Tag Archives: diet

The Things I Want To Teach Her

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Apparently I’m having a baby. I mean, I know I’m having a baby but you know sometimes it just sort of occurs to you like you maybe hadn’t really really realized it before? That comes in waves for me, this understanding that in a couple months I will be a mother of two. That I’ll be caring for an infant, recovering from a birth, and that MM will no longer be an only child. I’m still scared shitless that this is all a huge mistake – that MM won’t want to be a big brother, that I’ll be losing my first baby for this second one whom I know nothing about except that she definitely has a future has a soccer player if she’s interested.

They say a woman becomes a mother when she gets pregnant – that the maternal instinct is just there. I didn’t feel that way with my first pregnancy and I largely still don’t feel that way about my second. It wasn’t until that moment, holding him for the first time, that I really got it – that I felt that love and it was real. After that it held strong and fierce, surprising me with it’s strength, as I’m sure my love for BB will be. But right now, in this moment, I am just a pregnant mother of one. So it’s weird to think about my life in the not so distant future where I will be a mother of two – I’ll have a son and a daughter.

I wonder how raising a daughter will be different than raising a son. Raising MM has felt largely natural to me – I’ve grown accustomed to his man bits and his all boy personality (though terribly sweet) and I can’t imagine anything else even though anything else is coming soon. I think about the lessons I will have to teach my little daughter as she grows up – the lessons I learned and the ones I wish I’d learned sooner. They are different from the lessons I’ll want to teach MM because, well, boys and girls are different and they have different things they each need to learn. Not like math and science and English, but life.

*

Things like, “Date less. Spend more time on non-romantic endeavors. Don’t stress out so much about, “Could this guy be the one?”" Because honestly when he is the one – you know – he does treat you right, there are no games, and while it’s not simple, it’s not rocket science either. There’s no need to search under every rock and stone – if it doesn’t feel right, it probably isn’t. At least, that’s the conclusion I’ve come to after a long, tedious search for love. There’s a quote from Juno about love that I really really… love:

“Look, in my opinion, the best thing you can do is find a person who loves you for exactly what you are. Good mood, bad mood, ugly, pretty, handsome, what have you, the right person is still going to think the sun shines out your ass. That’s the kind of person that’s worth sticking with.”

-Mac McGuff from Juno

I remember talking to a friend of mine in college, who was already married. I asked him if he thought the boy I was dating would be The One (because married people are experts on these things) and what he said upset me at the time, but it was true. He said he didn’t think that guy was the one (he so wasn’t) because if I had to ask, then I hadn’t figured it out yet – that when you find the one, there is no more questioning. It’s “The End” but not in like a sad, depressing way, so much as, you just know. The dating scene is over, you won. That’s not the kind of thing that you can understand though if you haven’t experienced it. It causes me so much grief to see friends going through the scene – sticking with guys that don’t treat them well, under the premise that they could be the one, and what if this is meant to be, and “I think I might love him.” Because man I’ve been there. And looking at it from the other side of the game, if I could have just skipped way more than half of those failed relationships and done something else while I waited to meet Dan – I totally would have.

Things like sex. Lessons like, “Don’t give yourself away to make someone love you.” (Which if you’d told me I was doing that I’d have laughed and said, “I’m not that stupid.” But I did. And I was.) They say sex complicates things but that’s like a gross understatement. Once you get those three little letters involved in a relationship, everything gets harder. You become invested – your emotions for that person become tangled in that act that you shared, even if you didn’t intend for them to. And as a mom, I can’t help but add that having sex, no matter the precautions you take, is like saying, “I accept that a baby could result from this.” Because they do – whether you planned it or not – pregnancy happens. AIDS happens and that’s awful but pregnancy – man that’s huge. That’s life. If that guy that knocks you up doesn’t turn out to be the one, you still end up stuck with him forever – even if he isn’t physically present, the reminders are there. And when they are physically present – is that a good thing or a bad thing? It’s important. It happens.

