I have been going back and reading all the threads on this board and I noticed what people do for substitutes. I dont want to rely on the bars for the Weight loss and I dont want to spend $32 a week more. I did eat 2 of the variety pack bars today and I thought the lemon one was great. I did not like the one I ate this evening. ANYWAY, when I was at Target today I decided to buy a Luna Lemon Zest (79 cents a bar) and brought it home to compare ingredients and nutrional information and WOW! Maybe this is stuff you already have discussed in the past but I am new and I am trying to take control of my intake of foods.
LAWL Luna
calories 190 180
calories from fat: same 35
total fat:same 4
sat fat 2.5g 3g
Cholesterol 5mg 0mg
sodium 85mg 150mg Only a 2% difference
carbs 30g 26g
Fiber 0 3
Sugars 19g 10g
protein 8g 10g
What surprises me most with this is: The amount of sugars are so much less and there is fiber in the Luna bars. I was looking over the ingredients for the bars and the first ingredients of the bars is corn syrup, sugar, etc. The Luna bars were all soy products first. The Luna bars give you 35% of calcium you need while the LAWL only gives 4%. The Luna bars are packed with vitamins and minerals we all need. While I am not trying to knock what LAWL does b/c obviously it works and they help people, it just seems to me like the LAWL bars dont have a lot of nutrional value.
~If you substitute the bars with something else do you tell your counselor that you did this?
~ When you substitute the Knudsens juice for the TO juice do you tell them this also?
Thank you for your imput and letting me ramble
Barb - there are definitely non-LAWL bars that seem to have better nutritional value than the LAWL bars, and at a better cost. I personally use a combination of LAWL bars (I love the peanut butter) and a bar made by Kashi. But I always write LA Lite in my book. When I do TO, I tell them I use 4 oranges (my COD actually told me they would rather me do that than use the Knudsens, but I use the Knudsens Morning Blend). I personally like having the LA Lite snack/treat vs. the all food plan, even though I know all food would be a lot healthier for me.
Do they give you a hard time for using a substitute? I am thinking about buying the smoothie mix but I just dont want to spend that much $ for bars.... I like the plan over all though!
I too, have just begun substituting 1 of my 2 bars a day. I do LOVE and look forward to the LA Caramel bars, but find that they really do add up in price, and I think there are better health choices out there. On Saturday I found the Kashi TLC bars at Costco. They were $8.99 for a box of 18. Thats $.50 a bar vs the $2 for the LA's. They look similar in nutrition values. I hope I am right. They are as follows.
Barb,
I am on the Purple Plan with NO Lites (and down 14 lbs since I joined Oct 7th). I went into the program knowing that I was on a budget and politely let them know that I would not be doing their lites or any substitution and I was reluctantly placed on an all food plan from the beginning. For me, it just did not want to depend on or feel obligated to use their bars (or sneaking around and lying to the COD about what I was using). The folks that use the bars love them for the most part. What's not to love? They are, after all candy bars and candy bars are what got me in the door to the COD in the first place!!!
I am an advocate of the all food plan. You get generous protien servings and more veggies and that has to be healthier than the LAWL "Candy Bars"
I also tend to crave sugar if I have sugar and the number one ingrediant on the bars is SUGAR (HFCS to boot!!)
Either plan (Lites or NO Lites)will work if you work it but the all food plan does not leave me craving junk like the bars would.
Good luck on whatever you decide to do and the folks here are WONDERFUL!!
I think I am going to do the all food plan and not rely on the bars. My question would be though IF I wanted to eat a bar (Luna, Kashi, etc) what would it count as? I would say protein but I am not sure.
Barb - You need to make a choice - bars or no bars. You can't have a day with one, two days all food, three days with two bars, etc. Your plan is determined by two bars/lites per day, or none at all. If you switch it up, you will either be consuming too much food or too little.
However... you can always change your mind. Just because you decide to do or not do the bars now doesn't mean that in a month or so you can't have your plan changed.
We all have our opinions on whether they are good or not, and we know that the LA bars are not the healthiest ones out there. But we choose to use them. In my case I figured that using their bars for a year (and from your weight it's much less time) was going to damage my health less than staying they weight I was.
Others can't use the bars due to health reasons, and others do not use them due to their ingredients and/or budgetary concerns. Whatever you decide is a personal decision. The plan will work with or without the bars, but you can't do it halfway.
My question was meant to ask IF there was a day that I may want one say as a treat or something then how would it be counted. I KNOW that I can not go back and forth with them.
When I've asked the COD about certain things not in the book, my response was that it's not on your plan now, but will be added back in maintenance. With that in mind, and keeping calorie counts in mind (see Aphil's post in "LAWL Forum Members Please Read"), you can make it work.
Bar substitutes
