When on a low carb plan, who doesn’t feel a little nostalgic about certain sweets like muffins, cakes, or cookies!  Here at GreenLite are always on the search for delectable low carb options to replace our old favorites and keep us on track.

Finally, after a lot trial and error, we hit the jackpot in the muffin department. We found a great tasting low carb muffin that genuinely tastes and feels like a muffin!

REVIEW:

Our entire team here at GreenLite sampled these Vanilla flavored muffins. It was unanimous - this muffin was like the real thing and it is sure to be a popular item. The muffins are super moist and have a texture of a pound cake with little or no aftertaste. Some of us considered the muffins to be a bit too sweet, but the overall opinion was that the taste was very good.

There are four small muffins in each ThinSlim Foods Vanilla Muffins package. The good news is that each one of these delectable muffins contain only 2 net carbs, 0g of sugar, and 8g of fiber. They also have 6g of protein!

The bad news is that we need to not indulge in too many of these muffins for two reasons:

1.) The sweetness comes from erythritol, a sugar alcohol which is not absorbed, so if you have more than one, you may notice some untoward gastrointestinal tract side effects i.e. (bloating, gas, and/or diarrhea). It may help you stay honest and just eat one!

2.) These items are sweet in taste, so it may psychologically trigger your desire for sweets, despite the fact that they do not physiologically act like sugar.  Even though they are substitutes, consider them a treat. Be mindful of the quantity and frequency so they can help you stay on track rather than derail your efforts.

ThinSlim Foods Vanilla Muffins cost $7.97 per pack. They come in a variety of muffin flavors including Blueberry and Chocolate Chip. Based on several online reviews, Vanilla seemed to be the most popular. ThinSlim Foods also offers Chocolate Brownies, which we plan to review in the future, so stay tuned!

To buy a pack or browse their entire product line, visit them here.

We’d love to hear your opinion so if you give them a try, please share your thoughts with the us!

Our Biggest Loser contestants have made it through their first week on the GreenLite program. Find out who is in the lead and how each contestant did!

       Phat Mamas

Linda: I really enjoy the program, so far it has been easy to follow. Everybody who works here is so nice. It is really structured and that is what I need. I think my biggest challenge was on Friday when the no carbs (or very little carbs) kicked in and the cravings started. I was able to fight through it and the next day I was fine. My biggest challenge was actually surviving the first week. It was a lot easier than I thought it would be. I thought I would break sometime during the week and I didn’t. Yeah!

Amelia: I’m feeling really good overall. I’m more energized and I’ve been sleeping better. It’s challenging and very hard for me, but overall I feel happy. The hardest thing this week was figuring out meals and being prepared. I still haven’t learned to shop and to plan ahead, and it’s hard working my schedule around my four kids. It’s been hard getting on track, especially when I have cravings, but I’m not actually hungry. I worked through it by telling myself that it was just a craving and I wasn’t really hungry. My biggest achievement this week has been sticking to it, I didn’t go outside the points once. It was really hard, because I wasn’t prepared, but I stuck to it anyway.

        Hot Mommas

Donna: I love this program so far. The information is great and helpful. The staff is wonderful.The biggest challenge this week was finding the 0% fat items and some of the other items that help in weight loss. My biggest challenge this week was divorcing bread and pasta (maybe someday we can be friends again :) ).

Mari: At first, I wasn’t sure about how I would make it the first week, but today I feel good and “lite”, not bogged down. My biggest challenge this week was getting used to following the program and being able to cook for my family, and being able to plan and organize better. My biggest achievement this week was understanding the program and tools without using my handbook. It almost feels like I’ve been doing this longer than a week as it makes sense and its getting easier.

      Team Turtle

Jessica: I’m feeling good about the program and I’m happy about my progress. My biggest challenge this week was weighing my protein, My biggest achievement has been starting the program and losing weight!

Kevin: I feel awesome. Loosing the weight is allowing me to think about how I will feel if I lose more. My biggest challenge this week was consuming enough food to meet the diet requirements. Learning the portion sizes and dietary control is a learning experience. My biggest achievement this week was loosing the weight that I did. My goal for the following week is to equal or increase the weight loss.

Check back next week to find out how the first week went for the Biggest Losers!

Written by Jodi Murphy

Everyone has a story. That’s the underlying premise for SMITH Magazine’s mission for the Six-Word Memoirs® project that has blown sky high in the blogosphere and in the press. Apparently the idea was drawn from Hemmingway’s legendary (oops, I never heard about it) six-word novel : “For sale: baby shoes, never worn”.