And I mean, babies are wonderful – being a parent has been oh so rewarding. But it’s also hard – and it’s something that changes you forever. Your life is never just your own after that – you are responsible for the well being of another human and you will love them to an impossible degree, thinking about their needs and wants and happiness constantly, often more than you think of your own. It’s expensive and time consuming and all encompassing and there are no take backs. So sex is pretty huge – and it’s a pretty special thing – it’s like the biggest thing you can give someone – there’s nothing bigger than that kind of a commitment of yourself. Use it wisely.

And ohhhh body image. I don’t even know what lessons I will have to give on body image, lord knows I haven’t figured it all out. I know that society has crazy hard expectations about beauty and that you can become obsessed with perfection that isn’t real. That whole BMI thing – putting people in a little box of “should be” with no regard for their individual differences. People are not the same. They have different bodies, different diet needs, different things that work and don’t work. But they are all beautiful. Everyone is beautiful.

The important thing for me, that took me way too long to figure out – is more science than soul. It’s about what you eat, how much you eat, and what you are eating for. Activity level and why it’s important. That whole idea that the food you eat is not placed before you solely to please your palate (although it’s nice when it does). Food is the fuel your body needs to keep going – too little food or too much food leads to unhealthy outcomes. Calorie counting has helped me tremendously with this – the idea of turning it into math – this is what my body needs, this is what I am feeding it. It’s helped me so much during this pregnancy and I am so proud. And yeah I still over indulge sometimes – sometimes you need that treat – but that’s okay because calorie counting always works the next day or week when you are ready to get back on again.

Exercise is something else that I never really got until recently. Which is not to say that I’m good at it now – but that I kind of get why I should do it and how it helps. For me it’s as simple as, “Exercising more helps to make up for your indulgences. Exercise more and you can choose to eat more – or to lose more weight.” And also important is that the end goal should be realistic – it should be healthy – it should be, “I feel like I’m wearing my own skin again – I have energy to spare and I am happy.”

And no matter how much weight you lose, how short you cut your hair, what color you dye it, what clothes you wear – you will find that it will still and always be you under there. You can’t escape that – you’ll always be there. So you’d be better to learn to love you than spending a lot of time trying to change things that cannot be changed. I can’t tell you how often I’ve gone for a new hair cut or color and been so disappointed that it was still me – just me with different hair, a different outfit. Still me. I think I spent my entire teen years trying to erase myself only to wake up one day and desperately want just me back. And realizing that was one of the coolest, healthiest things I’ve ever done.

*

I don’t imagine that I’ll be able to just explain these things to her and that she’ll accept them – I know you have to learn those things on your own, but I hope that if she’s at least heard these things out loud that when she has the opportunity to get it, that she will and she’ll remember and it won’t feel so strange as it did for me, kind of figuring it out on my own. I never had that actual mother figure growing up. I had a strong web of women in my life, aunts and grandmothers and a string of step mothers, but it’s different. There are boundaries and there’s a lack of time. For the most part it was just me and my dad – who did an amazing job raising a sensible, smart girl (in my humble opinion) but you know you can’t answer every question even if you try – they might not hear you until they hear it for themselves.

I won’t be able to teach MM and BB everything – Even if I tell them verbatim all the things I’ve listed here, they still may not get it. And there will be things I’ll miss, that will seem so much more critically important to them because they will be their life lessons to learn – the things which will make all the difference. There will be things I get right and things I get wrong – things they get right and things they get wrong. And that’s fine. But if I could hand pick a couple lessons to pass on to Baby Blueberry and any other girls who haven’t figured this stuff out yet – those things up there would be the things I’d want to start with.

Then I’d put on some ultimate girl rock – an ego boost in a song – because girl power, that idea that YOU ARE AWESOME and deserving of the BEST – it’s not egotistical – most people no matter how confident they seem are not confident at least not all the time. People need an ego boost – a reminder that they rock. Because we forget. So after I spent hours or days or awkward minutes trying to express those things above to my little girl, I’d probably put on this song and be like, “This will explain everything.” And then she’d be like, “Mom you are so lame.” But seriously.

