text: Success Along the Weigh: September 2017
  It's FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII-DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!
  Now that I've blinded you with my excitement for the weekend, let's do si do on into...
  50 Daily Habits of Naturally Thin People (I'm taking a cue from a few of these...need to do more.)
  If You've Ever Cried About Losing Weight, You Need to Read This Post (Whose crying? I'm not crying. *sniff*)
  This Is How Much Cardio You Should Be Doing If You Want to Lose Weight (Does clean eating include apple donuts? I'm asking for a friend.)
  The Fascinating Link Between Walnuts and Weight Loss (I don't know about fascinating but a link nonetheless.)
  Are You Taking Probiotics the Wrong Way? A Dietitian Weighs In (I will say this, I took it according to this article and (TMI alert) I thought about Facetiming a doctor after my void to ask if the volume should scare me.)
  Can You Really Lose Fat and Gain Muscle Simultaneously? (Always kind of makes me giggle when someone is nice enough to try to say my scale gain was probably muscle. I'm benching 50, not 250.)
  The 9 Most Toxic Items In Your Kitchen (I think some are a little over the top but still enough to consider.)
  The Negative Effect Binge Watching Has on Your Health (Pay attention Netflixers!)
  Research Shows Eliminating Meat From Your Diet Can Help You Lose Weight Twice as Fast (Oy, I'm not giving up my cluckers and oinks on occasion but I can throw a few extra meatless meals in there)
  Pink's Empowering Message to Her Daughter Is One Everyone Needs to Hear (So sad she even had to say it in the first place.)
  What a Foo Believes: The Sweet Life and Rock & Roll Faith of America's Biggest Band (Excellent article with Dave Grohl. Could I love him even more? Their new album Concrete and Gold (affiliate link) just dropped last week. I listened to some samples and it sounds solid. Mr...download it.)
  It's Electric! Dave Grohl meets Lars Ulrich on Beats 1 [Full Interview] (Apparently yes, I can love him more! GREAT interview even if you think Lars is a gum flapper...he actually lets Dave talk. NSFW for language)
  We were supposed to go apple picking tonight but the gross hot temps have turned us off to that. So much for the first day of autumn. Pffft. We're going next Friday when it's supposed to be much cooler. In the meantime, I've got to grab a wedding gift for a friend getting married next weekend. Since our own, we've only been to two other weddings. Are people just not getting married anymore or are we just not invited? LOL
  (This post contains an affiliate link. Should you be awesome enough to buy through it, I may receive a small commission at no cost to you! You rock! But you know that.)
  I feel it my duty as a self-designated Fall freak to get you all well prepared for the arrival of Autumn tomorrow afternoon with this bowl of deliciousness to start off your day.
  Oats (or plain quinoa if you prefer but it should be pre-cooked)
  Cardamom or Pumpkin Spice
  Measure out one serving of rolled oats.
  Add 4 ounces of milk.
  Give it a spin around the turntable in the microwave for 1 minute.
  Add 2 tbsp of pumpkin butter.
  Give it a mix, add a pinch of cardamom or your favorite Fall spice and stir.
  Top it with half a serving of walnuts or pecans (15g) and pair it with a cup of salted caramel tea and you are officially ready to usher in the new season!
  Now bring on the sweatshirts, fuzzy socks, cuddling under a blankie on a crisp night and blazing red, yellow and orange on the trees!
  About 2 years ago, I was looking for Hawaii videos on YouTube. I saw that this family was there and they were on vacation. Their kids were adorable, the parents were tolerable and they were apparently daily family vloggers. I watched probably five or six videos and then of course, like potato chips, you start blowing through them. (Video wise.) Before I knew it, they just became part of my daily watching along with one other makeup guru that I'd been following since she was about 24 (she's 30 now).
  The other day the dad on the family channel casually commented about how he's noticing that his son will sit and "stare at himself in the mirror all the time, even when he's crying- is that weird?" Um, yes. For a normal kid that has a shot at growing up with normal social cues but you guys have shoved a camera in his face for half of his life and he's three. He's been trained that everything he does is observed and given some of the over the top stuff they do for views (which totally turns us off now), I'm sure he's overheard conversations about how they need to be more this or that for views. For him, his reflection is what is always there as he communicates with his parents and so now he's hyper-aware of everything he says and does and has even started addressing the camera as "hey viewers, watch this"...again, he's three. The oldest is in elementary and there has been a recent conversation that she may be getting ostracized by her peers because she's "famous." This is only going to get worse for her as she gets older and especially as parents feed info about them to their kids with a nice, unhealthy bias against her because of things her parents do and say. (You know how parents can be. We've all learned behavior from our parents and it's not always the healthiest of attitudes.) They have another child that has literally been filmed out of the womb and whenever the camera is out, it begins to dance and perform to some degree.
