Healthy Snack Wednesday: MultiGrain Cheerios and a Giveaway

We’re coming down to the wire for the office weight loss challenge! As I mentioned last week, I’m not going to take home the big prize, but I am happy with my progress. We haven’t had our official weigh-in this week, so I don’t have an update to report. But I’ve been working hard to add additional steps into my day and extra vegetables to my plate.

Trying to fit in all these changes could be overwhelming, but I try to keep my expectations in check. One of the challenges I’ve been working on is scheduling my meals throughout the day. Days are long and it’s no fun to be hungry and cranky. On a regular day, I leave the house at 7:30 a.m. and leave work at 5:10 p.m., getting home at 6:30 p.m. That means that it’s usually 7:30 p.m. by the time dinner gets on the table. On class nights, I have class from 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. and get home around 10:00 p.m. On a regular night, that means that between lunch and dinner it could be 6 hours! That’s too long without a snack. On class nights, I eat a light dinner at 5 p.m. and even with a snack in class, I am pretty hungry by the time I get home.

One of the issues with planning a ‘late night’ snack is that it is so close to bedtime. I don’t want to eat anything too heavy and certainly don’t want to start cooking something at that time of night. For me, I’ve found that a good option is a bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit. Growing up, whenever I couldn’t sleep or was just hungry for something after dinner, I often ate a bowl of Cheerios. For some reason it was comforting and I could always go back to sleep afterwards.

I recently received a box of MultiGrain Cheerios cereal, a gym bag, water bottle and cereal container from Cheerios (the product and information was provided through MyBlogSpark). In addition, the cereal box included and code to log on to the MultiGrain Cheerios & Biggest Loser website.

Being a traditional, and sometimes Honey Nut fan, I was interested to try this flavor. And since Biggest Loser seems to work for the contestants, it can’t hurt to check out their online tools. I’ve logged into the site a few times. The site offers recipes, suggested workouts, and a 7-day plan combining menus and workouts. If you have no idea where to get started, this would be a good resource.

I’ve also had a few bowls of MultiGrain Cheerios. I’ll be honest – my favorite is always going to be plain Cheerios. The MultiGrain cheerios are lightly sweetened (only 6 grams per serving) and have a good mix of whole grains to fill you up. I sliced up a banana and poured in low-fat milk to top it off. I found it a little too sweet for my taste. But if you love sugary cereals, this will definitely satisfy your craving. For me, I’ll make myself a custom cereal blend with MultiGrain and regular together (loved doing this as a kid!).

Cheerios offered to help one of my readers jump-start their Biggest Loser Challenge with a prize pack! The package includes a box of MultiGrain Cheerios with an online code, gym bag, water bottle, and cereal container. FYI - the bag, bottle, and cereal container are all purple (like the MultiGrain Cheerios box). The water bottle is huge - you'll never be dehydrated!

Giveaway!

Enter through Tuesday, March 1 at 9:00 p.m. Winner will be announced next Wednesday.  Please leave a separate comment for each entry. You can enter up to three times.

Required entry: Comment on how you’ve incorporated healthy practices into your daily routine (or what you plan to try)

Bonus Entry 2: Follow @GoodCookDoris on Twitter or Like Good Cook Doris on Facebook


Bonus Entry 3: Blog or Tweet about this giveaway (be sure to include @GoodCookDoris in your tweet)

Disclosure: Cheerios provided the prize pack and information for giveaway via MyBlogSpark. All opinions belong to me. I received a prize pack, but did not receive any monetary compensation.