My life the last couple weeks have been crazy busy with family, travel, work, love life and training obligations that have made it difficult to plan my meals in order to fulfill my yin-yang-balancing diet promises to my Chinese Witch Doctor.

So rather than break the diet and mess up the progress I had made on balancing my chi (yes, I know it sounds soooo new age), some days I ended up subsisting on an apple or an orange for an entire meal. It was quick, easy to transport, and could be eaten en route to the gym or airport or wherever!

However, you can only do that so long before your muscles say: “Hey bitch-feed me more or quit making me do so many damn lunges and ab exercises on that freakin’ ball.”

One day, as I was rolling off the ball, struggling to keep my balance, I actually heard my dwindling muscles whisper “if you’d give me more calories, I could keep your ass on this thing a little better.” True story.

And then, one night, as I threw on my jeans to go to dinner, my “good butt jeans” were now bony butt jeans - bagging and sagging where my glutes used to be. Yes, as a result of just a few busy weeks of not tending to the proper regimen of caloric intake that was proportional to my output.

That’s when I heard my angry glutes scream - “hey stupid - what good is balancing your Yin and Yang if you lose your Sin and Sang?” (left glute, right glute) 

So the next day on the way to the gym, I stopped at my health food store and since soy, dairy, peanuts, and sugar are on my forbidden list of foods, due to my sensitive allergic system, I didn’t think I’d be able to find a substitute bar for the ones I used to eat which were high in soy, and contained sugar.

I was wrong. My saving grace came in the form of Organic Food Bars - both a Green version with tons of veggies in it, and a more grainy version. With 22 grams of protein, no peanuts, dairy, soy, or sugar, and all natural ingredients, I felt like I hit the jackpot. It has almond butter, so those allergic to all nuts wouldn’t be able to eat these, but for everyone else - I highly recommend them! I even like the taste and devoured one before I hit the gym, and it gave me the energy I needed!

It may not be any ancient chinese secret like the chi balancing herbs Witch Doctor gives me, but it’s MY new secret for staying healthy on the go when cooking for my yin and yang balancing act is not an option!