Good afternoon, blog friends! 😎 I’m blogging from the Café Gato Rojo in Harvard Yard once again. It’s such the perfect place to blog– cozy setting, ample space, dim lighting, good tunes (right now Amy Winehouse is playing), and cheap coffee and cookies! 😀
The Café Gato Rojo is totally student-run, so I try to purchase something each time I blog here. Today, I ordered a small cup of decaf coffee with soy milk and cinnamon. The soy milk + cinnamon added a tiny amount of sweetness to my coffee, which was exactly what I wanted.
Lunch
This morning’s toast + fruit did not hold me over until lunchtime like my oats + nut butter usually do, so I ended up breaking into my lunch around 11:30. I was insanely hungry by 11:00– I’m surprised I even waited another 30 minutes!
For lunch, I had a big homemade salad with all sorts of veggies– some raw, some oven-roasted. In the mix: arugula, red and green peppers, summer squash, grape tomatoes, broccoli, zucchini, and cucumbers.
Last night, I tossed the red peppers, summer squash, and zucchini in olive oil, balsamic vinegar, salt, and pepper, and roasted them for 15-20 minutes in the oven on 375*F. Roasted veggies just add a little something extra to a boring homemade salad.
After my salad, I tried a new bar: Think Thin Creamy Peanut Butter.
Our natural high protein thinkThinTM bars are draped in rich delicious chocolate and delivers 20g of protein. Rated one of the top protein bars in the natural industry, thinkThin is the ONLY naturally sugar-free, high protein bar for an active lifestyle. Our thinkThin bars also appeal to consumers with special dietary needs because they are gluten free, have 0g of sugar and offer diabetics an alternative healthy protein snack.
Gluten Free
20g Protein
0g Sugar
No Cholesterol
Fortified with 18 Essential
Vitamins & Minerals
No Transfat
Excellent Taste
My review: I had high expectations for this bar– I mean, the wrapper said “creamy peanut butter,” so I was expecting sweet, smooth peanut butter inside. Sadly, the peanut butter “filling” was dry, artificial-tasting, and just sort of weird. The outside chocolate coating tasted pretty good– it was basically the only redeeming quality of this bar. If the bar hadn’t been coated in chocolate, I probably would have thrown it out.
I’m actually sort of disappointed that my Think Thin experience didn’t turn out better. Their bar packaging and flavors make you think that they would be full of flavor and exciting. 😐 Oh well. I guess there’s a reason why I hadn’t heard of these bars until now.
Afternoon Snack
As afternoon snack, I have a baggie with Food Should Taste Good chips (carbs), pecans (protein and healthy fats), and an Adora disk (calcium and Vitamin D).
I’m trying to make more of an effort in “balancing” my afternoon snacks. A lot of the time, I will only eat a piece of fruit in the afternoon, and typically, it does nothing for my hunger– usually I am hungry again not even an hour later. Combining carbs + protein+ a little healthy fat should hopefully do the trick! I also think that the sweet + savory aspect of this snack will help satisfy my “afternoon” cravings.
What are your favorite “keep-you-satisfied” snacks?