I can’t say enough good things about these soups! They are hearty, filling, and tasty without being salty. They are all Vegan and 5 of the 7 flavors are Gluten Free. And the best part… I can pronounce everything on the ingredient list!

Each box is two servings (and rightfully so, it’s a big box) but they are so low in calories the whole box makes a perfect lunch. Especially considering how filling it is.

I haven’t tried all the flavors yet but I will! Here’s a breakdown with nutritional information for the entire box. That’s 2 servings.

Black Bean (Vegan, Gluten Free, LOVED IT)

Ingredients: Filtered water, black beans, vegetables (onions, bell peppers, celery, carrots, garlic), organic brown rice, vegan natural flavor, potato starch, yeast extract, sea salt, organic lime juice, cilantro, spices.

240 calories, 2g of fat, 10g of fiber, 12 g of protein, 4 WWP

Lentil Soup (Vegan, Gluten Free, LOVED IT)

Ingredients: Filtered water, lentils, vegetables (onions, carrots, celery, tomatoes, garlic), organic brown rice, organic wine, vegan natural flavor, yeast extract, potato starch, spices, sea salt.

230 calories, 1g of fat, 16g of fiber, 14g of protein, 4 WWP

Minestrone (Vegan, LOVED IT and SUPER filling for 2 WWP)

Ingredients: Filtered water, vegetables (tomatoes, onion, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, celery, cabbage, peas, green beans, garlic), red kidney beans, barley, pasta (durum wheat semolina flour), vegan natural flavors, potato starch, yeast extract, spices, basil, organic evaporated cane juice, sea salt, marjoram.

140 calories, 1g of fat, 8g of fiber, 6g of protein, 2 WWP

Roasted Pepper Tomato (Vegan, Gluten Free, Have it packed for tomorrows lunch. :)

Ingredients: Filtered water, tomatoes, roasted red bell peppers, organic evaporated cane juice, corn starch, onion, garlic, sea salt, spices.

160 calories, 0g of fat, 4g of fiber, 4g of protein, 2 WWP

Split Pea
(Vegan, Haven’t tried it yet.)

Ingredients: Filtered water, split peas, vegetables (onions, celery, carrots, garlic), barley, vegan natural flavor, potato starch, yeast extract, sea salt, corn starch, organic evaporated cane juice, spices.

200 calories, 0g of fat, 14g of fiber, 17g of protein, 3 WWP

Chunky Tomato (Vegan, Haven’t tried it yet.)

Ingredients: Filtered water, vegetables (tomatoes, onion, garlic), organic evaporated cane juice, corn starch, sea salt, spices, basil.

180 calories, 0g of fat, 6g of fiber, 4g of protein, 3 WWP

Vegetable (Vegan, Gluten Free, LOVED IT)

Ingredients: Filtered water, vegetables (tomatoes, onions, carrots, potatoes, zucchini, celery peas, garlic), lentils, organic brown rice, vegan natural flavor, potato starch, spices, yeast extract, organic evaporated cane juice, sea salt, parsley.

150 calories, 1g of fat, 8g of fiber, 6g of protein, 2 WWP

Again, the nutritional information I have posted is for the whole box, 2 servings, just over 2 cups of soup. Pretty good calorie bargain if you ask me!

I told you I really can’t say enough but I’m curious what you guys think. Honestly, I never heard of Dr. McDougalls’ until they contacted me and sent me the soups. Am I the only one?

I’m assuming no. So I contacted them and asked if I could give a sample away on the site under one stipulation. If you win you have to come back and let us know what you think in the comments. That’s the deal. Ok? I need to know if I’m the only one that likes these soups this much!

So leave a comment if you’d like to enter the random drawing. Oh! and let me know if you have tried these soups before. I’d love to hear your opinions.

I’ll pick a winner this Sunday! Happy Tuesday everyone. :)

They emailed asked me a few questions a couple of weekends ago but never in a million years did I think they’d write such an article.

If you found my little corner of cyber space from it, WELCOME!

I have a quite a few sites (I’m a bit of a geek) feel free to poke around…

• Click here for an introduction Roni’s Weigh
• GreenLiteBites
• BlogToLose
• SkinnyMinnyMedia
• FitBloggin’

I have to run tonight. Have a date with a horror movie. :) Here’s my food journal today. I’m giving myself a week of counting. More on that later!

Table provided by Roni’s Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

This morning I loaded the marathon mix on the ipod and started my day with a run. It was my first since the actual marathon and the death of my Nike+. :( I ran about 5K (just over 3 miles) as calculated by MapMyRun.

After the run, Ryan and I got dressed and headed to Lancaster to visit a friend who’s getting married this spring. We joined her on a trip to a wedding expo and had fun walking around tasting cakes and leafing through generic wedding albums. I’m not being sarcastic we really did have fun! It was a blast! (what can I say, we aren’t too hard to please)

On our way home we stopped at a farm stand stocking up on winter squash and falling in love purple cauliflower which we roasted for dinner and served with some moroccan inspired chicken. It was delish and fun to make.

After dinner we cleaned up, made lunch and dove into the candy bowl. It was a great day and an amazing weekend. I really disconnected from all work and responsibilities. I needed that. I REALLY needed that.

