Cheating, without cheating

I'm tired of protein bars, guys. I still do my protein shakes almost every night, but I can hold my breath while I gulp those down. I can't pull that off with the chewy, unappetizing bars on my shelf. I need a break from these things.

So this week, I tried a new option.



These Snackwell's Cereal Bars don't stack up to protein bars, not really. At only 8g of protein, they're less than half what my other bars provide. But what they lack in protein power they make up for in yumminess. I've eaten these all week for my mid-morning snack and have yet to tire of them.

One of these with my Cherry Coke Zero (very convincing!) and I almost forget I'm on a freaking diet in the first place.

I also stopped and sampled a new fast food option tonight. I've been cooking my dinners all week and decided, after my post-gym grocery shopping, that what I really wanted was a burger. So I had one of these:



That's a Hardee's Turkey Burger on a whole wheat bun, and I had mine with cheese, ketchup, and pickles. The Hardee's website doesn't let me break down the ingredients, so I could only estimate, but these turkey burgers have well under half the fat of a typical 1/4-lb burger and less than 500 calories.

The flavor was a little bland, which is my opinion of most turkey products that don't come with loads of gravy and mashed potatoes on the side. But this was the right texture for a burger, and when loaded with my favorite condiments, it was exactly what I was looking for.

I have these new foods loaded into my calorie counter, ready for the next time I need a candy bar or a burger. I think that's one of the neatest things about this part of the journey: the opportunity to try new foods that I wouldn't have considered before. Why would I have? I liked my fatty foods and I was going to keep eating them. I didn't need to change. Now, there are so many other possibilities.