“Now That You Got It”
by Gwen Stefani

Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?

Now that I’m your baby the things you promised me now I want
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?
All the stars I was reachin’ for you had in the palm of your hand
& if for just once I would let the
padlock on the door be open
Well, dammit, just get on over here
This better be the best thing I ever felt
My days, they better be sunny
It better be nothing but all that I want

[CHORUS]
Now that I’m your baby, the things you promised me now I want
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
If I’m really your baby then share with me your secrets & all
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?

I’m the raddest queen of them all
I could have anyone, so what I want?
Perfect, get it right, never wrong
So you gonna step it up? Or you gonna be gone
Not like the rest (not this), nothing is typical (ain’t nothing is typical)
This is not a test (no test), this is a for sure (it’s all gotta be for sure)

[CHORUS]
Now that I’m your baby, the things you promised me now I want
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
If I’m really your baby then share with me your secrets & all
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?

(Yo Gwen whatcha make ‘em do?)
Well, I’d train him like a marine corps
Boot, camp, make him like a superhero (yes ma’am)
That always better be his response
Or I don’t give a dog a bone
Attention! Show me your skeletons, let’s not play games
We can be closer than sharing last names (gimme my award)
The award is a purple heart, it could be yours
If you earn that medal, yeah you could be my boy

[CHORUS]
If I’m really your baby then share with me your secrets & all
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?
If I’m really your baby then share with me your secrets & all
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?

Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it? What you gonna do about it?
Now that you got it, what you gonna do about it?
What you gonna do about it? What you gonna do about it?

How about you?

  • What lessons do you hope to pass onto your children?
  • What have been the life defining ah-ha moments of realization in your life?
  • What is your ultimate Girl Power anthem (or Guy Power for any male readers)?

Taking The Good With The Bad

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Babycenter.com has a great article up called 25 Good Things About Bad Times – the silver linings to be found in this bad economy are there if you look for them. We’ve certainly had to lately. While I’ve had plenty of stress to deal with lately, money worries and a world just waiting to change on me at every turn, the good things have been plenty and should not be forgotten. Some things I am thankful for in this bad economy:

  • Quality Time - While it would be nice to have Dan working, earning money and life returning to normal, it has also been very nice having him home, spending more time with him and both of us spending more, quality time with MM. We’ve gone to the park and playground more, taken more pictures, played more as a family (blowing bubbles, tickle fests), played more board games and video games together and talked more about more things than we would be able to otherwise.
  • Having An Extra Helping Hand - Being all six months pregnant or something absurd like that, it’s been nice having Dan home to help out. He’s been able to help with dinners, cleaning and even just chasing the boy around. I’ve been able to sleep in by almost an hour every morning, which I can hardly feel guilty about when we have nowhere to be and um, I’m six months pregnant.
  • Getting In Shape - Lately we’ve been finding extra ways to fill our day, new things to do to kill an hour or two. Our favorite thing to do is probably take long walks. We walk for at least a mile and a half almost every day, sometimes more. Dan’s also been jogging (something I have no interest in joining him with right now). He’s lost over 50 pounds since October and well you all know I’ve been able to maintain my pre-pregnancy weight. But we’ve been able to kick our lifestyle into high gear by really focusing on the exercise part of our “diets” where we weren’t before.
  • Eating Better - You’d think that by cutting back on our grocery bill everywhere we can, that our diets would be suffering, but that’s really not true. We’ve been making more meals from scratch and enjoying every minute of it. Can’t afford to buy cereal? Let’s make pancakes – oh darn, right? When we ran out of bisquick, we started making them honest to goodness from scratch and found we loved it! We learned how to make homemade meatballs and may never go back to those frozen meatballs again. We’ve also loved seeing how much we can cut down our grocery bill without it killing us. And seeing what indulgences are really important to us at the end of the day, and which ones aren’t. Our grocery bill will never be the same again.

I’m sure there are more things – I know there are – but honestly, rather than sitting here talking about it – I’m going to get up and go live it and get back to that quality life I’ve been enjoying. While it lasts.

