Out of the 12 "power foods" my nutritional lifestyle plan requires, Beans & Lentils are the toughest for me to swallow. Early on in the routine, I had to find creative ways to get more beans into my diet. So, I snuck small amounts into sauces and soups where it was easy to camouflage their taste and texture. It's amazing how much good nutrition is in those little suckers! They are loaded with fiber, minerals, and protein. What more could you ask for?

After I typed those two words out... I chuckled... thinking I sounded like I was writing for a cheesy dating service. The truth is that I absolutely love walking. Since it is required by my nutritional lifestyle plan to get a certain amount of exercise in each week, I took to the one recreation I thought I could do on a consistent basis.

One of the things that I had to cut out of my lifestyle was the drinking of soda pop. (Notice I included both terms for everyone to feel included.) I stopped drinking the sugar stuff over two years now and have stopped with the diet stuff for about 3 months. Even though my nutrition plan states that I can have a can here and there, it strongly suggested refraining completely. Like most things in life, if you get rid of something, you need to fill in the gap with something new. I tried just drinking coffee and water... that lasted a whole week... then I tried flavored water... that lasted 2 weeks. The only substitute for my liquid binge habit was and is green tea.

If you missed the into to Drewbe's Favorite Thingies, click here to catch up.

#2 - Cliff Bars

If you are one of those energy drink guzzlers, why not try some natural energy instead of bull turin  for a change. Clif Bars are one of the greatest gifts to mankind. They come in all kinds of tastes and do a great job of putting variety into your meal plans. Here is my TOP 5Clif Bars:

This week kicks off with something super exciting here at Drewbe.com -- FAVORITE THINGIES WEEK! This is totally different than Oprah's "Favorite Things" shows because (unfortunately) I can not afford to send everyone a new car, none-the-less a carton of my favorite egg substitute. So here's what's going on...everyday this week (February 23-28), I will be sharing with you some of my "favorite thingies". Believe me, there are so many thingies that are my favorite, it was really hard to make a generic list, so I decided to narrow it down and attach a theme.