Losing weight is calories in < calories out. It's a simple enough equation, and while I need to drop some quick weight, I felt like it was a chance to have a little fun with it. If I were trying to build muscle, or cut body fat quickly, we'd have to do it with a little bit better control over nutrients and macros. Also, this is not a long term, sustainable lifestyle change. It is, however, delicious and kind of hilarious.
My TDEE is generally around 1,600 calories, on a particularly active day at work, my Fitbit claims I burn about 100-200 extra calories. I shoot for 1,200 calories a day. Being realistic, I eat closer to my TDEE, and on some days, I eat well over it (obviously). I am probably estimating it to be a little low, but despite the amount of walking I do each day (10,000 to 15,000 steps), I don't think I'm off by much. I used multiple calculators to land on this number. For this fun little experiment, I will continue with my daily goal of 1,200 calories, with motivation to exercise for extra calories for snacks. I am lucky that the math works out perfectly in my favor.. you see, three protein shakes and two full cookies are almost exactly 1,200 calories. Yes, I just said cookies.
Lenny and Larry's
Complete Cookies are a little piece of fitlife heaven. For a whole cookie, which is 4 oz, you eat 380-420 calories, 12-14g of fat, 54-58g of carbohydrates, and an impressive 16g of protein. They come in eight different flavors, so hold on to your seats here: Double Chocolate, Chocolate Chip, Peanut Butter, White Chocolate Macadamia, Oatmeal Raisin, Lemon Poppyseed, Pumpkin Spice and the newest Snickerdoodle. The most important part about all of the different flavors?
They're actually good. These cookies are the perfect mouthful of cookie, not too crumbly or dry or even too moist for that matter. They're fantastic dipped in coffee or eaten plain. I have yet to try one I don't like (and I've had a lot of them).
My protein powder for this experiment will be from
True Nutrition. It is their
gemma pea protein (non-gmo) formulation, and the massive tub we have this time is in Creamy Peanut Butter. That said, they have ten
vegan protein sources, and more flavors than you can shake a stick at. Seriously, if you manage to try them all, I will be impressed with you (and if you decide to do so, use my discount code BBE100).
For those curious of a breakdown of my day, they can follow me on
MyFitnessPal. If you just want to casually follow along, check out
my Instagram!
Disclaimer: Lenny & Larry's did provide me some swag for this diet. It did not influence whether or not I took on this cookie diet challenge. True Nutrition has provided me products to review in the past. The protein I will be using for this challenge was purchased. They did send me a True Nutrition Blender Bottle to use for the challenge. As always, I reserve the right to my open and honest opinion.
