch]

Monday night I made 4 lbs worth of Vietnamese grilled pork butt. Most of the time when I’m cooking dinner, I’ll make enough for about 4 servings so we can have it for dinner and then lunches/leftover dinner. This pork, however, is one of Nathan’s favorite things that I make so now, I’m always making huge batches of it for all kinds of leftovers! Another item to go in the freezer for future snackage.

This salad was special though. I had to figure out a way to carefully scarf it down after getting 2 fillings. The entire right side of my face was still numb so I definitely considered eating to be a rather difficult [and messy] skill at the time. Ha!

[Afternoon Snack]

Like I said, these super power bites aren’t going to last long in this house! I only grabbed one [this time] and supplemented the rest of my snack with some roasted russets and sweet potatoes that I cooked up early for dinner.

[Dinner]

I’m 3 for 3 with dinners this week! I’m always excited when Nathan takes a couple of bites and says “add this one to the list!” The chicken souvlaki was light and flavorful and if you ask me, brussels and sweet potatoes are the best sides of all time. Am I right?

And the brussels deserved their own picture. You bet your butt I snacked on those before and after dinner. None made it out alive.. that’s pretty normal over here though.

[Evening Snack]
The daily apple. Nuf said.

Food for Thought

Do you make lots of extra servings with dinner to have leftovers throughout the week?

What I Ate Wednesday #99: Happy Food

Quick note to all nut butter addicts: there’s another recall due to the potential Salmonella contamination of the glass and plastic jars. Check out the list of all of the nut butters being recalled.

Good news! I woke up yesterday and my ankle was less swollen and felt pretty darn good! I even made it to the gym for a light workout before spending hours on my feet at work again. Which lead to Nathan’s reaction of “eeeeeshhh that does not look good” when he got home. [Mom, stop yelling at me.] So we’re back to raising and icing. BUT! I’m off of work on Thursday [because psh! Who wants to work on their birthday?!] so that’ll really give me some good rest time in.

In the meantime, my taste buds were pretty darn pleased yesterday. Even though I do have an oatmeal obsession. Though I guess that’s a pretty healthy obsession, yes? Good.

[Breakfast]

Toppings these days include: macadamia butter with cashews, coconut cashew peanut butter, and protein almond butter. Word to the wise: regular almond butter is better. Every time I try something new with a nut butter, I remember I’m really a purist and much prefer the roasted nut with a little salt. Maybe one day I’ll remember.

[Lunch]

I must really love Nathan to have given him the rest of the lettuce! I ended up having a lettuce-less salad with all of the rest of the veggies in the fridge and a smokey Peruvian chicken thigh. It was pretty awesome and, of course, the brussels were the star of the show.

[Afternoon Snack]

Yea.. recylced picture from yesterday’s post, but I was too excited to dig into my peanut butter mug cake to snap a picture. Whoops!

[Dinner]

Nathan’s been begging me to make my Vietnamese pork bowl again for a while. I did it a little differently this time though, by using a jarred char siu sauce to marinate the pork instead of the regular marinade. It was darn tasty but it was agreed that the regular marinade is the way to go. I also took some very serious advice from Laura and Lindsay on how to help my ankle get better and poured myself a glass of wine 😉

Evening Snack

Plums have been so crazy good lately. Actually, fruit in general has been pretty spectacular but we just picked up some awesome plums from the farmers market on Saturday and we’ve really been enjoying them!

Food for Thought

What’s the best meal/recipe you make?

Winning Weather

Hi friends, happy Monday! I hope you had a great weekend. We were out and about quite a bit and we had great weather for it!

Friday night we went out for some brewskies [maybe some truffle parmesan fries] and an awesome yakitori dinner at Ippuku. The place was so unique; we had our own little table with a bamboo shade. The other, larger tables were more traditional and you have to take your shoes off to sit there.

Our own little nook.

I plan on recapping the meal on Wednesday but we definitely plan on going back again to try more.

On Saturday, we went to Tender Greens for lunch. It was awesome!

Roasted Monterey Squid Salad

I love getting seafood when we go out because I rarely cook it at home and this squid was cooked perfectly. Nice and tender, not at all chewy. I also got a side of roasted veggies. Another place we need to hit up again! After lunch we made our way over to The Trappist for Spontanfest. We can’t pass up a good beer event 😉

Yesterday was extra fun; we went to our first baseball game of the season! The weather couldn’t have been better and it was so great to spend hours in the sunshine.

Not a bad view!

This isn’t so bad either 😉

It was a good game. We saw 3 home runs and an A’s win. Jim Johnson also closed the game for the A’s so it was nice to have a touch of home [he was an Orioles closer for years if you didn’t know.] I also brought a nice big salad for lunch and I’m so glad I did. The food options there were pretty.. not great. And we only shared 1 beer because holy crap they were $11! You live and learn.. and pregame in the parking lot before the next game. Ha!

After a fun weekend, it was nice to come home and have a delicious, light dinner.

Baked turkey meatballs are a fave in our house.

Weekly Meal Plan

Sunday – Baked turkey meatballs over spiralized zucchini and carrot noodles
Monday – Vietnamese pork bowl
Tuesday – Cajun chicken with plantain “rice” and beans
Wednesday – Leftovers
Thursday – Roast duck sausage with roasted brussels and smashed potatoes
Friday – Out!
Saturday – Leftovers

If you’re looking for any help creating a meal plan, shoot me an email!

Food for Thought

What did you do over the weekend?