Free! Free! Free!

I was knocked out for two days by strep throat this week.  Ugh! Plus I’m out of town this weekend which always makes workouts difficult.  So I’m behind on my 12,000 steps a day and I have 2 days of the guns, buns and abs challenge to make up.  But the highlight of my week was getting some FREE SAMPLES in the mail.  Have you heard of Quest bars?  I hadn’t paid them much mind but my interest was piqued by a friend talking about protein bars that are basically candy bars because they are full of so much sugar and carbs.  For example Special K protein bars have 170 calories, 4.5 g fat, 26g carbs, 15g sugar and only 10g of protein.  It doesn’t take a mathematician to see that you’re getting more sugar than protein.  Fiber One Caramel Nut protein bars (yum!) have 130 calories, 6 g fat, 16g carbs, 7g sugar and only 7g of protein.  I mean, come on! You can get 4g of protein from a Snickers bar! Should Fiber one really be advertising as a “protein” bar?  Any hoo, back to the Quest bars.  They’re all the rage on bodybuilding.com and so I decided to check out their stats.  First of all, the main ingredient is actually protein, that’s a plus.  For example, the chocolate peanut butter bar has 160 calories, 5g fat, 21g carbs, 1g sugar and 20g of protein.  The draw back? These don’t taste like candy bars.  But they are pretty good.  You can check out the flavors they offer at http://www.questproteinbar.com/.  I went to their contact us tab and filled out a little email saying I would like to try their product. They promptly emailed me back asking which flavors and my address. They sent me on apple pie and one chocolate peanut butter, as well as their low carb spaghetti (which I haven’t tried yet).  I also went to Hyvee and bought a few more flavors and I’m going to give their peanut butter cups a try too.  Again, they don’t taste like candy bars but that’s the point. If you’re looking for a great snack that’s packed with protein, I would suggest getting a few samples and trying these out.