  The other vlogger that I've followed is the sweetest girl and she had a baby three years ago and he is also very aware of the camera. He is adorable and I love watching him but I get so disturbed when I see him fighting for screen time on the vlog when she's doing something. He likes to look at himself on the screen and talks to it. Obviously, he has no real concept of what he's talking to other than himself because she makes sure he's not aware that there are "people" on the other end of it. She rarely does beauty vlogs anymore and I surely don't expect her to because her children are her life now and that's totally understandable. I still enjoy watching her family.
  But now I'm starting to feel like I'm contributing to a problem. As I see these kids are becoming so absorbed in themselves to varying degrees, I start to really cringe thinking about how much therapy they may need as they transition into teens and adulthood. I mean, think of how embarrassing it was as a kid when you had your graduation party and they brought out the nekkid bathtub pics. Well, just your close family and friends saw that and that was bad enough. Now think about social media. So many people have hundreds of friends on Facebook or Instagram and parents think nothing about posting some seriously private or embarrassing stuff because "oh isn't that funny?" or "oh, I'm so going to remind them of this when they're older." Those things are out there forever. For-ever. No one is asking the kid if they wanted the picture of them taking a wee against a tree (yep, seen it) or the "cute" video of them throwing a tantrum when they were having a bad day. If they don't have their profile locked down, then not only can their friends see this stuff but friends of friends. Now we're talking thousands of potential people seeing it.
  Now put it on YouTube where your kid's bad behavior or awkward moment can be scrutinized and commented on by potentially millions if it goes viral not just on the video but I'm sure even in person. A lot of these family vloggers go to conferences or meet and greets with fans and people will talk about a video they loved or were appalled by or whatever. Can you imagine your childhood being up for anyone to comment on? I'm not judging these parents for their decision to share their families, that's their right. But as I'm starting to notice these social issues coming up in videos, it makes me feel weird watching it now. I don't know, maybe I'm overthinking things but I think kids are picked apart enough as is but you add internet fame on top of it and we may be looking at some real problems on so many levels in the years to come.
  A few searches have shown that there is concern about these kids having general anxiety disorder and then there's stuff like this that truly makes me think that yes, there is a problem.
  Do you watch family vloggers? Do you think kids appearances should be limited until they can choose for themselves?
  Food Review: Organic Soft Baked Salted Caramel Brownies
  When we were doing our grocery re-stock last weekend, I came upon these in the organic section and thought they looked pretty good so we decided to give them a go.
  Especially once I saw the nutritional info and read the ingredients...
  (NOTE: There are TWO SERVINGS per sleeve so you're not having a 60 calorie treat, you're having a 120 calorie one.)
  Here's their schtick.
  They kind of reminded me of fig newtons size wise.
  Hmm, they look a little bigger than fig newtons on the box and I'm also not seeing the squishy goodness the front and back of their boxes promised.
  So that didn't get off to a good start but how did they taste?
  Despite feeling like the size, contents and the way the nutritional info was presented weren't representative of what was on the box, I admit, they were pretty good. It would've been better of course if it had the chocolate, squishy goodness I was promised. Also, I'm not really sure I taste salted caramel but I suppose I'd need to compare them to the regular chocolate ones to see if there's much difference taste wise. (Darn.)
  You won't mistake this for a Ghirardelli brownie but if you need a chocolate fix, this could be just the thing to scratch that itch. The cocoa powder gives a nice, deep chocolate flavor. I could've sworn there were figs in there but there is date paste. You know how you have that bit of fibrous texture with that stuff? It was there but not overly so or enough to turn you off. In the end, if you want a 120 calorie chocolate snack that's pretty healthy overall, this could be your new go to. We'll likely get the original chocolate version to compare and then decide if they're something they'd get on the regular. Thumbs up from us...even if I'm jaded about the lack of squish. ;-)