I’ve resisted buying the iPhone for three reasons.

A) It’s freakin expensive.
B) EVERYONE has one and, well, I just don’t want to be like everyone else.
C) If my boss was to find out I have internet access at all times, she will think it’s OK to email me outside office hours.

But recently I spent hours, yes hours, playing with my friend’s iPhone: I visited FMyLife.com, I Facebook-stalked, I discovered there are health and fitness applications! It was the most fun I’ve ever had.

So before I bite the bullet and buy one of these suckers, I want to share my fave nutrition and fitness-related apps with you. Read More »

Granola is a tricky little bugger. Sure, it seems like the healthiest choice to pick at the dining hall in comparison to the other less-than-appealing options, but the truth is that granola can pack a ton of fat and calories if you’re not careful. Like, you’re-better-off-eating-the-Lucky-Charms kinda calories. Luckily, a new company (and my new obsession) has provided a solution: customized granola mixes.

Yup, that’s right! At mixmygranola.com, you choose every single thing that goes into your very own special mix.

How does it work? There are four easy steps:

First, you pick your base (options are organic granola, french vanilla granola, organic muesli and low fat granola), and then you can add in dried fruits (I chose dried mangos, bananas and raspberries…yum!) and nuts (omega-3 rich flax seeds for me). To top it off, if you want to add some treats to the mix, pick from “extras” such as gummy bears, yogurt covered pretzels and chocolate chips.

And that’s all! Just click to order and within a few days, you’ll have a (large) container of ready-to-go granola. Mine came within two days after I placed the order and I must say, it is delicious. It even has the exact nutritionals for my personalized mix pasted right on the side so I know exactly what I’m eating, unlike when I pour a fatty bowl of the stuff in the caf. I just measure the stuff into single serving plastic baggies and grab and go on my way to class. Easy, healthy, delicious.

OMG I’m so in love. And you can start your very own love affair with mixmygranola. CollegeCandy linked up with the men behind the blend and are giving a $25 gift certificate to a very lucky granola-lovin’ CollegeCandy reader. Just tell us, in the comments below, what your ideal granola combo would be and we’ll pick a winner. You have until 5pm on Tuesday, April 14th to get your entry in. We’ll announce the winner on Wednesday, April 15th.

Yay granola!

[Jill has been dabbling in the 4 Day Diet and sharing her journey with us. We saw her first week and the challenges she faced on week 2. Here, she shares her recent diet tribulations.]

This week started out great. I made a pump-me-up playlist and have been hitting the gym like nobody’s business. I’ve pushed myself to run that extra few minutes or try a new machine; I may or may not have even snuck in a workout of dancing in my apartment, underwear on, microphone (hairbrush) in hand. Hey, a calorie burned is a calorie burned, my friends, and burning calories to “We Built this City on Rock and Roll” is just a lot more fun than an extra squat.

However, as the week continued, I discovered what I didn’t like about this diet and why I have never liked diets in the past that tell you what to eat day by day. While I enjoy the food suggested for each daily plan, there are no options or guidelines for situations where those foods aren’t available. And let’s not forget that outside of diet books, real life happens. Read More »

Some “buttah” is exactly what dietician Edith Blum recommends in her new book, Eat, Drink, and Be Gorgeous, which claims that eating full-fat foods instead of fat-free foods can help you lose weight!

So what does this mean?

Chocolate every day? Check.

Cocktails? Check.

Cheese, chocolate cake, biscuits, avocado, whole milk, chips, and sorbets? Check, check, and check.

This “no-diet diet” allows you to enjoy the foods you love that are usually condemned by the common fad diets that we occassionally follow. Or try to follow, at least. But lemon water, cabbage soup, and a crate full of bananas just aren’t realistic methods of losing weight in the long run. Blum advises us to forget our traditional beliefs of what good foods and bad foods are, and focus on the nutritional qualities of each food instead.

On food:

Fat is good; we need cholesterol and certain saturated fats to make and regulate our hormones, so we can avoid depression and even cancer. Quality trumps quantity in importance, Blum stresses, so certain “fabulous fats” found in nuts, seeds, and olive oil should be ingested at every meal, while “frankenfats” such as those in low-fat, low-cholesterol spreads and margarines should be banned from your diet to ward off headaches and and joint aches. Eat egg yolks in conjunction with egg whites, and don’t say no to that little voice in your head that screams for a smear of hot butter on warm toast. Starchy foods like rice, beans, and corn are also good for you, as well as the occasional cocktail, as long as there’s no sugar. Read More »

I hate diets. I do. I don’t believe in them. I think diets just lead to breaking diets which leads to eating a whole lot of pizza and then feeling guilty about it. And I don’t think anyone should feel guilty for indulging in the deliciousness that is pizza every now and then.

So imagine my own surprise when I found myself buying a copy of Dr. Ian Smith’s new “diet” The Four Day Diet last week.

Fact is, these past two years, I have been in a constant fight with my weight. It goes up 5 pounds it goes down 4 it goes up 3 it goes down 1. It fluctuates more than Christina Aguilera’s voice on any given song. I can’t seem to successfully lose and keep off these last couple of pounds. Even though I do eat pretty healthy. Even though I workout 5-6 days a week. Even though I know the importance of complex carbs. And lots of veggies. And fiber. Oh boy do I know about fiber. I’ve read it all – I know the spiels.

