Urban Remedy - Cindy Crawford's Essentials Meal Plan Review

I have been wanting to do a cleanse for a while now, but since I am not a proponent of doing straight juice cleanses, I wasn't sure what to do. That is until I came across Urban Remedy. Urban Remedy offers a variety of organic, raw, vegan healthy meal plans that are delivered right to your door.

Gilt.com recently had an offer to receive Cindy Crawford's Essentials three-day meal plan, so I bought one.

Source: Urban Remedy

My nicely packed box of goodies arrived via overnight mail. 

The plan comes with three full days of meals and is meant to be started the morning after the box arrives. 

Cindy's Essentials comes with the following 19 items;

Morning Beverage

2 Cold Brew Light

1 Matcha Au Lait

Breakfast 

3 Mint Cacao Chip Shakes

Lunch

Shredded Kale Salad

Zen Salad

Super Green Quinoa

Green Juices
Glow
Genius
Clean

Snacks
Spicy Lemon Sprouted Almonds
Sweet Potato Hummus with Crudite
Superfood Trail Mix

Dinner
Veggie Pad Thai
Mediterranean Quinoa Bowl
Zucchini Pasta with Marinara and Hemp Seed Pesto
Raw Soup

Day 1

Each morning started out with a "meal in a bottle" called the Mint Cacao Chip Shake. This was one of my favorite items of the meal plan and I did not mind having it three times. The ingredients consist of almond, banana, cacao, spinach, cashew, mint, vanilla and stevia. I usually do not like stevia, but I could not even taste it in these shakes.

A few hours later, I tried the morning beverage of the day: Cold Brew Light (coffee beans, filtered water, almond milk). While I am a coffee drinker, I take it sweet and creamer. This drink was too bitter for me, so I added some sweetner to it to make it more palatable.

For lunch, I had the ready-to-eat Zen Salad - napa cabbage, kale, red cabbage, carrots, almonds, carrots, sesame seeds with a salad dressing of rice wine vinegar, toasted sesame oil, olive oil, cilantro, ginger, raw agave, garlic and Himalayan sea salt. Lunch was delicious and very filling. I was so happy with lunch that I was excited for what I would be eating for dinner!

Another thing I liked about this meal plan is that it came with snacks! I actually was not even very hungry, which is not usually the case by mid-afternoon. I munched on the Spicy Lemon Almonds, which I didn't particularly care for and the Glow juice (cucumber, celery, spinach, parsley, kale, E3 live and lemon). E3 live is blue-green algae, btw. I really am a fan of green juices, but I hate making them. It takes so long!

Since I was so happy with lunch, I thought I would like dinner for sure, but I didn't. The Mediterranean Quinoa included quinoa, kale, cucumber, cherry tomato, mint, cilantro, lemon, olive oil, cumin, garlic, cayenne, and Himalayan sea salt. There just seemed to be something missing that would have tied the whole meal together.

Day 2

The morning included the same items as Day 1. 

Lunch was the Shredded Kale Salad - kale, romaine, cucumber, carrots, cabbage, beets, hemp seeds with a salad dressing of olive oil, apple cider vinegar, lemon, garlic and Himalayan sea salt. Lunch goes two for two! It was delicious. 

The day's afternoon snack was the Clean juice (cucumber, celery, spinach, parsley, kale, burdock root, dandelion green and lemon), which tasted oddly similar to yesterday's juice, and the Superfood Trail Mix (sunflower seeds, cashews, goji berries, cacao nibs, pumpkin seeds and inca berries). I had never had inca berries before and I was not a fan. I wound up picking those and the cacao nibs (too bitter) out of the mix. 

Dinner, on the other hand, was a home run. I loved the "Veggie Pad Thai." The "noodles" were made of zucchini, beets, carrots and red peppers with basil, mint and cilantro, and the sauce of coconut cream, almond butter, ginger, Nama shoyu, soy free miso, garlic, lime juice, coconut sugar, cayenne pepper and sea salt was awesome. This was also my first time having zucchini noodles and I am surprised that I am a fan. More surprisingly was that this meal was actually filling!

Day 3 

Day 3 began with the Mint Cacao Chip shake again but was followed up by a Matcha Tea Au Lait instead of Cold Brew Light. I enjoyed this drink much more. 

Like the previous two lunches, I was very happy with the Super Green Quinoa Bowl. The ingredients consisted of quinoa, kale, rainbow chard, swiss chard, dates, red peppers, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic and sea salt. The dates definitely added some much needed sweetness and texture to the bowl. 

My snack for the day was a simple Sweet Potato Hummus and Veggies platter, which was delicious but so easy for me to make myself that I found it disappointing.

Dinner seemed very big on day 3 compared to the other two days because there were two items: Zucchini Fettuccine with Marinara and Hemp Seed Pesto and Raw Soup. The pasta was so bland that I could not finish it, so I was glad that at least I had something else to eat. The soup was made of carrot juice, avocado, ginger, lemon, cayenne pepper, garlic, soy free miso, basil, olive oil, mint and sea salt. It definitely had a kick and was nice and refreshing. 

I was so full throughout the day that I wound up saving my last juice for the weekend. The Genius, again, tasted similar to the other green juices but was made from cucumber, celery, spinach, kale, parsley and lemon.

