I believe the most "acceptable" of the Quest Bars are 2 from the natural line, made with Stevia: The chocolate peanut butter and the strawberry cheesecake.

Bump!

I love these bars. This time around with IP Alt, i'm using a bar as my snack instead of an EAS shake.

Why didn't I find them before?

These are my favorites so far:
Chocoloate PB, Strawberry Cheesecake, Lemon ?

As someone who is allergic to almonds, the chocolate PB bar is the ONLY Quest bar that does not contain almonds (I had the guy at GNC help me read all the ingredients for every bar!) I'm using it as a restricted on my alternative plan.

Until the end of February at GNC, a box of Quest bars are $25 if you have a membership! I'm stocking up!

I bought the Quest protein powder in Peanut Butter as I am trying not to use bars for the first few weeks back on IP. I read on 3FC that someone felt this protein powder kept them feeling fuller longer plus the taste was excellent...so I tried it yesterday and love it. And the combo of casein protein (slower digesting protein) and whey (faster digesting protein) worked well for me. A nice and easy bar replacement.

My problem with bars is that if I have one, I want a second...so if I can wean myself away from the bars, I'm better off. I can be moderate with the protein powders.

Wishing all a good day!

Tried the Quest vanilla shake today and love it - whips up very nicely - kind of fluffy - didn't even taste the spinach in it. Best vanilla shake I've tried.

I'm going to have to try the PB shake, since I am a PB addict. Went with vanilla first just because it's more adaptable to adding my instant coffee in the morning. (Though maybe I should try instant coffee in the PB shake - could be good.)

I also got a box of the bars with stevia - so far all are good.

Cross postd from the alt thread
 

Quest chips are NOT restricted :)
You can have them twice per day if you want!

However not all Quest Bars would be a regular restricted.
Some would be super-restricted (once/weekly) - or not at all, due to calorie count, fat count, or carb count.

Read your labels carefully. If it is over 30% fat or over 200 calories, this would not be a regular restricted. You can find all the info you need to evaluate a product in Post #1 of this thread.

Specifically regarding the Cookies and Cream bar:
It is 180 calories
60 from fat.
Depending on your math, that is 33% fat or 30%

Most accurate math:
Fat calories/total calories * 100 = percentage of fat
60/180 * 100 = 33.33%

Some people use a simpler approach:
Calories from fat x 3 (not exact but close enough for a quick calculation).

Personally, I would call this bar a super-restricted because it is over 30% fat.
The S'mores one ROCKS but save it for maintenance. It is almost 40% fat.
And the Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough flavor is 37% fat.

My personal favorite regular-restricted Quest bars are the Cinnamon Roll, Double Chocolate Chunk (31% fat but only 160 cals), and Chocolate Peanut Butter. I also like the Strawberry Cheesecake. I've never developed a taste for the Lemon Cream Pie bar, which is also one of their lower calorie bars.

Some people consider the (few) Quest Bars with 160 calories to be non-restricted. But since fat content is almost 30%, I choose to call them restricted.

I think your assessment of the Quest bars is a smart one, Lisa.

I missed getting to my clinic before going out of town a couple of weeks ago, but I was able to buy some quest bars and chips at the GNC while in Hilton Head Island, SC. I decided to try the Apple Pie bar - it is
180 calories
50 calories from fat, or 27% Fat content
25 grams of Carb and 18 grams of Fiber... net carbs are 7 (some would subtract the sugar alcohols too but I don't do that)
20 grams Protein

I would love to consider it to be unrestricted but it also has 4 g of Sugar, and at 180 calories, it just seems like it's smarter to consider it Restricted.

However - can I tell you how totally YUMMY this bar is when you split it lengthwise, cut each of those strips into 4 pieces and put all 8 on a cookie sheet at 350 for 9 minutes? Best little cookies - they smell like apple pie as when you open the oven after they have baked, and the texture changes from that sorta 'Turkish Taffy' or Nougat-like texture, to an actual cookie texture. As they cool from the oven, they become chewy like a brownie or other bar cookie.... is your mouth watering yet? Mine is!!!

