Peanut Butter Chocolate Cups

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In my overweight days, Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups were a food that I would eat until I was sick or finished the whole packet whichever was first. Oh dear!

There was something about the combination of Peanut Butter and Chocolate that just had me obsessed. It was the flavour I used to pick at Baskin Robbins ice-cream place too, when I used to eat that; however, one little scoop of all that richness and I already felt sick, so I didn’t need to eat lots of it – Ha ha.

Luckily though I worked out that the key problem causing all of my out-of-control eating was not understanding sugar. Once you pair it with nutrients, you can still enjoy all the chocolatey, buttery goodness and stop at one or two. Hooray for continuing to learn about food & the body.

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emotional eating

How to stop emotional eating.

I was reading an article recently (link below) talking about eating disorders and emotional eating. It covered the psychological aspect of binge eating in terms of the emotional reasons people pick up that block of chocolate and eat the whole thing.

In all the examples the type of food people were pigging out on was junk food. McDonalds, KFC, commercial chocolate, cakes, biscuits, and ice cream were some examples. Never once do you hear the story… and she was so upset she ate five bowls of salad and a whole watermelon.

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Homemade Almond Joy

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I remember these treats from my childhood days and I think my mother was more into them than I. They were chocolatey, coconutty and chewy with a kind of fresh taste. Called Almond Joy in the USA, here in Australia the closest equivalent is Bounty Chocolate Bars. So I thought it might be fun to create homemade Almond Joy bars.

Off I went to the net and found a few recipes already. All fantastic ingredients and when there are so few ingredients, there is not much tweaking that can be done – or so I thought.

Hold that thought!

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Peanut butter chocolate slice

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It’s no secret that I am a fan of Chocolate and Peanut Butter together and in the past I would easily eat packets of Reese’s Peanut Butter cups until I was sick. Ah such is the lure of junk food. I’m so glad those days are over.

So in it’s place I created a healthy version that allows me to have a normal relationship with this type of food. I still love them to bits and enjoy eating them but because they are nutrient rich, I eat one or two and my body signals scream at me “that’s enough” and I can’t eat any more. A far cry from the past binge eating days.

So most of my weekly batches of Homemade Chocolate are the kind where I make a batch of Peanut Butter balls as well and combine them together. So much rich chocolately goodness, and on the satisfaction scale – 150%!!

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weight loss motivation

Weight loss motivation

Is weighing yourself every day weight loss motivation for you?

I was checking through some instagram posts on what people are up to with their own approaches to losing weight and a person posted a question…

“Do you weigh yourself every day?”

The owner of that account went on to say how they do weigh in every day; another one said ‘yes it keeps me on track.’ My head was screaming – “no way! Keeps you on track for what? Total obsession about how much you weigh and how much you haven’t lost today?”

If a healthy weight loss is to lose 500g (1lb) per week (that is if this is permanent weight loss that you won’t put on again in a flash) then for six days out of the seven what are you looking at? ‘No haven’t lost it yet. No haven’t lost it yet….’

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Muscles burn calories faster – apparently

Muscles help burn calories faster so therefore you should get muscles first to lose weight – apparently…

Ok so it’s no secret that I don’t like going to the gym. It just doesn’t do it for me from a number of angles.  Despite the fact that the fitness crew out there still blast away that it’s the best thing ever and many, many weight loss programs insist that you must go to the gym to lose weight, I am finally at peace with the facts:-

a) I don’t need to go any where near a gym to lose weight

b) I don’t need to feel bad, less than or hopeless because I don’t go

c) it’s perfectly fine to know what you don’t like and it doesn’t mean you are lazy

d) some people love it – so go for your life! Just leave the rest of us alone.

(In fact truth be told, apparently the stats are that only about 10% of the population go to the gym, so there is way more of us who don’t – interesting!)

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How to lose weight fast

coffee, friends, loose skin. excess skin

I had told dear friend Maryanne about the progress of my book and she listened intently like the loyal and beautiful friend that she is. She has heard about this book and the way I eat for about two years now, so perhaps it is sounding more like blah, blah, blah to her now. I can’t help it though as everyone is trying to figure out how to lose weight fast, without a thought about how it may affect their health.

Anyway, so we moved on to her news.  She proceeded to tell me about a naturopath she saw who told her about these weight loss drops to suppress your hunger and the diet you eat of only 500 calories.

What the?

I stopped in my tracks and my jaw dropped open. Involuntarily I started shaking my head and blurted out, “Nooooooo!”

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Fasting Diet – is it the best solution?

fasting diet

I read others articles, blog posts, facebook and instagram posts on weight loss and health because obviously it interests me.  It alarms me to read that people are still doing more of the same rubbish that I was up to 20 years ago trying to lose weight.

One particularly horrifying tale was a Fasting Diet Water Detox for 20 days! Really?

The writer was adamant that fasting was beneficial.  I’m sure I’ve also read something along those lines too.  However this type of extreme fast should be highly controlled – think resting and taking naps. You definitely shouldn’t be trying to live your normal life at the same time or exercising, as it’s pretty dangerous.  Situations can happen like passing out when you are trying to drive to work, organs shutting down from lack of nutrients.  The worst part was that she wasn’t doing it this for the purported health benefits, it was for weight loss!

No way people!

This got me thinking about the whole yo-yo diet thing and why it seems like we go on a cycle of ‘on the wagon’ and ‘off the wagon’ and having to ‘start again on Monday’ over and over again.

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Running for weight loss

 

running

I was just checking out some other weight loss blogs and some on social media and about half of them said something about finding a new love of running. I will bet anything that none of them have a clue that running actually lowers your metabolism.

Sorry but I hate running. Jogging as well.

It all hurts too much from my boobs bouncing and hurting (even with a super dooper hold ‘em up, squish ‘em in sports bra. Two sometimes.)

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Weight loss mindset

 

Do you think your weight loss mindset is holding up your weight loss progress? What type of things come into your head around weight loss? Is it positive or negative?

Now I am not suggesting that you hear voices however it is interesting to be aware of the internal chatter that goes on inside your head.  Are you your own best friend or a mean pain in the ‘a’ who puts yourself down?

A great deal of the dialogue around this centres on the concept of ‘loving yourself’ and while I believe this is true, it can sound a bit hokey for some people and over the top. Like you are ‘up yourself’ somehow; not a great approach to an important concept.

So I like to think of it as being your own cheerleader or your own best friend, someone who is all of these things: Continue reading →