NEW YEAR, NEW SNACKS

As you can tell from my blog lifestylefinesse.com I am all about self improvement, finding balance and harmony in life to become a better you year round. However there is a large percentage of people that like to jump on the “new year, new me” bandwagon, and don’t get me wrong nothing is wrong with that but good mental and physical health should be a year round thing. It’s all about finding balance and finding what works for you.

Slim Fast has been around for a while now, to be honest I stopped buying the products because my favourite vanilla and chocolate protein shake always gave me stomach aches (due to me being lactose intolerant) and some of the snacks just never appeased to me, also the further I get into my fitness journey the less I wanted to buy processed items due to the ingredients and lack of health benefits. However I think more and more companies are also realising that we want our food to make us feel good and we want it to do something for us other than make us feel full, we want our food to keep us full and add valuable nutrients to our diet. Slim Fast Advanced Nutrition and Influenster sent me these new snacks to try and I couldn’t be happier with the taste and what’s on the label. Learn how to read food labels here in another blog post I wrote.

The first thing I tried were these crisps, which tasted a bit like rice cakes with a drizzle of something sweet. The ingredient list was short with the first main ingredient being wheat flour which was a good sign. With 20 grams of carbs that may seem like a lot but a lot of the granola bars like Luna, Lara and Natures Bakery Fig bars that I already consume for snacks end up having the same amount if not more (depending of the flavour one can go up to 31 grams) carbohydrates. My next big thing when looking for a good snack is the fat and sugar content, when I’m trying to trim down those three pack a powerful punch, and if not monitored correctly you can really start to pack on the pounds.

Sugars- 7 grams
Carbs- 20 grams
Total Fat- 3 grams
Saturated 2.5 grams
Trans- 0 grams
Fiber- 5 grams
Protein- 3 grams

All in all this was a delicious sweet tasty morsel with a bit of fiber which is great because I try to consume a decent amount of fiber and protein everyday, sometimes I even sprinkle it on my food so when I can get it in snack form that is even better.

If you’re watching your salt intake you might want to limit how often you are snacking on chips, but everything in moderation. If you’re a big potato chip eater start here, this limits your intake as well as gives you a taste of salt with added protein and fiber, there is no saturated fat and the total fat is only 2.5 grams. If you’re looking to revamp your lifestyle or looking to get a jump start on your fitness journey the 2, 1, 3 plan isn’t a bad place to start. You can replace 2 meals a day with one of their high protein shakes which are now lactose and gluten free! If you put it in a blender you can add fruit, chia seeds, peanut butter, more protein powder, get creative these pre made shakes are great if you’re on the go, but if you are really planning on replacing two meals a day with a shake I suggest adding some more nutrients to it so you can make it to your snack break. Added calories isn’t always a bad thing especially if you’re adding more to eat less later. If I’m starving I can only get about 2 hours of feeling full off most pre made shakes, but hey everybody is different! Just a little tip if you’re like me.

You can also enjoy one healthy meal a day and indulge in 3 guilt free snacks if you are going that route. I am always making new recipes and sharing what I eat in a day on my snapchat (missjodik) to inspire and encourage others to live a health happy lifestyle. All in all these were delicious and I love finding new snacks to try that fit my lifestyle. I’m so glad I was able to try out this VoxBox from Influenster, it’s so important that we put our health and ourselves first. Listen to your body. This should be a lifestyle not a diet and like I said earlier, it’s about finding balance and what works for you. It’s your thing, do what you wanna do (insert musical interlude).

*I received these products for free to test however all opinions are my own