Most people’s weakness is dessert. They can do well most of the day…eat healthy, avoid temptation…but its when that cake comes out at work to celebrate someone’s birthday or that delicious dessert menu pops up after dinner… it is so hard to resist!!!!

Especially if you’ve been avoiding sugar all week and are suffering from withdrawals. We all need a sugar fix once in a while.

I am not tempted by all sweets. You can offer me cheesecake or flan or a key lime pie and I will pass without suffering. But I did have a weakness, like we all do. Chocolate chip cookies and Nutella. I could literally eat 10 chocolate chips in a row or a bowl of Nutella and be happy. Not to mention the raw chocolate chip cookie dough without the chips. When I started this journey, I felt sad to think I was giving up these yummies. No more half baked Ben and Jerry’s ice cream on Friday nights. 🙁

Well, my doctor told me that chocolate is actually GOOD for you! What a concept! Something that is so delicious is good for me? Well it is, but there’s a catch…what’s bad isn’t the chocolate…its all the milk and sugar and corn syrup and extra stuff they add to it to make it sweet. You see raw chocolate is actually quite bitter. So my doctor suggested that I try dark chocolate. Anything over 72% cacao.  I went to Walgreens and bought myself a Ghirardelli’s 72% chocolate bar. Brought it home and gave a square to Orlando and one for myself. We sat there in silence with this bitter piece of chocolate on our tongues…and the craziest thing happened!!!! When you let it sit on your tongue, instead of chewing it up and swallowing right away, the flavors of the chocolate start coming alive! After a couple of minutes we actually started enjoying it. I decided I would allow myself anywhere from 1 to 3 little squares per evening to satisfy my sweet tooth.

AND THERE BEGAN OUR DARK CHOCOLATE OBSESSION!

We started experimenting with darker chocolates and after trying several different ones have grown to love 85% Dark Chocolate. Our favorite brand is called GREEN AND BLACK ORGANIC 85% CHOCOLATE.  We also like the Ghirardelli 85%. We treat ourselves every evening for dinner. The truth is that we’ve  grown to love it so much that now if we taste milk chocolate, its actually too sweet for us. At least in my case, it has eliminated my desire for other sweets. I’ve even gone as far as taking a bar in my purse when I’m going out to dinner or to a family event…so when dessert comes out I can have my piece of chocolate. I don’t do this to be psycho! I do it because in the situations I haven’t done it and I’ve eaten the cupcake or other sweet, my stomach aches a little and I regret it soon after.

Of course these chocolates still contain sugar. In the organic one they put the evaporated cane juice…but it is sugar. But life is about BALANCE. And it is much better to have 15% of sugar added than 60-70%. And the cacao has great benefits for your body…and at least in my case…chocolate makes me happy! So I think its a great option. Since we eat it every night, we really don’t feel like we are depriving ourselves from the sweet stuff. And at the very beginning, it really got me through the drastic change my body underwent in eliminating so much sugar from my daily diet.

This, of course, doesn’t mean that one day you can’t have cake at a party, or treat yourself to a key lime pie. We all need moderation. But I think if you give the dark chocolate a try, it might reduce the anxieties that come from craving something sweet and help you avoid the bad stuff much more often.

If any of you have already begun this dark chocolate transition, please comment and let us know what your experience has been.

Have a sweet day!

BY ORLANDO:

One of our staple recipes in our home has become CABBAGE SOUP. We receive “shares” of different organic veggies and fruits every week. One week’s share had a head of cabbage in it, and I had no idea what to do with it. For a week I would look at it in the refridgerator with both fear and contempt. Caro suggested I make a soup out of it, so I looked up some recipies. I found a Weight Watcher’s recipe that got extremely high ratings. I read the reviews and took suggestions from others who have already made the soup (as you should do any time you follow a recipe). I added the red beans, which I think really round-out the soup. I also added the asparagus and the Rotele sauce in place of tomato paste. Feel free to add or subtract any vegetable you want. The soup is amazing. You can eat all you want because it is nothing but healthy, delicious goodness. I make this once a week and have leftovers for Caro, the boys, and myself throughout the week.

One quick storage note: You may want to seperate the broth from the veggies when storing because the veggies soak-in the broth and leave you with very little broth for leftovers. I considered adding more broth to the recipe, but with all of the ingredients already in the recipe, my pot would over-flow.