And I have tried baking every flavor I of quest bar that I have purchased - the Chocolate Chunk and the Cinnamon Bun both bake up into yummy cookies - as do the super restricted... I plan to make these my go to sweet treats in maintenance. The baked Quest bars satisfy my sweet tooth so well because cookies are my very favorite food on the planet.

The chewy taffy-ness of the Quest bars is what I like about them, they last so long and are very flavourful too. In fact, the chewier the better for me, lol.
Liana

I just started eating Quest bars to save money on my one box of restrictives, my thing is eating a S'Mores flavored one every morning with my coffee, I eat it super slow and I have a weird way I eat it, for some reason I really like to bite of tiny chunks with my front teeth, I dont know why it just feels good, lol. It keeps me stuffed for hours!!! Its been the best breakfast item for me and it has not affected my weight in a bad way, 4 net carbs in that flavor. Im working out A LOT lately too so the Quest bars seem to be a good pre-workout snack.

Did you see my post that the S'mores flavor is high fat and would be a super-restricted (once/week) on IP P1?

Interesting conflicting opinions there. While I would agree 100% with Lisa on the super restriction based on the fat percentage, I'm also inclined to agree with AlaskanRN because it's part of a planned workout.

I know that on days when I am hungry I tend to have a lower fat macro rather than carb. On days when I increase my fat macro I have less hunger (oh, and this is GYM days, not regular ones).

While the body WILL process dietary fat as readily as carbs, it won't produce the insulin response at the same rate.

Alaskan - do you track your body fat percentage at all? I'd be interested to know what your WI to WI changes are on BF% to clarify, if you'd be willing to share. :)

Hi everyone,
Trying to start ip on my own this time and i ordered a box of Double Choco Chunk quest bars!! Turns out they have changed their fat%. Does this mean I can't use them for phase 1 at all:( As restricted /day even?
Thank you!

Hiya, Aria05: The Quest bars are pretty high in fat now... although in Canada (at least my end of it, lol) they still haven't changed the fibre type to (non-GMO) corn that they were planning on/have done in the States.
The way to figure out if they are on plan for you is to multiply the fat grams by 9 to get calories and see what percentage of the total calorie count it is. It should not be more than 30%

Lemon Pie, Cinnamon Bun, and Coconut Cashew are probably in that OK range. Almost all of the others have double the amount of fat that those three do.
Quote from page one of "Quest Bar as an Alternative":
You go by net carbs (total carbs minus dietary fiber). 8g or less is unrestricted, 9g-16g is restricted, 17g is very restricted.

Alternatives should also be under 200 calories, less than 30% total calories from fat, and at least 12-15g protein.

Liana

Thank you SO much for your reply, Liana! blah... i really really loved double chocolate chunk:( Guess I will be sticking to their Chips and protein shakes! I hope they have not messed with them !!!

Thoughts on Invocare as an alternative for IP???

I saw an end cap at Wal Mart filled with Queste bars. I didn't check them out yet, though....I'll find out the price & flavors that are in stock & then I'll research to see if any will work for me. I'm trying to stay away from restricted items.

Just a bit of warning.... they have been reformulated with more fat and a different kind of fibre so there are few options that fit IP phases (except Maintenance of course, lol). The main thing to watch out for is the number of calories and the percentage of calories from fat. To be useful for IP weight loss phases they need to be LESS THAN 30% calories from fat.
Each fat gram is 9 calories so you can figure it out from there.
For instance Lemon Pie (you either hate this one or really like it) is 180 calories, 45 of which are from fat (25%) so it's a YES. On the other hand Vanilla Almond Crunch is 210 calories and 81 are from fat (39%), so NOPE.

Really watch out which formulation you get if you are in Canada as some have the new higher fat formula, but not in all areas. :mag:

In the US you have very few of their flavours as an allowed choice due to this new formula - supposedly to make the bars softer and more appealing.

Liana

Quest bars
 

Hello! First post. I am in the middle of week three of my reboot using alternative products. I have been using Quest bars as my restricted item but only eating half....wondering if I could eat the whole thing? Would be awesome to have half in the afternoon and half at night. Is everyone losing while eating a whole quest bar a day? Thank you so much in advance!

reboottake1: If it's the old formula bar that meets requirements you have to eat the entire bar otherwise you're shorting yourself protein. So, yes, eat half and half!