I’m gonna go and enjoy the rest of my weekend but not before sharing my food journal. I decided to count points today. I’ve been feeling like I need a bit more structure.

Table provided by Roni’s Food Tweet, Eat, Post Generator.

Today was a GREAT day… family fun… old friends… new neighbors… and way too much chocolate. Yes I said it… TOO MUCH CHOCOLATE. I mean it IS Halloween! What would halloween be without chocolate?

Could I have eaten a little less or none at all? sure. But guess what…

IT’S NOT A BIG DEAL! A few pieces of chocolate are no big deal. Heck.. even a WHOLE bunch of chocolate doesn’t matter. What does matter is day in and day out consistency. You can choose right now to to allow todays decisions to effect tomorrow or as Ralph Waldo Emerson said…

"Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could; some blunders and absurdities have crept in; forget them as soon as you can. Tomorrow is a new day; you shall begin it serenely and with too high a spirit to be encumbered with your old nonsense."

I’m choosing to begin tomorrow with a run. I have done nothing for myself since the marathon and I miss my time. I’ve procrastinated long enough.

Hope you had a WONDERFUL Halloween. I plan on enjoying the last few hours watching cheesy horror movies on TV. :)

I’m not sure if anyone remembers them but I miss my Thursday Thoughts posts. They always helped me organize and wrap up my week. Now that I have a bit of a consistent schedule maybe I can start them back up. No promises though.. this whole full time job thing is really crimping my blogging style. :~)

Anyway.. Let’s get started…

• Remember way back when I wrote My Core Hurt Eating - A MUST Read for those that Overeat? Well I’ve been researching a bit about the author of those articles and I came across his site. I love Five Myths of "Emotional Eating" and he has a Core Value Eating write up. (note: I have not seen or purchased the CD-Rom and I have no affiliation with compassionpower.com I just fight his insights refreshing.)
• I loved this post… You can lead a woman to body-positive messages, but you can’t make her believe them… on the-F-Word.org. If I had a dime for every fat conversation I’ve had… oh boy… let’s not go there. k? I’m trying, I’m really trying. Posts like this help me, a lot.
• "the brain reacts to junk food similarly to drugs" Really? Ya think? I didn’t need a study to tell me that but it looks like soon we’ll have one. According to Dr. Paul Kenny, Binging on junk food encourages addictive behavior.
• How about a few laughs? This one for those of us that have kids and this one for other Star Wars fans. Random I know, but I find Darth Vader in every day situations funny. Go ahead.. call me a geek. :)
• Two posts that caught my eye on BlogToLose this week.. 1.) I LOVE this attitude… Letting Other People Influence Your Decision…. 2.) I love this exercise… Some things I wrote when I started this journey…

My Updates…

• GreenLiteBites has seen busier days but I’m finding some time here and there to get a little creative in the kitchen, mostly snacky stuff but still filled with fruits (Pomegranate Kiwi Ice) and veggies (Veggie Scoops). ;~) The "Toddler" and I also recorded a frantic Halloween Punch Idea. (ok, ok, he’s NOT a toddler… but I don’t want to let go and it just has a ring to it… I’ll probably call him "the toddler" until he has one of his own.)
• SkinnyMinnyMedia? Yeah.. don’t ask.. I’m lucky if I get to it once a week or so.
• In contrast FitBloggin is a movin’ and a shakin’! Check out the latest speakers and attendees. I’m adding more weekly! OH! and Only 3 early bird tickets left!!
• In a strange turn of events I now blog for myself AND my job. I’m tasked with collecting links and posting the "This Week’s Finds" feature over on SpeakHealth. You may find some links interesting but instead of duplicating I’ll share my post here… This Week’s Finds – H1N1, Playing Games, and Child Obesity as Parental Abuse?
• Things I’m working on? Well yeah… remember when I used to post about the cook book at the bottom of these posts? lol I haven’t forgotten it’s just not realistic right now, although I’ve been getting more and more motivation to do it or something else actually. A few book ideas have been floating around in my head. I just need… ummm.. like an extra 20 hours a day! In all seriousness, I’m focusing on my family, my job and my blogs. In that order. I do have a few product reviews in the works and I’m determined to get my exercise groove back. As we say… I will do what I can when I can. It’s that simple. I’ll keep you posted on all fronts. :)

Have a great Friday and Happy Halloween!

Beyond just the good old fashion internet and world wide web, social media has made online time even more fun, more interesting, and more useful (to me anyway). Just look at what happens when you post a picture of a creepy looking spider in your garage… (I blurred out names as I didn’t have anyones permission to repost)

That was only facebook. I also had a few discussion on twitter about it too. Who would have thunk such a bad picture of a spider would start so much chatter?

Yesterday I decided to use the power of social media to gather ideas about afternoon snacks. I always bring a small lunch and 3-4 healthy snacks to pick on while at work during the day. But lately I’ve been in a rut eating the same old things.

So I tweeted/posted this on…

I’m thinking it’s just about yogurt/water break time here at work. What’s you fav after lunch healthy snack?

