Lean Cuisine Honestly Good frozen meals; good for you and delicious :)

Here’s another “I’m so glad/happy/proud to be a BzzAgent” blog post!! This time I was granted coupons to try new Lean Cuisine Honestly Good 100% all natural frozen meals. I have always been a huge fan of Lean Cuisine meals! I eat one virtually every day for lunch, so I was very excited to be able to try one for totally free. And as usual I was also given coupons to pass out, which I love because I love being able to share my opinion of products and things I find out about. Of course my friends and family all love that I get coupons to share too (and for this BzzCampaign I even talked to some absolute strangers and shared coupons with them). As someone who is trying to live a more healthy lifestyle and lose weight, I was excited that these meals were 100% all natural and had ingredients I could actually pronounce and furthermore know what they are! And the best part was that it was delicious and did not even taste like it was a frozen meal. I tried the Roasted Red Pepper Chicken and was very pleased with the whole meal, I loved it all. It had a whole grilled chicken breast filet. The pasta that is with it is whole grain cavatappi pasta that I used most of the roasted red pepper sauce on. Then there is sea salt and lemon-seasoned broccoli florets. I like to have frozen meals most days for lunch since they are already portioned out perfectly for me. I felt like there was more food in this meal, but it was still a usual portion and came in at 270 calories, 7 grams fat, 25mg cholesterol, 520mg sodium, 29 carbohydrates, 5g fiber, and an awesome 25g of protein. These meals can seem a little steeply priced however. When I purchased mine the regular price at our Kroger was $4.79 for one meal! This week our Meijer has them in the ad at 2 for $7 which is much better, especially if you have a coupon! If you have the money to spare, they are probably worth the full price though; the fact that they taste so good and not like frozen food might be worth it to you.

Dr. Scholl's for her Ball of Foot cushions

I am not normally the type of person to wear high heels, especially ones that are 2 inches or more. A lot of it has to do with the fact that I am 5 foot 8 inches tall and do not need any more height, but also because of the fact that heels just make you feet so uncomfortable! So I was so glad to receive the “Something Blue” VoxBox from Influenster which included Dr. Scholl’s for her Ball of Foot cushion insoles made for high heels (along with a bunch of other FREE great goodies to try out!). I have used a few of the Dr. Scholl’s for her products now, and I absolutely love the ones I have tried. They all come with a money back guarantee so if you are not satisfied, you have nothing to loose so why not give them a try. These provide immediate relief to the pain and pressure you feel when wearing high heels. The small design helps keep your foot from sliding forward in your heels, which is a major problem that I usually have to combat when wearing heels. And the small design also helps to prevent your toes from scrunching together. They stayed firmly in place when I tried them out at a recent wedding I attended. Another great detail is that they are also easily removed from your shoes without damaging them. The only problem I had with these is that I am in the minority group of women with big feet; when I say big, I mean at least a size 10! And these insoles are very small. They did cover a good portion of where my foot sits, but for me personally they could have been a bit bigger. But if they were made bigger they might also be more noticeable, especially in open toe shoes, so I do also understand why they opted to not make them bigger. All in all I still had a good experience with these and all other Dr. Scholl’s for her products that I have tried, despite the fact that they are not designed for us larger footed women.

Yummy frozen goodness thanks to Kroger (and BzzAgent)!

Since there is a Kroger very close to our house and we shop there often and regularly enjoy Kroger brand products; I LOVE getting BzzCampaigns for Kroger products. Actually I LOVE getting any BzzCampaigns :) and my friends and family love it too. As a BzzAgent, I get free or reduced cost products or coupons to try products at a free or reduced price. And most of the time I get great money saving coupons to pass along to people that I “Bzz” too about those products. It is a great fit for me since I love sharing my opinion of things ;). For this Kroger BzzCampaign I received a coupon to try a free Kroger yogurt smoothie bar and $1.00 off coupons to pass out that were good for either the yogurt smoothie bars, low fat fudge bars, or low fat ice cream sandwiches. They also have fruit bars. Oh so much goodness to choose from!