I am really drawn to this concept! In just six words, at any given time, I can write my own personal story about who I am, where I am, right now. Powerful, and a great way to keep in touch with how I’m feeling and track how I’m doing on my journey. So my six word memoir on 2/26/12 (before starting GreenLite Medicine) was:

Holding pattern. Waiting for take off.

Today, I think it’s:

Moving forward and enjoying the ride.

There is a very similar idea put forth by Gretchen Rubin, author of The Happiness Project. She proposes that we keep a one sentence daily journal. For her, it was too difficult to keep up with a journal with lengthy entries so she has committed to writing just one sentence about what happened that day to her and her family.

Other than your GreenLite food tracker, have you found ways to track your transformation? Remember, all you need is just six little words.

Jodi Murphy has written for Gentry, Gentry Design, California Home and Design magazines, as well as several popular blogs. She has developed branding campaigns and marketing programs for clients in a variety of industries including interior design, sports and high-tech. The Journey Back To Me is a special column she is writing for the Greenlite Medicine community. As her articles unroll, and her journey begins, she hopes you’ll join in the conversation.

Juicy grass-fed steak mixed with fresh vegetables make this salad an irresistible summer lunch or dinner to share among family or friends.

Written by Jodi Murphy

On a very lonely day…a day when I felt profoundly anxious and unable to shake the melancholy…I started sorting through the boxes of art, scraps of notes, and whimsical doodles I had collected from my family and friends. One by one, I picked the treasured ephemera up, glancing quickly and hoping that something would warm up my mood and send the blues on their way. Then BAM! There it was, this bright green post-it, another quick note that my daughter (when she was little) was in the steady habit of writing and leaving for me under my bedroom door…

“Mom,

I love you! You are great! You are wonderful!
You are my mom and that is all that matters!

Molly”

I snatched it out of the box and held it to my heart. I have been searching, searching, searching for the meaning of my life and there it was so profoundly written on one post-it note.

I’ve been getting a jump start on my summer reading (I know it seems as though I am digressing here, but stick with me), and I just finished The Weird Sisters. It’s Eleanor Brown’s first novel and she hit the New York Times bestseller list with this endearing story about three sisters who come home to the small college town where they grew up to help their ill mother but more importantly heal themselves.

Reading along at a rather quick pace (It’s REALLY good), there was a passage on page 215 that jumped out and made me pause…

“And hasn’t she had a good life, our mother? Hasn’t she raised children and read good books, and traveled and laughed and had a marriage lasting for, what, thirty-three years?”

And there it was. The message once again, loud and clear.

No matter what I’ve accomplished or will do from here on out, I’ve already got what matters. My daughter and Eleanor told me so.

Jodi Murphy has written for Gentry, Gentry Design, California Home and Design magazines, as well as several popular blogs. She has developed branding campaigns and marketing programs for clients in a variety of industries including interior design, sports and high-tech. The Journey Back To Me is a special column she is writing for the Greenlite Medicine community. As her articles unroll, and her journey begins, she hopes you’ll join in the conversation.

Our Biggest Loser contestants have officially started the GreenLite program this week and they are eager to shake off the weight. Find out how each contestant’s first visit went!

Hot Mommas

Donna: I’m excited!

Mari: I’m excited about starting Greenlite Medicine, feeling better and starting a new life.

Phat Mamas

Linda: I am nervous. I don’t know why. My biggest challenge and achievement this week will be starting the program.

Amelia: My feelings about the program are excited and nervous! I am ready for a change and hope I can get the tools for it! My biggest challenge this week will be being hungry and not knowing what to cook. My biggest achievement is being here!

Team Turtle

Jessica: I am very excited to start this program. My biggest challenge this week will be quitting soda. No achievements yet, just starting.

Kevin: I am feeling anxious to begin this program as I feel it will push me to excel in motivation to lose weight. The biggest challenge this week will be starting the program and making changes in my daily routine.

Check back next week to find out how the first week went for the Biggest Losers!

I am 31 and had gained about 30-40 lbs in the last 3 years. I always have worked out and in the last year, I worked out more than I ever had before and was still the heaviest I have ever been. You always hear that diet and exercise is the key and I thought that I was making healthy eating decisions — for example, I didn’t drink soda or eat junk food. I would buy light Triscuits and make turkey wraps but for some reason, I could not lose the weight. My best friend works at GreenLite Medicine and recommended it, so I decided to give it a try.