Overall, the meal plan had highs and lows for me. I loved all of the lunches, the Pad Thai, Matcha Au Lait and Mint Cacao Chip shakes but could do without the other items I received. I also loved that I was eating so healthy these three days and that I felt satisfied and really good the whole time. If I were to order from Urban Remedy again, it would be by mixing and matching to make my own meal plan. 

{Product Review} Vega Sport Pre-Workout Energizer #FuelYourBetter Campaign

How do you #FuelYourBetter? 

That is the question Vega Sport and Fit Approach have posed to me and my fellow Sweat Pink Ambassadors and Vega Bloggers. 

With my busy schedule and constant training, getting through a workout is one thing. Gathering the energy to start the workout or even getting myself out the door is another one entirely! Finding the best way to fuel myself prior to a workout has been a challenge I have struggled with. The wrong fuel makes the workouts themselves unnecessarily grueling. Sometimes I even have cut them short for this very reason.

That is why I chose the Vega Sport Pre-Workout Energizer for my product review. 

If you remember my review of Vega One's Nutritional Shakes, you will remember that Vega was created by an endurance athlete who subscribes to a plant-based diet. Likewise, the Vega Sport line of products is plant-based. 

For this campaign, I received a box of 12 single packs of the Pre-Workout Energizer in Acai Berry flavor.

I love that they come individually packaged, so that I can take with me on the go. They are perfect for me to take in the late afternoon before my after-work gym time.

I recently got a shaker cup, so I filled it up and added a pack of the powder to it. Then I gave it a good shake. While the directions say to use 8 ounces of water, I used a bit more because I wanted to dilute the flavor for my own taste.

I love my shaker cup! As you can see, the consistency is quite good and there were not any lumps to be found.

I found myself shocked by the taste! It was actually not too bad, and I can definitely see myself being able to drink these without any problems. 

The only downside to my experience with the Pre-Workout Energizer is that I am currently forbidden from working out! I was accepted into this campaign before my surgery, and I am still under doctor's orders of no exercise...at all. 

One thing I am allowed to do is go on walks, so I used the drink prior to my daily jaunts around the block. Energy is something that I have definitely been lacking in my recovery. 

What's my take? While I haven't had a chance to see if the Pre-Workout Energizer gives me sustained energy and increased endurance, they have helped fuel my walks around the block. I like the consistency and the flavor is fine. Once I get the okay from my doctor to begin exercising again, I will definitely be testing the drink out some more.  

To learn more about Vega Sport's Fuel Your Better campaign, visit here. 

Disclosure: Through my affiliation with Fit Approach, I received one box of Vega Sport Pre-Workout Energizer from Vega for the purpose of this review. No compensation was received. All opinions are my own. Read my full disclosure here. 

{Product Review} Sunshine Burgers

Who else has been glued to the television over the last week? I love the Olympics and have been keeping up with snowboarding, downhill skiing and other events as much as I can. Having the long weekend and huge dump of snow have made it a bit easier than it otherwise would have been. 

Being stuck at home, catching the latest broadcast means having some quick and easy meals ready to make at home a necessity. Lucky for me, I had a huge supply of Sunshine Burgers arrive just in time for the Winter Olympics! 

Sunshine Burger is a line of vegan burgers made with non-genetically modified, organic ingredients. These burgers are a great source of plant-based protein and are gluten, wheat, soy, corn, oat, dairy, egg, peanut and tree nut free. 

Sunshine Burger sent me a selection of their most popular flavors, including Garden Herb, Loco Chipotle, Black Bean South West, Falafel, Shiitake Mushroom and Hemp & Sage Breakfast. 

For dinner one night, I decided to make some veggie burritos using the Sunshine Burger patties. 

Sunshine Burger Burrito

1 Garden Herb Sunshine Burger patty

1 Shiitake Mushroom Sunshine Burger patty

1 can of vegetarian refried beans

1 avocado

1 tomato

shredded Mexican blend cheese

4 flour tortillas

I thawed the patties and then crumbled them by hand before heating them through on the stove. Raisin Bread and I then built our own burritos with all of the accroutrements!

I have also been using the Sunshine Burgers to make quick and easy veggie burgers for lunch.

A Quick Lunchtime Burger
1 Sunshine Burger patty of your choice
1 burger bun
lettuce mix
cheese
avocado
chili (optional)

For the burger below, I used the Loco Chipotle patty, which is a quarter pound patty and has a ton of flavor and a great kick to it. I went all out with it and added some vegetarian chili to my burger.

I found both recipes super tasty. Raisin Bread, on the other hand, was not a fan of the texture of the meatless burgers. On the negative side, I found the patties to be pretty fragile. Just moving them from the microwave on to a bun caused the patties to crumble. Overall, though, I really love the taste of the patties that I have tried thus far, especially the Black Bean South West.

Find stores selling Sunshine Burgers near you here.

To learn more about Sunshine Burger, visit them:

On the web: www.sunshineburger.com

Facebook: Facebook.com/sunshineburger

Twitter: @sunshineburger

Disclosure: Through my affiliation with Fit Approach, I received complimentary product from Sunshine Burger for the purpose of this review. No compensation was received. All opinions are my own. Read my full disclosure here.