My husband and I picked out the triple berry low fat yogurt smoothie bars, and they were delicious! The 3 berries are strawberry, blueberry, and raspberry; and the 3 flavors mix perfectly. At first I thought the price of $4.29 for the box was kind of steep. But when you break down the fact that since it is a box of 12 that works out to only about 35 cents per bar it is actually reasonable. Even still there is another thing to factor in though…the fact that each bar is pretty small and that because of that a serving size is actually 2 bars. So there are really only 6 servings in the box. A 2 bar serving has 100 calories, 1.5 grams fat, 20 carbohydrates, 16g sugar and 3g protein. So they are fairly diet friendly, especially in the calories and fat department. I also like that they are made with real fruit. I find them to be very satisfying too, a very creamy frozen texture.

I will definitely be buying more of these to help me with a nice low calorie and fat snack for this hot muggy summer we are experiencing lately.

Green Giant Veggie Snack Chips BzzCampaign!

I think it is great that there are so many healthier snack chips being offered nowadays. That’s why I was so happy to be invited to the Green Giant Veggie Snack Chips BzzCampaign! For this BzzCampaign I received a full size bag of each of the 2 varieties currently offered; Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips with Zesty Cheddar and Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips with Sea Salt. They also gave us 4 sample size bags of the Sweet Potato chips and coupons to pass out. And of course it was all FREE for being a BzzAgent in exchange for my review and reporting my opinion of the products to those around me…like here on this blog :)

Normally when I would think of Green Giant, I wouldn’t be thinking of snack chips…until now. I am so glad they jumped on the bandwagon of making a healthier crunchy snack to replace greasy high calorie potato chips! 

Initially I didn’t think I would like the Multigrain Sweet Potato Chips with Sea Salt; I am used to eating sweet potatoes as a sweet dish (like candied yams) and I do not usually like things that are salty and sweet (like chocolate covered pretzels…gross!). To my surprise the first time I tried them I fell in love, these are my favorite of the two kinds offered.  They were not too sweet tasting, and the hint of sea salt added a great flavor. My husband refused to try them, but our young nieces and teenage nephew really liked them also, so they are kid friendly too.  And you can feel better about feeding them to your family knowing that they have a whopping 40% less fat than regular potato chips per serving! And they have 14 grams of whole grain goodness.

The Roasted Veggie Tortilla Chips with Zesty Cheddar had a great flavor eaten plain also, but I really enjoyed dipping them in salsa. I love the fact that they are made from real vegetables such as broccoli and carrots. And they have 17 grams of whole grain per serving. I was able to get my husband to try this kind, and he enjoyed them a lot. We think they are a lot like regular Doritos, and we used them to make some awesome nachos which not only tasted good but were much better for us than using regular salty tortilla chips.

Overall I highly recommend these chips, and they can be found at a very reasonable price; my mom was ecstatic when she found them at Kroger on sale for $1 a bag, especially since I had shared an $.85 off coupon with her! 

Lysol Touch of Foam Antibacterial Hand Wash is Awesome!

 Ever since my mother introduced me to foam hand cleaners, I have been a big fan. I hate that most pump liquid hand cleaners tend to drip and get all goopy. So I was super excited to be invited to the Lysol Touch of Foam Antibacterial Hand Wash BzzCampaign! Now if you have read my previous BzzCampaign blogs, you know that by being a BzzAgent I get things to try out for FREE in exchange for my review of the product. For this I received a Lysol Touch of Foam antibacterial hand cleaner in Creamy Vanilla Orchid scent.

 First of all the scent is spectacular. Not only that, it isn’t too strong or weak of a scent. It is also available in 2 other scents; Rose & Cherry Bloom and Wild Berry Bliss. I wash my hands very frequently in the kitchen, so that is where I placed it. I love that it kills 99.9% of germs on contact. What I find even more awesome than that is the fact that the pump itself also has antimicrobial properties to resist odor causing bacteria! Since the micro-bubbles are moisturizer enriched, it doesn’t dry your hands out, they are left silky smooth and smelling great.

