Progresso Light Creme Soup Giveaway Winner

Congratulations, Ashlee! Please contact me with your name & mailing address as soon as you can!

Thank you to everyone who entered! I look forward to doing more giveaways in the future.

Progresso Light Creme Soup Review and Giveaway

I had the wonderful opportunity from MyBlogSpark to try out some of Progresso's new light, creamy soups recently. I had the Creamy Potato with Bacon and Cheese and the Light Chicken Pot Pie Style varieties. Now let me just tell you, I am not much of a soup fan. At all. But I did very much enjoy the Potato and Bacon variety. I ate the whole can (which has two servings) for dinner, and felt incredibly full afterward. That has NEVER happened to me when I eat soup. It was creamy and chunky, just how I like my soups.  I was most excited about the Chicken Pot Pie Style because I had been craving chicken pot pie. This soup fell short for me. Unfortunately, I didn't like it at all. What I did love about both of these soups was the calorie content. Each serving is about 2 PointsPlus, about 100 calories per serving!

If you'd like to try them out, today is your lucky day! I'm giving away a gift pack that includes:

2 cans of Progresso Light Creme Soup
A lunch tote
A water bottle
A soup mug and spoon

You'll have the opportunity to earn three entries with this giveaway. Leave me a ONE comment per question:

1. What is your favorite soup?
2. Have you tried Progresso Light Creme Soup before?
3. Leave a comment telling me that you follow my blog or follow my blog and then leave me a comment telling me you did so.

This giveaway will close November 4, 2012 at 1 p.m. central time. US resident only, please!


Disclosure:  The coupons, information, and gift packs have been provided by Progresso^® through MyBlogSpark.

What I've Been Up To

Sorry I haven't been around much. I've been happier lately than I have been in the last six years combined! I've made quite a few friends in the past few months, and it's been a challenge living a healthy lifestyle and balancing work and a social life but I love it so much!

Here's what I've been up to lately:

I ran EIGHT miles.

I've been slacking a bit with my running, and I really felt it during the eight miler. I have planned runs for a reason, and now that I'm getting to higher mileage, I need to ensure that I'm doing the work leading up to running longer distances. Lesson learned.

Halloween happened. I had a few friends over and we spent the night drinking beer, eating pumpkin turkey chili, and laughing. Such a low key and wonderful way to spend the holiday!

I got on the scale for the first time in a long time, and the number was quite frightening. 14 pounds HEAVIER than my lowest weight. This will not do. Lower carbs, medicine taking, 30 Day Shredding, and strength training (along with my running), I'm coming back to you immediately! This weight gain is absolutely unacceptable. I've been feeling fat, ugly, and gross lately. There's no need to feel that way if I'm doing the work that needs to be done to be and feel healthy. It's hard, but there's no room for failure anymore. Besides, it's so much harder to have low self esteem than to eat healthy. I truly cannot see myself going into 2012 weighing more than 215 pounds. I guess I have some lofty goals, so it's definitely time to get started!

It Happened

On Saturday, it happened. I ran 6.5 miles! What more is there to say? I was overcome with tears at the end, so proud of what I had just accomplished. 6.5 miles may as well have been a marathon, because that's what it felt like to me. I'm learning that running, like any exercise, will always be a challenge, especially when longer distances are involved. It will never be easy. Somehow, I'm totally okay with that!

How to Say No!

I've been feeling pretty off lately. Overwhelmed, I am struggling to gain control of my brain which is a jumbled up mess. There is so much swirling around in there and it's hard to keep it organized and quiet. My biggest struggle as of late is trying to balance work, my business, new friends, keeping up my household, staying on budget, training for a half marathon, and staying healthy. It's really hard because I feel like all of this got thrust into my life at the same time with no warning. I try not to complain because I know I should be happy for the wonderful things in my life, but it does make staying healthy really hard. When I started my job in July, I met a girl who is now my total BFF. We spend tons of time together. The problem? She's pregnant. We're always eating when we get together, and the food is almost never healthy. Not by a long shot. I was feeling as though I was doing pretty well this week, but yesterday she was craving buffalo wings, and I completely jumped on board to pig out on wings with her (hey, they were $0.50 each, how could we pass up such a deal?!). Last night, my friend Ben and I went to our favorite San Antonio hangout to catch a free movie. He decided early on to get a beer, so he excused himself and I stayed at our table, enjoying the sweet breezy evening. When he came back, he had a beer in one hand and a pink drink with an orange slice in the other. He bought me a rum punch, my favorite. I graciously accepted and sipped on it, planning to nurse it throughout the entire movie. After a few sips, I entered it into MyFitnessPal (my username is oppositeofthin if you'd like to friend me on there), searching for rum punch. The results made my stomach SINK. The consensus was that 12 ounces of rum punch is 500 calories. 500 calories that I did not want to drink! 500 calories that I did not have available! Luckily, Ben knew as soon as I said that it was 500 calories that I would not want it, so he offered to drink half of it for me. I drank some, but left most of it for him.

I'm struggling with figuring out how to say no to things I do not need to eat in social situations. I don't care if others indulge, this is my struggle, not theirs. I'm just new to this whole "having friends" thing, so I've never had to figure this out. Do you have any advice for me? It would be very much appreciated!!