In what ways has this bad economy made a positive impact on your life?

KMBFBAG: Week 8 (I think)

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With all the changes going about in my life right now that I have no control over, it’s nice to have one area where I’m still the boss – my good ole’ diet (said with sarcasm). Actually, I am doing awesome, if I do say so myself. Still no weight gain or loss – my doctor is tickled pink with me and assures me that my stomach and baby are growing at just the right pace. My husband, friends and family are all telling me how great I look and (here’s the best part) way back when I bought two pairs of maternity pants – one fit me comfortably, the other a bit snugger but passable, unless I tried to wear them all day, then I’d be one suffering momma. Those pants? Fit way better now – no pain, all the benefits of a fabulous fitting pair of pants. And the slightly more comfortable pair, to be honest, are getting a bit too big. Oh to have my problems, right? :P

I still feel over weight sometimes, particularly when trying to get out of a chair or roll over in bed, but I mean, duh, I’m pregnant – and while the rest of me is shrinking, the belly gets bigger every day. All baby. I know, I’m gloating – but darn it, I’m doing awesome! Remembering all the weight I gained with my first pregnancy I’m just so proud and so thrilled to know that I won’t have all that awful weight to lose a second time. I can’t wait to see what size I am after this baby is born and seriously – I still get to eat dessert at night and have my indulgences – this whole thing is just miraculous. It’s all math with all benefits in my mind. Benefits being these super hot jeans that I’m wearing.

How are your diets going?

KMBFBAG: Week Something

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I really have nothing to say. Sometimes this seems like the weirdest challenge choice for me ever. I’m doing fine. I haven’t gained or lost anything significant to mention. I’m fine. I’m drinking water, eating fruits and vegetables and mostly staying within my calorie limit. My cravings are starting to get harder to ignore but I’m dealing with it. I’m not going to bore you with me repeating this over and over so I’ll just end this now. Maybe next week I’ll have something more interesting to report.

This is me, signing out.

KMBFBAG: Week Five

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I think I’m up a pound or two? I don’t know, I’m not great at keeping track and I’m weighing myself in two different places – my bathroom scale and my WiiFit. At Saturdays weigh in, WiiFit told me I was at 207 and I was all, “Seriously, I need to gain weight at some point. How am I losing still?” I started my pregnancy at 207. I think I hit 209 at some point? Now I’m wondering if that was a fluke. This morning I was going to weigh myself one more time and do a body test before I wrote this but then the mailman came and I sprained my foot answering the door. Seriously. I’m having a stellar day. So I’m sitting here icing my foot thinking, “Damn, what now?” Clearly a workout is out of the question.

And I don’t feel like turning on the wii and dragging out the balance board just to weigh myself. So I hobbled into the bathroom and tried that scale which pronounced me 210. I’m going to have to start comparing what the bathroom scale tells me and what the WiiFit tells me just for curiosities sake. 210 actually made me happy. I know, I’m the weirdest woman ever. But according to babycenter.com normal women have gained about 10 pounds by now. So I figure a calorie counting keeping track of shit, over weight woman should have gained at least a pound or two right?

Anyway up until yesterday I worked out on the WiiFit every day. I had an 8 day streak and I was so proud but then I somehow missed getting in a workout yesterday in between eating my third slice of UnBirthday cake this week and other delicious indulgences. And then today I sprained my foot. So that might ruin my workout plans for the week. We’ll see. I am doing good with the water and for the most part I’m still rocking the calorie count. I’ve done pretty good about adding vegetables into my diet but somehow find myself slacking on fruits which is weird. My goals are just to maintain my status quo and try not to injure myself anymore this week.

How are your diets going?

KMBFBAG: Week Four

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I gained 2 pounds this week. I’m saying that with excitement. At about 19 weeks pregnant, this is the first week that I’ve gained weight in this pregnancy. I assumed it would be coming soon and 2 pounds seems terribly reasonable. Now, to be fair, I could have gained two pounds from a very delicious weekend of going out for breakfast, having friends over for homemade pizza and delicious desserts and indulging yesterday in a new calzone recipe that dh dreamed up (sooooo good, I’m still drooling). But during the week I definitely stuck to my calorie budget and worked on adding more fruits and vegetables to our diets. So that part went well.