 My bottle has lasted a very long time (and let me repeat, I tend to wash my hands A LOT in the kitchen) so it is well worth the price. The non-drip foam is also very easy for kids to use without making a mess.

Garnier Fructis Hydra Recharge BzzCampaign :)

My hair has never really been in great condition. I usually leave it pretty long and it tends to have a lot of flyaways and frizz or a statically charged appearance. I am told it is too dry, it probably does not help that I tend to wear it up a lot; I throw it up into a ponytail or bun almost every evening. And I do color it nowadays. I guess one of the main problems as told to me by the last hairdresser to cut my hair, the quality of my hair is deteriorated because I do not get it trimmed about every other month. I am sorry, but in this economy I cannot afford the now $13 (plus tip) they charge for a hair cut every 2 months when it literally takes them 10 minutes or less to cut my hair! Could it be that she as a hairdresser is just trying to get me to come spend more money there, especially since she also tried to sell me numerous expensive products to help “fix” my hair? UGH. I am sick of trying all these high priced shampoos, conditioners, and treatments that claim they will magically transform my hair into the beautiful, lush, shiny, soft hair they show in their commercials only to find these expensive hair products leave my hair in basically the same condition as the cheap few dollar per bottle stuff!

Garnier Olia haircolor BzzCampaign

I have always had fairly fine hair. I usually keep it pretty long (or at least I did when I was younger…not quite as long now that I am getting older haha). When dyeing my hair, I also usually stayed in my natural blonde color (which nowadays as I am getting older is much darker too…*sigh*). About 6 months ago I was ready for a more dramatic change and I decided to go with a light auburn, but was not very happy with the results. Then in February I was given the opportunity by BzzAgent to try new Garnier Olia oil powered permanent haircolor and I was so excited to be able to give my new look another try! A couple of days after I found out my BzzKit was with my coupon to redeem for the dye for free, I got a good 4 or so inches of my hair cut off so I was right below shoulder length and had nice fresh ends.

There are 24 colors to choose from, but only a few of them were reds. I was looking at the more violet one (sorry, I don’t remember the actual name of the color) but my husband convinced me to go with 4.60 Deep Intense Auburn. I was very pleased with the smell, they use a 60% oil blend with natural flower oils and it contains no ammonia, so it smelled much better than normal hair dye. It was also very easy to apply to my hair, which I loved. The bottle they give you to mix it up in was very cute, but not very user friendly since the shape made it somewhat hard to hold when you have some dye on your glove and it gets slippery. Then it came to rinsing my hair...and rinsing my hair…and rinsing my hair! It felt like 20 minutes went by and it looked like I had murdered someone in my tub, but the water was STILL not rinsing clear! But it was close enough for me, I had no more time. I would come to find out it would rinse out visibly like that for at least my next couple weeks worth of showers. I did like that it didn’t leave my hair feeling all dried out either like some hair dyes do.

I LOVED the color, as did everyone who saw me the first week or two, but then after is when it was very visibly washing out, at least at the bottom anyway. The top part of my hair seemed to maintain more of the color, maybe because it was newer hair, but I didn’t think it should fade like that regardless. And it wasn’t anything I did since my best friend was also given the opportunity to try this (I did mine before hers though) and she seemed to have similar experiences at least with the way it was visibly washing out in the shower and leaving her towels looking like mine did. Apparently I also did not have quite enough dye since I missed some spots towards the top of my head in the back. My husband had checked for me and thought I had it all covered, but I guess I did not.

I try to take good care of my hair so I know I shouldn’t dye my hair again since it hasn’t been quite 8 weeks, so I am left with somewhat strange looking hair unfortunately. I don’t mind, I am married already haha. And I still love a lot of Garnier products, like my Fructis sleek and shine 5-in-1 serum spray for maintaining my flyaways. And I have also been using the new Hydra Recharge shampoo, conditioner, and treatment that I received to try from BzzAgent…but that is for yet another blog *wink*.

The day after coloring:

Just over 5 weeks later: