Tricia's Musings

Random Thoughts about life in general, living in the big city of Toronto



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Halfway Point – Activia 14 Day Challenge

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Take the Activia Taste Test Last week I took the plunge and decided to take the Activia 14 Day Challenge. Over the last few months I’ve been stepping up my efforts to improve my health and adding yogurt to my diet certainly seems like a good idea.

If you read my post last week when I started the Activia 14 Day Challenge you’ll probably remember that I stocked up by buying two flavors of low fat Activia Yogurt.

I bought two 8 packs – one of Raspberry and another of Strawberry and Rhubarb and I have to tell you that they’re delicious! I like that they have chunks of fruit in them. Yummy.

Activia advertises their yogurt as being very creamy. Now prior to taking this challenge I didn’t eat yogurt regularly or have a favorite brand so I can’t say it’s the creamiest – but it is creamy and smooth and I like it.

The television commercials that I see for Activia often talk about how Activia will make you regular and their website says “feel the difference in your digestive system.” I don’t feel any major difference so far, but then I’ve always been regular so I don’t really need any help in that area.

What I’m hoping to get out of taking the Activia 14 day Challenge is simply a step towards better health. As I said in my first post about the Challenge this yogurt has live bacterial culture in it (BL Regularis) and we need “good” bacteria to help us digest our food properly, and if we’re digesting our food properly and getting all the nutrients out of it that we should be we have a better chance of being and or staying healthy. That’s my reasoning anyway.

Anyone else taking the challenge along with me? How is it going? What Activia flavors have you tried?





I’m taking the Activia 14 Day Challenge

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Dannon Activia

September has arrived and I decided that I want to start a new health regime so I decided to take the Activia 14 Day Challenge.

Activia has been advertising their Activia 14 Day Challenge for several years and I guess it’s about time that I gave it a try. Yogurt is supposed to be good for you, isn’t it?

Activia Yogurt contains a probiotic bacterial culture, an exclusive strain of bifidobacteria, called Bifidobacterium (animalis) lactis, or BL Regularis. We need some good bacteria in our digestive tract in order to digest our food properly, so it only goes to reason that eating a yogurt that has live bacterial culture in it would help out our digestive system.

I’m not normally a yogurt eater. My husband is. We always have yogurt in the house, but I usually only have one once a month or so. Obviously this is going to change over the next two weeks as I do the Activia 14 Day Challenge.

Yesterday I went out to the grocery store to scope out the selection of flavors. Activia comes in wide selection of flavors in both regular fat and fat free. Some of the flavor choices are vanilla, strawberry, prune, peach, apple and raisins, pear, raspberry, sweetened plain, peach and cereals, red fruits and cereals, apple-müesli and nuts.

I bought two 8 packs for my 14 day challenge. One of Fat free Raspberry and one Fat Free Strawberry and Rhubarb. Yummy. I have enough for at least one a day and a few extra for snacks. Of course, knowing my husband, he’ll eat a few, so I’ll probably have to buy a few more before the challenge is over.

So let’s see. I’m feeling pretty good right now, let’s see if I feel even better by the time I’m finished the challenge. I’ll post again next week at the half way point and tell you how the challenge is going.

Has anyone else taken the Activia 14 Day Challenge? If you did it, how did it go? Are you still eating Activia? What’s your favorite flavor?

Activia yogurt

It was a lot of work but it was worth it

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Have you ever done something that seemed difficult at first? Perhaps you didn’t want to do it … but then when you finished you got an immediate reward? There’s lots of things in life that are just like that and I just did one of them.

I just finished peeling and chopping up a fresh pineapple and when I was finished I tasted the “fruit” of my labor. Delicious!

I’ll bet that’s not what you thought I was going to tell you about.

My husband and I went to Costco yesterday to do a little shopping and while we were there I noticed that they had fresh pineapples from Costa Rica on sale for $1.99. I decide to buy two, but I dreaded peeling them. I think I’ve only purchased a fresh pineapple once before and that was a long long time ago!

So I approached the kitchen a little a while ago with trepidation, knowing I had to deal with the pineapples. First though, I did an internet search on how to tell if when a pineapple is ripe (and discovered that mine didn’t look all that ripe because they had a lot of green in them) and of course, how to peel one properly.

Armed with my new knowledge I grabbed one of the pineapples and decided to start peeling one. Turns out it’s fairly easy. Note that I didn’t say it wasn’t messy. My hands were covered in what felt like a slimy coating and there was pineapple juice on the cutting board and the counter. Good thing I had my new promotional hand sanitizers to clean my hands off with afterwords!

Our dog sat nearby tasting the occasional piece of pineapple that fell to the floor or that I’d toss to her. She loved it.

I think the one pineapple will last us three or four days. The cut up chunks filled a storage container right to the top. We’d better eat it fast since we have another pineapple waiting!

I’ve been trying to eat more fruit and things like pineapple lately. Trouble is with my Crohn’s I can’t eat a lot of fruit or raw veggies. However, since pineapple is supposed to be good for digestion, and it’s a natural anti-inflammatory I’m experimenting and hoping it will help. At least it tastes great.

Do you ever buy fresh pineapples? Don’t you love them?

Waiting for dinner – it smells heavenly in here

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I’m currently waiting for a slow cooked beef stew to be finished. It smells delicious in here! Mmmmm.

I added extra vegetables … like a couple more potatoes than the recipe called for, and carrots – for some reason the crock pot recipe I’m using didn’t list carrots and the pot is just full! I think we’re going to be eating stew for a while. I’ll have to freeze some of it I think.

I have a feeling that after finally eating dinner tonight I’m going to be on the computer looking for the top weight loss products LOL. Nah … the recipe is actually fairly low calorie and low fat. The stewing beef I used didn’t have any visible fat and I browned it in a pan before adding it to the crock pot. Plus the beef broth that I used was all fat free. So it’s going to be a health dinner, especially with all those fresh veggies.

If you want the recipe I wrote it out on my blog “My World” (see the link at the top of this post). I’ll let you know if it tastes as good as it smells!

I want to lose 5 pounds in the next month – help!

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So my niece is getting married in just over a month. Argh!

I found a nice dress in my closet that I’m planning on wearing but if I could manage to lose 5 to 10 lb before the wedding the dress will look great. If not .. well it will look ok, but I’d rather that it look great.

So .. I’m thinking about going on a mini weight loss diet for the next month.

We already eat fairly healthily.

I mean, I’ve got Crohn’s disease and a lot of foods make me feel worse, so my diet is limited anyway … but still, we get in a lot of fresh vegetables and fruit, low fat meats like chicken and turkey and if and when we eat red meats (only once or twice a month really) I try to buy lean meats like extra lean hamburger or I cut off the excess fat before I cook the meat (ie such as the fat around the edges of a steak).

I usually don’t snack between meals either … so I’m not sure what I can cut in my diet to lose a few pounds, but I’m sure I’ll find something. I can’t really even cut down on portion sizes because we already eat fairly small portions … ie one single boneless chicken breast between the two of us and a cup of steamed carrots, broccoli and cauliflower each is one of our main standby meals.

I do have one Coca Cola pretty much each evening, so I guess I could just drink water instead. That would cut a few calories each day.

I think the main thing that I’ll need to do over the next month is get more active. I’m already walking the dog daily, but if I increase the length of our walks and or take her out two or three times a day that will help.

Do you have any ideas as to how I could lose 5 pounds over the next month – when I’m already on a healthy diet that has a little less than my required total calories for my height and weight?

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