Review: Go Raw Choco Crunch Sprouted Cookies

I'm trying eat "clean" foods these days - foods with ingredients I can identify.  Today's review is the Go Raw Choco Crunch Sprouted Cookies.

I love the ingredients list - 4 ingredients, all organic: coconut, sprouted sesame seeds, dates, cacao.  That's it.

"Cookies" isn't a good title though - these are more like slightly sweetened crackers.  They're not at all a traditional cookie (no flour, no egg, etc), so if you're looking for something traditional, this will definitely disappoint.  (I wish they would call them something else!)

However, if you're looking for something a little sweet to much on, this is a good option.  The bag is 3 ounces and 1 ounce is a serving - I should've measured it out to get a more realistic scope on the serving instead of eating them straight from the bag. ;)  The chocolate flavor is not very pronounced, but it's subtly there.

They're a bit pricey, but I love the ingredients list and it's something different than my usual snacks so I will pick this up again (especially if it's on sale!)

Nutrition Facts 
Calories 160
Total Fat 9 g
Saturated Fat 5 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 10 mg
Carb 17 g
Fiber 4 g
Sugars 11 g
Protein 2 g

Review: RXBAR Chocolate Sea Salt

Let's kick 2017 off with a food review, shall we?  I need to start doing these more often!

RXBAR is a brand I came across when I was doing my detox last summer.  Very simple ingredients - and dairy free, soy free and gluten free.  These chocolate sea salt bars have only 7 ingredients: "Dates, Egg Whites, Almonds, Cashews, Cacao, Sea Salt, Natural Chocolate Flavor".  Gotta love that.  

Dates and the nuts aren't exactly low calorie/low fat, so you do see those reflected in the nutritional stats.  I'm trying to think positive because it's all natural ingredients, but it is still 200 calories for a small bar.

How's the taste?  I've tried other flavors in the past, but this was my first try of the chocolate sea salt flavor.  It wasn't overly chocolately - if you hadn't told me it was chocolate, I might not have picked that out.  I did enjoy the few grains of big sea salt crystals on top.  It's a dense bar, and a bit more sugar than I'm looking for traditionally when I'm looking to add some protein as a snack.  I'm torn right now as to if I should recommend it!  I like this company and their product line, I'm just not a raving fan of this particular flavor.  Blueberry was a bigger hit for me.  They're on the pricey side too - $2 per bar at Trader Joe's.  I do appreciate the natural ingredients though... ;)

Nutrition Facts 
Calories 200
Total Fat 9 g
Saturated Fat 2 g
Trans Fat 0
Cholesterol 0 mg
Sodium 240 mg
Carb 22 g
Fiber 4 g
Sugars 12 g
Protein 12 g

2017 Goals

Happy new year, everyone!  Let's get this party started, with my goals for the coming year:

1. Lose three pounds each month.
   This is a big one for me, and I'm scaling it back from last year's goal of a pound a week since I didn't even meet that one halfway. ;)  I should be able to do three pounds a month - it's 50% more than what I achieved last year, and I think it's attainable.  It will be a lot of work though, and I need to break through this year finally.  
2. Work out at least 20 days a month.
   I'm changing this up for 2017.  Last year, my goal was 20 workouts a month, and on 29 days, I did two or more workouts for a total of 316 workouts.  Awesome achievement, but I think I need to go for more consistency perhaps?  I'm still going to count the number of workouts though, because I'm a data dork. ;)
3. Hit my 10,000 steps a day average over the month.
   Now that I rejoined the land of the pedometer, I've been keeping track of my steps again.  Frustratingly though, it's not a perfect measurement of my activity, especially when dancing.  (I typically earn around 6k steps during a 60 minute dance class, but would walk more steps in 60 minutes usually.)  If I work out 20 days in the month, that will help but it will still require more activity on the rest of the days too!
4. Cook one new (and healthy!) recipe a month.
   Need to keep expanding my culinary horizons, and add more healthy options to my mental cookbook.  
5. Make gratitude a priority.
   Gratitude: "the quality of being thankful; readiness to show appreciation for and to return kindness."  The past two years, I've kept a "happy" file on my phone where I write something that made me happy each day.  I'm going to keep doing that, but overall I want to put more of an emphasis on sharing gratitude daily.  I'm very blessed and want to help share love and smiles and health to others. 

Here's to a happy and healthy 2017 for us all!