I like to do things the hard way, so I started the week before Christmas of 2011. In 4.5 months, I lost 30 lbs and this included Christmas, New Years, a vacation, and a trip back to the east coast. The first month I was a GreenLite angel — I weighed everything and barely drank alcohol. As the months went by, I became a lot more lax because the information provided is engraved.

I choose GreenLite because of the staff and they are AWESOME!!! Nancy is my typical educator but to be honest, I would rather call her a really good friend. Dr. Rugh is very kind and very intelligent. She will sit down with you and talk about any concerns you might have. I feel extremely welcomed and I feel that they are so excited to see my success. GreenLite is not a diet, or a fad, it is education on how to live a healthy life.

Lately, I have been traveling a lot, but in a typical week, I go to the gym about 3 times. I walk at 4.1 mph on the treadmill and lift 8 lb weights while on it. I spend about 45 minutes at the gym and sometimes do circuit training where I do different weights and I always end with sit ups. When it’s nice, I’ll go for a run instead.

I am fortunate to be able to travel often and my last trip was to Puerto Rico where I was in a bathing suit for 80% of the time. Being able to not constantly worry, cover up and dodge cameras made my vacation a thousand times better. I spend a lot of time in a bathing suit, so I would say that I really feel more comfortable…more comfortable in clothes, sitting, everything!

“It is certainly motivating when someone says: “Hey…you look like you’ve lost weight.” But it is downright MAGICAL when someone stops you and says “No seriously…you’ve shrunk. PLEASE tell me your secret. You look AMAZING.” Hitting THAT level, has changed my life. I can wear shirts that say L on the collar instead of XL or the dreaded XXL. THAT means an array of new wardrobe possibilities has opened up. I don’t have to HOPE I’m going to fit that shirt I want, I KNOW I do, and I’m going to look damn good in it too.

Everyone always says “I have more energy” but it’s true. My energy has gone through the roof. Just the other day I sprinted for two blocks to catch a Muni bus and hopped on with wind still in my sales like Will Smith chasing down an alien, as opposed to John Candy chasing down an ice cream truck.

On the less sexy side, my blood pressure is down 20+ points, cholesterol is down 20+ points…blood sugar…triglycerides…all back within manageable parameters. Did I mention how I’m not afraid of the camera anymore? I no longer have to do any of the half-dozen tricks we all keep in our back pocket to make our face look thinner. It IS thinner.

The journey is long, the journey is not without speed bumps, but the journey continues. And for every person that wonders “where to begin” like I did, I offer GreenLite Medicine. If you have ever felt alone in your weight loss struggle or been told that you are “just big, live with it” (yes…I have), there is a solution, and you are already here.

Thank you Sooji, thank you Holly, thank you GreenLite Medicine! 15 pounds down and 6 percent body fat down and counting!”

-Marcus D.

Written by Jodi Murphy

I signed up for a beginning tap class at a dance studio. I noticed the tappers as they took the floor after my daughter’s tiny tots class ended, thinking that as soon as she started kindergarten, I was going to be out there with them. Once a week for one hour, I flapped, tapped, and laughed my way through technique drills and confusing choreography, working my way up to a pretty decent hoofer. I even participated in the annual dance recitals…don’t ask me how they convinced me to perform on stage! But I did, and had a ball doing it too. The one thing I asked is that no one ever show me a photograph or video of me performing. In my mind’s eye, I WAS Ginger Rogers…no, I was Fred…or maybe Gene, and it felt wonderful! I never had dreams of grandeur…I just loved to tap, and there was no reason for reality to get in the way of my profound happiness.

Years passed and our class dwindled…some left due to injury, others moved away, and some felt their bodies just couldn’t handle it anymore.

Now, almost fifteen years later, a tap class started at my workout place and I’m back in the studio again! I’m a bit rusty but I already feel my inner Ginger, Fred and Gene beginning to emerge.

Jodi Murphy has written for Gentry, Gentry Design, California Home and Design magazines, as well as several popular blogs. She has developed branding campaigns and marketing programs for clients in a variety of industries including interior design, sports and high-tech. The Journey Back To Me is a special column she is writing for the Greenlite Medicine community. As her articles unroll, and her journey begins, she hopes you’ll join in the conversation.

Start up the grill with this moist and delicious Thai inspired chicken dish.