Two things I want to work on this week are drinking more water and exercising. Both I seem to have slacked off on for the past couple weeks, despite my best efforts. I’ve started keeping track of my water consumption along with the rest of my calorie counting and I think I’ve already seen an improvement, but it’s hard to be sure. As for the exercise, well this past week I noticed myself falling off ht wagon, avoiding eye contact with my workout DVD and admittedly stopping the workout short most of the week. I think I was being honest in admitting I was tired, but I might have been a bit easy on myself. Still, I don’t want to risk being hard on myself either in my delicate condition. ;)

I think I’ve got a pretty sure fire solution to my workout woes as well, since this weekend Dan and I bought ourselves a Wii Fit (finally). Already I am in love with this thing. I’ll go into more details on that in a later post after I’ve used it longer, but I’m doing longer workouts, in a more varied range of physical activities and loving it. I also love being able to chart my progress so easily. The funniest part was telling the Fitness Coach “person” that my goal was to lose no weight in the next two weeks and them being like, “Okay super!” even though they’d just told me how obese I was and what a big health concern that is (like I haven’t heard that enough). Whatever. I’m proud. I’m happy. I’m drinking my 3rd glass of water for the day as I type this. 2 pounds, not bad.

How are your diets going? Are you kissing your big fat blog ass goodbye?

KMBFBAG: Week Three

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Another week = no weight gain. This actually made me a little nervous but luckily I had my doctor’s appointment / ultrasound today so I can tell you that while I haven’t gained any weight BB is developing right on time (6 inches long, healthy heart beat, due date still on track) so seriously I cannot complain. I’m growing a healthy, living breathing adorable little baby and I haven’t even had to gain any weight yet. I kind of want to celebrate with a 100 calorie cupcake tonight!

I think I’ve done a really good job adding more fruits and vegetables to my diet. I’ve been loving some hummus and naan flat bread and finding healthy snacks. I need to maybe add one more snack into my diet each day because I still feel like I often have too many calories to spare at the end of the night which I can’t help but use for things like chips and cookies and ice cream. But at least I earned those chips and cookies and ice creams and don’t go over my calorie budget (well that’s not true, on the weekends I probably do, but I do that sort of on purpose… just go with me). Point is. Another week with no weight gain. That’s my kind of pregnancy dream come true. :)

Alright off to do laundry. Goals for this week are to keep up the status quo.

Impatience Gets The Better Of Me

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Sometimes I feel like this pregnancy is dragging along as slow as molasses. What I wouldn’t give to feel a kick or gain a couple pounds (without eating a sheet cake), to know the gender so I could get all cute and planny, give it a name, spend money on little pink or blue things… I guess just a sense of direction? I have a real problem with living in the moment. I don’t do it. I plan things. Future vacations, future houses, future cars, future fun things to do with the family, some other day. Future stages in this pregnancy. Perhaps I should be enjoying my second trimester more, be happy that I have enough energy to do my walking and keep up with my two year old; enough of an appetite to eat a healthy diet; and a small enough waist line to not feel like a complete cow yet. And I do. Sometimes. When I’m not annoyed and impatient with how slow the pregnancy is going and worried and paranoid that I’m not developing enough. I want those kicks bad.

And sadly that is the most interesting thing going on my life right now. Maybe I need to get out more?

Teaser Tuesday: Walk Away The Pounds

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teasertuesdays3

TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:

  • Grab your current read.
  • Let the book fall open to a random page.
  • Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
  • You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
  • Please avoid spoilers!