So after realizing that complaining about the lack of results doesn’t do me any good and just makes those around me more miserable, I decided that I wanted to do something to give my body (and my metabolism) the real kick in the ass that it needs. Something to get back on track, clean my act up a bit to start seeing progress again. I know it’s cliché to start some sort of weight loss resolution in January, but here it goes. I’m trying it out. And blogging about it for you here.

The 4 Day Diet drew me in because it seems simple. And it’s just that- only 4 days. Well, 4 days at a time. There are 7 modules each lasting for only 4 days. Surely I can stick to something for 4 days! It works out perfectly: just when you get sick of eating one way you switch it up. Read More »

Forget your regularly scheduled Wednesday night TV. It’s Obama (half) hour!

The tabloids are all over Jennifer Hudson.

The economy for dummies.

You don’t have to break the bank on a winter coat…

Fad diets are out. Calorie counting is back, bitches.

I have a feeling Brad isn’t cheating on Angelina…

PETA really hates the Olsens….

Some people think drinking too much is unattractive.

Our newest eye shadow obsession.

These Halloween costumes make us barf.

Yikes, that doesn’t look appetizing.

Let’s be honest: when I get home at the end of a long day of work and classes and studying, the last thing I want to do is whip up a fancy meal for myself. Sometimes, I just need something fast and simple. But after a few months of take-out and pizza and dining-hall food, I realized that I was sacrificing my waistline for the sake of convenience.

What’s a calorie-counting busy girl to do?

Embrace the frozen entrée. I know, I know. Frozen entrees make me think of my Mom and Weight Watchers and scary-looking meat products in soupy liquids. No thanks.

However, there are some delicious frozen meals out there if you know where to look. The best part? Every last calorie and carb and gram of fat and milligram of sodium is right on the box, so you know exactly what you’re getting. To top it all off, they provide us with something this entire country is severely lacking—portion control. You shouldn’t need a hamburger the size of your head just to feel satisfied—frozen meals are a great way to teach yourself what is considered normal (the measurement for a normal serving of protein is the size of your fist…not your head).

Since I’ve become somewhat of a connoisseur of the frozen meal, I thought I’d round up a few of my favorites, for your thawing pleasure: Read More »

As a self-professed health nut and calorie counter, I had a hard time in college justifying the amount of empty calories I was intaking with beer. I never was a big beer drinker, even though everyone told me I would get used to it after awhile. I always thought it tasted horribleand wasn’t worth the calories.

Well, girls, it’s time to REJOICE because Miller Brewing Company has just now caught on to the calorie cutting trend. A 64 calorie beer is set to roll out at the beginning of March.

64 calories! That’s a huge calorie reduction compared to the typical beer.

If you do the math, one standard 12 oz. beer comes in around 150 calories. So, if you drink the forthcoming Miller Genuine Draft Light 64, you can have roughly two and a half beers

for the amount of calories you would typically have in just one can of the normal stuff.

According to the Busines Journal, “The new brew, which contains a mere 64 calories, will be available in Wisconsin, Illinois, Iowa, Nebraska, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky, North Dakota and South Dakota beginning March 1.”

If only they had created this a year ago when I was still in college…Oh well, I’d say a 64 calorie beer is still something to drink to. Cheers!

“I want to be skinny.”

That thought probably floats through my head a few hundred times a day. And the truth is I’m not overweight. Not even close really. But I just want to be thinner than I am, like 10 pounds thinner.

Do I need to lose weight for health reasons? No.

Am I totally out of shape? Nope.

So what gives? Why do I insist on being so un-accepting of my body?

Probably because I have this innate desire to be perfect, to strive for that unattainable “perfect,” hot celebrity body, that is the result of a) a super intense trainer and nutrition coach, which I will never be able to afford or b) a combination of drugs (no thanks) + an eating disorder.

Now I’ve never had an eating disorder, but I must admit I’ve treaded quite close to the edge with some serious calorie counting, not to mention borderline obsessive exercising. But most recently, since I’m perusing the web a lot (who isn’t?), I’ve stumbled upon the term “thinspiration.”

I’m sure many of you have heard of this. But since I hadn’t yet, I did some more digging, which led me to a TON of anorexia blogs, pro-anorexia websites, insane dieting tactics to avoid eating at all costs, YouTube videos that flash images of reallllly skinny girls so that they’ll “thinspire” you… the list goes on.

At first I was totally shocked and horrified by how mental the girls who create this sh*t are. But then, I became intrigued. Read More »

Based on everything you hear, see, read, and study, you might think that there is some super secret to losing weight.

Take a moment to think and it is easy to come up with at least 10 different diets:

South Beach…Atkins…Weight Watchers…L.A. Weight Loss…The Cabbage Soup Diet…The Juice Diet…The Cookie Diet…Medical Weight Loss…The Zone…That one where you order the food…

If only losing weight were as easy as a simple equation.

Oh, wait. It is: burn more calories than you eat.

Makes you feel stupid, right? I mean, I have personally spent the past 10 years battling my weight. I go up, I go down, I plateau. I’ve done cardio, weights, pilates, yoga. I have spun, I have run, I have swam. I guess I am just not good with math and equations because I am still battling the bulge.

Besides my addiction to all things cake related, my biggest problem is that I just don’t know how many calories I am burning. Sure, the elliptical has a calorie count, but who knows how accurate that is?

Thankfully, there is a handy new tool on the market to help all of us with our weight loss battle. Introducing the Bodybugg. Read More »