Change of heart and Sweatleaf Review

Good morning!

I don't know about your neck of the woods, but yesterday was a full blown stereotypical Kansas day. It was 52 degrees, warm, mild wind and sunny when I went to work. Eight hours later when I left work, it was 34 degrees, 22mph winds and worst of all it was sleet/rain/snowing. Today it's a high of 57 and sunny, what the heck weather!? Please make up your mind, m'kay thanks.

Now for some real talk. I'm open on here, I don't lie or sugar coat anything. I'm just an average person who talks about my life and weight loss journey publicly. I'm a runner. I love running, it's freeing and I just flat out enjoy it. But I've come to learn that I don't love or enjoy running long distances. Three, four and five miles are still enjoyable, but it seems anything after that I find myself wanting to sit on the side of the road, go to work  or even get a cavity filled instead. Okay maybe not the filling, but you understand now how I'm feeling. I honestly think it is the time frame that I set this half marathon for. Yes I have time to do the training plan but along with working full time, keeping up with my blog, maintaining adequate family time and working getting thing everything set for us to move has begun to really take a tole on me. I do still want to run a half marathon, but I want to take more time to get to those distances. I want to fully enjoy every last bit of the race not feel miserable. So with this all being said, I've decided to just push back my half. Instead of May it will probably be this fall. I'm going to keep up with running and will still workout daily, but now I can enjoy my workouts and not dread forcing myself to run all these miles or trying to find an excuse to get out of it. I've talked it out with my dear Tatum and my wonderfully supportive hub and I got the same conclusion from them both. It's not giving up by pushing it back and realizing my heart just isn't in it right now and I'm by no means a failure. Failure is giving up and I'm not giving up just adjusting the time frame. So I'm sorry if I've disappointed anyone. Sadly I feel worse for disappointing any of you guys vs changing my goal date.

On a happier note, I have an awesome product review for today!!

So last week I was contacted by the lovely people at SweetLeaf to see about doing a product review on their Stevia Water Enhancers. I love flavored water, even better when its good for you, so I was sure in.  

First let me tell you a bit about their product lines:

"SweetLeaf^® is the only chemical-free, zero-calorie, zero-carb, zero-glycemic index, natural sweetener there is.

Great tasting and all natural, its uses are endless – add a delicious sweetness to all your favorite foods and beverages!

It’s made by taking the highest quality leaves of the stevia plant and extracting their naturally sweet taste with only cool, purified water. No chemicals. No alcohols. No additives that cover up the great taste nature created."

I received all four flavors in samples sizes to try.

At first I assumed these would completely change my water, color and flavor. Like Dasani Drops or Crystal Light does. But it doesn't. The water says clear, doesn't get sticky and doesn't stain. It alters the water like it says "enhances". It was similar to have fruit in my water! After I got over that it wasn't a water changer, I really enjoyed them. You can mix the flavors together to get different tastes! My favorite combination is Raspberry Lemonade and Lemon Lime in regular water. Its delicious. I actually found myself drink double the amount of water I normally do yesterday. The Sweet Drops were very refreshing, they had that fresh appeal that fruit in the water gives you with the convenience to take it with you wherever. 

I also like to get pretty creative with healthy things, so I didn't limit them just to water. I tried the Strawberry Kiwi in my strawberry oatmeal; delicious!!! I tried the Lemon Lime in my unsweet tea; winner! I tried Peach Mango in my vanilla yogurt, again it was perfect! I'm going to add them to my fruit smoothie today and I know it will be fabulous! I'm going to have to buy the full sizes as I've already used half of the Raspberry Lemonade and the Lemon Lime flavor up. I even was letting the girls at work try them out and they really enjoyed the refreshing taste as well. They pointed out the fact that no matter how many drops you put in, the flavor never gets over powering like other liquid flavorings. I have these samples in my lunch box and they aren't leaving anytime soon. I want to try adding them to more and more things along with other flavor combinations. 

To get these Sweet Drops or any of their other awesome products go HERE.

(I did receive theses samples at no charge in exchange for my review, however the opinions expressed here are none but my own, and I won't lie about my like or dislike of a product)

Have you tried any of these sweeteners?

Have a WONDERFUL Wednesday!

-J