Here’s what I got in return on twitter…

@LauraWV said: @RonisWeigh An apple, eaten slowly and relished, at around 2. At around 4, either Triscuits or Nature Valley bar.

@WannaBeSkinny said: @RonisWeigh I have to make it something sweet to kill sweets craving.

@IamSucceeding said: @RonisWeigh I LOVE my popcorn…have it most days, usually if I am catching up on shows, drizzle it w/healthy oil a bit of seasalt mmmm

@webgals said: @RonisWeigh honeycrisp apple

@MrsTLaw said: @RonisWeigh I’ve been loving those Dole fruit cups…like 80 calories. I got sick of buying fruit and it going bad before I ate them!

@polestarjewelry said: @RonisWeigh almonds.

And of course the smart a$$ said..

@babymakes7 said: http://twitpic.com/n613r - @RonisWeigh My fav healthy (see the no cholesterol & low sodium?) snack: bacon pieces sprinkled with bacon salt.

lol Gotta love the smart a$$es. :)

And from Facebook…

So there you have it, 20 snack ideas (minus some duplicates), one bacon joke and some creepy spider chatter. :)

Gotta love the internet!

Topics included in this video…

• Becoming Scale Independent
• Staying on Plan
• Coping with Binge Eating
• Gaining Weight After Exercise
• Choosing a Goal Weight

Links mentioned in the video…

• It’s not called the shark! It’s the Mouse Massager. This thing does wonders for my back!
• My Scale Habit History
• My Core Hurt Eating - A MUST Read for those that Overeat
• Butternut Squash Fries
• The Story of 3 Boxes of Candy

My new backyard. :)

No such luck. It’s been sitting in my basement for over 2 weeks and I, unfortunately, only had a chance to use it twice. Both times were really great workouts! I just need to find more time to actually use it.

The machine is very pilates like. Which I didn’t expect. It’s got a great padded bench on a really smooth track. The pulley system is simply and I was surprised how it didn’t tangle or get twisted up.

There really are 80 different exercises you can do with the gym and they explain each one on large illustrated cards. There’s also routine recommendations, like upper body, lower body, 6-8 minute workouts and my personal favorite, long and lean. I did that one this morning and let me tell ya, I’m feeling it now.

My only complaint has to do with size. The unit is fairly large and you need a big area to workout as some of the exercises require you to swing your arms.

All in all it’s an awesome piece of equipment if you have the space and funds to afford it. Normally it goes for $1948.05 but right now they’re having a fall sale for $948.05. Click here to check it out.

Does anyone else have it or tried it? I’m hoping to get into a schedule with it. Working out 2-3 times a week would be nice. I have a question for all you home gym equipment people… do you workout regularly or does it collect dust in your basement? Because honestly, that’s what I’m worried about as I decide to keep it.

The point was to get us to stop focusing on what we hated about the image in the mirror and start appreciating our bodies for all the wonderful things it can do for us. Many of you that have been reading for awhile know my story and how my discontent with my body started 15 years of unhealthy yo-yo dieting.

I’m hear to say I’m not "cured." I still have negative body thoughts after a 70lb weight loss. I STILL have nagging little "feel fat" moments. Yes. STILL. I’m a work in progress and have a feeling I will always fight these thoughts.

Always.

I’ve gotten better. I no longer allow the feelings to guide my food choices. I value myself now too much to do that. But working to love yourself IS work for those of us with histories. And forcing yourself to look at the things you love and reinforce those thoughts is a powerful tool in our weight loss journeys. You all know my feeling of self acceptance before weight loss, right? Even if you are unhappy YOU must work on loving yourself now or I’m convinced your weight loss efforts are doomed. Sorry, I don’t mean to sound so dismal but it’s true. Those of us that get into the yo-yo diet cycle of hell…

…it’s the only way.

So where is this all coming from? Well my good friend MizFit posted about National Love Your Body Day. Which is TODAY! by the way. And her post led me to Mish’s amazing, courageous post called Exposed.

She had the courage to do something I’ve been considering for years but, frankly, have been too chicken to do. Yes… chicken.

But this is too important for me to hide. These feelings I have, my body after weight loss and surgery, are me.

So my answer to the "Why do you love your body?" question is the same as it was a year and a half ago…

…what I love about my body is that it is healthy, strong, and has the ability to change. I love that my body has grown and nurtured a life. And I love that my body allows me to enjoy life to the fullest, I know not everyone is that lucky.

To that I add this

This is it. This is me. And as I work on accepting myself through this blog as I always have I hope to inspire you. If you have a blog do an "Exposed" post. Make a positive statement about your body. Get your readers to do the same. Imagine a world where the everyday body became the visual norm NOT what we see in magazines. Imagine growing up in a world where a young girl can see her body in a positive role model that didn’t focus on negativity about that body as they compare it to some absurd cultural norm but instead sees someone that looks like them and loves themselves unconditionally.

Maybe I’m being naive but I think this can work. I think this can make a difference. And as I write this with tears streaming down my face I know that this is what I needed to do for me.

I know it’s hard but now it’s your turn. Why do YOU love your body? What do you love about it? Are you willing to expose yourself?