Health Fair fun

Yesterday was my company's annual Health Fair. I LOVE the Health Fair, and I go every year. I really like that my company does this for us- I feel that they do a really good job of promoting health, fitness, and nutrition to employees- they offer healthy choices in all of our cafeterias- low-fat and low-sodium meals, whole grains, low-fat cheeses for sandwiches, soy milk, a nice salad bar, baked chips, sushi, etc.; we get discounts at a variety of gyms and Weight Watchers, and get reimbursed $150 at the end of the year if we go to a gym/fitness center a certain amount of times per year (I take advantage of that every year!), a gym on main campus; intramural sports teams, etc. I feel that they do a really great job of health promotion where I work, even if not everyone uses it to their benefit.

This year's fair did not disappoint! There were tons of booths with great information... and more importantly, lots and lots of free goodies!  :-)   I collected a ton of great info/pamphlets about a variety of topics, including:

*Yoga (where I scored two free issues of Yoga Living)

*Ways to squeeze in exercise/toning at your desk

*How to stress less/decompress/relieve stress/deep breathing techniques (I noticed this was a very prevalent topic at many different booths... I wonder if my company thinks we're a little stressed out??? Haha)

*How to get a more and restful sleep at night

*Coping with anger/anxiety

*Tips for a better posture/healthy back

And all sorts of fun goodies... recipes, travel first-aid kits, computer mousepads, pedometers, magnets, pens, highlighters, etc. They also gave away snacks- Snackwell's Cookies and Fig Newton Fruit Crisps- which I took, and then took a closer look ingredients, and lo and behold, what did I see on each and every one of these? High fructose corn syrup, as well as a bunch of other scary-sounding ingredients. Yuck. I don't want to just throw them out, because that's wasteful, but I don't necessarily want to eat them, either, so maybe my sister might want them. Or another coworker.

What does your company do in terms of health promotion for its employees, if anything? Do you wish they would do more? Less? (Is it possible to do less, LOL?)

That's about the most exciting thing that's happened to me this week. Still reading Falcon Crest. It's so bad that it's good, you know what I mean? The plot is over-the-top, the characters and the dialogue are flat-out ridiculous.... but not in that "God-this-is-the-worst-book-I've-ever-read" way, but rather the "guilty-pleasure-twenty-five-cent-drugstore-paperback-romance-novel" way... get the difference there?  :-D   I really don't know if it was even worth $2. Fifty cents, maybe. But it's amusing me wildly. I wonder what the TV show was like!  :-D

In food news, I've tried some new food products this week that brought newfound joy into my life:

*Gardenburger Savory Portobello Mushroom Burger- I'm not sure if these are new on the market or new to me, but yeah, I totally dig them! I've already had two and decided that I like it better with salsa than I do with horseradish hummus (although both were delightful). But the salsa really complimented the cheesy mushroomy goodness of the burger. Tonight's sweet potato dinner was a happy party in my tummy indeed:

*I also tried an interesting new combo for dessert last night, busting open my new Kozy Shack No-Sugar Added Rice Pudding that I bought last week:

Please excuse the not-so-pretty picture... I never claimed to have photography skills. Anyhow, this was a container of rice pudding, mixed with some Kashi Honey Sunshine, cinnamon, and a teeny tiny sprinkle of vanilla whey protein powder for satiety love. This was a winner!!!! I'm so glad I have three more containers of this! Although I'm not feeling it tonight... no, I'm feeling chocolate tonight... might be time to break into that Chocolate Vitatop stash in the freezer.... mmmm... chocolate....

*Last but not least- nor is this a new product, but it's new to my life- I have been introduced to the pleasure that is no-sugar-added natural chunky applesauce. Laugh all you want at how simple this discovery is. I don't care.  :-D  I've been buying the smooth/non-chunky kind my whole adult life, because that's what I grew up on, but then I saw this at Wegmans and figured, what the hell. Live a little. And I LOVE it! It's soooo much better than the smooth kind. Chunks of apple right there to chew and enjoy? Yes, please! This reminds me of when I tried chunky natural peanut butter for the first time  (I grew up on smooth), and after one bite, I knew I could never, ever go back to the smooth operator side, nor did I want to. See a pattern here? Although in my defense, I didn't even know they made chunky no-sugar natural applesauce. How about you? Have you ever tried a really simple/well-known product that you had never tried before and realized, where has this been all my life???

Hope you all had a nice Hump Day! We're halfway there.... (cue "Livin' on a Prayer Here")

Time to go catch up on blogs... later, gators!  :-D