Greetings from Boston!

I figured that this morning, after running 17 miles across the hills, sand, and roads of Massachusetts during Reach the Beach, I may be a bit more focused on scrubbing the dirt and sand off my body for the thousandth time, or foam rolling versus blogging. To be honest, I expect to feel a bit like Katniss after she comes back from the games, though I don’t expect to have any hair or scars removed- just lots of sweat and dirt.

Therefore, until later today when I can blog from the train about the awesome experience with eleven other ladies, I figured we’d address another topic that I’m asked frequently- healthy snacks!

Readers often email me or leave comments wanting to know a list of my favorite healthy snacks, especially when marathon training or during weight loss. So much so, that I’ve dedicated two posts to them through a guest post and my own post this year alone. For me, cleaning up my snacks is one of the keys to weight loss. It’s easy to get caught up in the office treats including a birthday celebration at least once a week, meeting leftovers, and then there is always someone’s favorite brownie recipe or cookie treats which make appearances. I’m equally as guilty considering that I take all sugary or rich leftovers to my office’s kitchen area for communal enjoyment.  From these posts, you’ll see that my key to battling these treats and the cravings has been to load up on protein in the healthiest ways possible. My favorites for the past few months have been things that are easy to make, easy to buy, and or easy to transport to the office and keep in our communal fridge or my desk drawer.

• hard boiled eggs
• plain Greek yogurt with crunch (granola, Kashi etc.)
• lots and lots of Blue Diamond Almonds, especially their Lightly Salted 100 Calorie packs which I buy on Amazon since I have a hard time finding them in NYC.

Therefore, when Fitfluential and Blue Diamond asked me if I’d like to help spread the word about almond’s many health benefits the choice was easy!

As you can tell, Bo and I both love Blue Diamond so much that we normally have at least 2-3 cans in our pantry. While their flavor array is what really draws me to their products, it doesn’t hurt that their almonds now have even more health benefits!

The American Heart Association (AHA) recently certified them as a heart-healthy food, specifically these flavors:

• Whole Natural Blue Diamond Almonds
• Roasted Salted Blue Diamond Almonds
• Low Sodium Blue Diamond Almonds
• Sea Salt Blue Diamond Almonds
• No Salt Blue Diamond Almonds
• No Salt Blue Diamond Almonds
• Honey Dijon Blue Diamond Almonds

If you’re like me, you may not know what it takes for a food to be AHA certified as a heart healthy food. After some research I found out that a food must meet the following criteria in order to qualify:

Standard Certification

• Total Fat: Less than 6.5 g
• Saturated Fat: 1 g or less and 15% or less calories from saturated fat
• Trans Fat: Less than 0.5 g (and label serving)
• Cholesterol: 20 mg or less
• Sodium: 480 mg or less (also per label serving)
• Beneficial Nutrients: 10% or more of the Daily Value of 1 of 6 nutrients (vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium, protein or dietary fiber)

Nut Certification

• Total Fat: No limit
• Saturated Fat: 4 g or less (per 50 g only)
• Trans Fat: Less than 0.5 g (also per label serving)
• Cholesterol: 0 mg per label serving
• Sodium: 140 mg or less (also per label serving)
• Beneficial Nutrients: 10% or more of the Daily Value of 1 of 6 nutrients (vitamin A, vitamin C, iron, calcium, protein or dietary fiber)

If you want to learn more about Blue Diamond Almond’s health benefits and how they can help you lead a healthier lifestyle, I’m helping host a Twitter chat tomorrow night with the Blue Diamond team. Just use the hashtag  #BlueDiamond  Monday, May 21, 2012 at 8 PM CST.

FitFluential LLC compensated me for this campaign. All opinions are my own.