My Teaser:

“You may not be able to master underwater sumo wrestling, advanced yoga for invertebrates, or whatever the latest fitness craze is, but that “one foot in front of the other” thing is a no-brainer. And studies show that walking is the perfect exercise to get your heart in that midlevel aerobic range, where you burn fat most efficiently.”

from page 13 of Walk Away The Pounds by Leslie Sansone

KMBFBAG: Week Two

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You’ll be happy to know that I have neither lost nor gain any weight this month (am I the weirdest dieter ever, or what?). I even indulged this weekend in all the valentiney goodness I desired. Friday was a birthday party so I had delicious chocolate cake with seven minute frosting and spumoni ice cream (aka heaven on earth). That night when we got home I also had one delicious cupcake from Cupcakes Gourmet (the tiny little angel only had about 100 calories so that’s not a huge indulgence, but you know…). Saturday we went out to lunch at my new favorite Mexican restaurant and I had enchiladas and a chimichanga, thoroughly enjoyed every bite, and wrapped up about half the dish for dinner that night. We went to the local candy mansion and bought some candy bars and I had a root beer float (one of my favorite desserts). Also, have I ever mentioned that I have dessert every night? Almost always. How do I manage this feat and still lose weight if not remain stable?

I count calories. I started by using this calorie counting website but now I do it by hand (I found it was actually less of a hassle and miraculously has also been improving my math skills). I weigh almost all my meals with a handy digital food scale and maintain a diet of 2050 calories while pregnant, 1750 otherwise. I try to workout for at least 15 minutes a day (although I confess I’m not stellar at it) and I drink as much water as I can stand. I realized when I started this diet (that works) that my biggest food mistake was actually in my drinks. What I assumed was an 8 ounce glass turned out to be 14 ounces when I actually started counting. And I drank milk at every meal with several cups of juice, ice tea, etc. throughout the day. I’m a very thirsty person by nature. I was ruining any chance at a good diet.

My first move was to only drink from our smallest drinking glasses (unless it’s water), which turned out to be 8 ounce drinking glasses. I still drink milk at most meals, but that was a decision I made when I found out I was pregnant, so that I’d be getting a bit more calcium and using up some of the extra calories I was allotted with something a bit healthier than extra chips or cookies at the end of the day.

I know some of you are probably like, “I’m not counting calories. That’s a waste of my time, I won’t do it.” And I felt the same way too, but it turned out to be really easy after awhile. And by doing it during the week when I’m at home and have the time to do the math, when I’m not at home, I can kind of eye ball and it guess and so far I’ve been pretty successful at those guesses. I know now what a real meal should look like and how many indulgences I can squeeze into my day so I keep some room at the end of the day for my favorite indulgences so that I don’t go ape shit at the end of a bad day and eat everything in sight that I’ve been denying myself. It works. (Remember, no gain or loss this week. If I weren’t pregnant, I’d estimate that I’d have lost a pound or two (especially since I’d be aiming for 1750 calories instead of the 2050 I get right now).

Now I don’t claim to have all the answers. I’m still trying to improve my diet by making my calories count. I still eat too much junk, which is going to be important later when the real weight has come off but I’m trying to lose those last pesky pounds (I’m guessing). Also, it’s just common sense. I don’t eat enough fruits and vegetables and I’m prone to diet ruts. So for this week my goal is to make sure there is a vegetable in every family dinner and that I personally have one fruit every day. That’s pretty low standards, I know, but it’s a start. It shows you my diet is still in need of work, no? I also need to make sure I’m drinking enough water – I suspect I’ve been rather lax on that and I might start counting glasses again like I did when I first started dieting.

Lastly, I just want to share with you my newest found LOVE. My husband and I recently found Fage greek yogurt which we began by substituting for sour cream as it has that same kind of non-sweet taste and was actually a terrific (and so much healthier) replacement. My husband recently found small packages that come with fruits or honey and started trying them and found out they were delicious and convinced me to try one this morning (I had the strawberry) and oh my lord it was so good. Like dessert good. Except way better for you than dessert. My typical yogurt serving has 100 calories and I use them as a midday snack (I love Yoplait light). This one has 200 calories so I decided to have it for breakfast (a meal that is already pretty low calorie for me) and it worked perfectly. I highly recommend it if you haven’t tried it yet.