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• 40 ounces of beef broth (you can add less in place of more veggie broth if you want. But the beef broth is awesome)
• 14 ounces veggie broth (1 small can…you can add more in place of beef broth if you want)
• 1/2 of a large head of cabbage sliced
• 1 leak sliced
• 1/2 of an onion sliced
• 3 cloves of garlic sliced
• 5 ounces of Rottele original tomato sauce (just over half of a small can…if you don’t like spicy buy the mild, but I found the original to be perfect)
• 1/2 cup of carrots sliced
• 2 zucchini sliced in thick chunks (about 1 inch so they don’t turn to mush in the soup)
• 2 yellow squash slice thick chunks
• 1 cup green beans trimmed (cut in bite-sized pieces. They can be a bit waxy in the soup, so you can just add more asparagus in their place)
• half a bunch of asparagus (cut in bite-sized pieces)
• 2 15.5 ounce cans small red beans (or whatever bean you like)and dont forget to drain the liquid from the can first!
• You can add a handful or two of spinach leaves in the last 5 minutes of the cooking process so they just wilt.
• olive oil
• Salt (I salt as I go adding veggies)
• Pepper
• 2 tsp dry basil
• 2 tsp dry oregano

DIRECTIONS

1. Cook olive oil, leaks, onions, jalapeño, carrots, and garlic in soup pot for 5 minutes at med-high heat. Add a sprinkle of salt at some point while stirring.

2. Add cabbage, squash, zucchini, green beans, and red beans. Add salt, pepper, basil, and oregano and stir at med-high until veggies cook down a bit (like 5 minutes). Optional: You can also add asparagus, mushrooms, spinach…read below

3. Add Rottele sauce and stir for 3-4 more minutes.

4. Add the beef and vegetable broth and bring to a boil.

5. Lower to a simmer for 15 minutes. Add salt and pepper if it needs it.

BY CAROLINE:

NOTE: This soup is the perfect example of two of the principles we follow:

1. TRY NEW FOODS: We had never had cabbage before, nor thought of buying it in the first place. But we are members of a coop that allows us to purchase organic fruits and vegetables at a better price straight from the farmers. The catch with this coop is that you get what you get. You don’t get to choose. So when our box brought a huge head of cabbage, we had no idea what to do with it. We put it off for about a week and then I told Orlando, we need to make this cabbage before it goes to waste. He looked up recipes with Cabbage and decided to try to the Cabbage Soup. Had it not been because we were FORCED into working with this vegetable, we would have never discovered this soup which we LOVE! Not only is it delicious but it is so hearty that it allows us to skip an animal protein on the nights we eat it. And we can have seconds without guilt because it is literally like drinking a bowl of medicine. Nothing but good healthy ingredients!

2. PILE ON THE GREENS: Orlando has taken this concept quite seriously and this is a perfect opportunity to apply this principle. Not only does Orlando put the veggies in the recipe…every time he makes it he adds something new. Now he makes the soup with SPINACH, MUSHROOMS, ASPARAGUS. He even tried SWEET POTATO last time although that wasn’t my favorite. The point is that you can add anything you want. If there is a veggie that you’re unlikely to try on its own or is not your favorite, just hide it in the soup. The more veggies, the better.

And yes…our kids eat this soup also!!! We make a huge pot of it and we have it in the fridge for several days. I serve it as lunch for us a couple of days later and I give it to the kids for dinner the following day. I play with it with the kids, for example: one day I’ll give it to Justin (my 1 1/2 year old) as soup, but the next day I’ll get his portion and blend it in the blender and make a puree to change the consistency for him. Another day I’ll make it on a bed of quinoa pasta or germinated brown rice, or I’ll make them a sweet potato and combine the two to make it a bit sweeter. I always try to keep it interesting for them. With my 3 year old, I make him guess what veggies are in there and we spend the whole meal talking about them. I’ve noticed the more I talk to him about the veggies, the more open he is to trying them.

WE HOPE YOU CAN MAKE THIS SOUP A STAPLE IN YOUR HOME ALSO!

As with everything in life, there is a major concern with eating healthy…how much it costs! Everyone knows it is more expensive to eat healthy than not. Shopping at places like Whole Foods or Fresh Market can really hurt your wallet and some people simply can not afford it…. or can they?

I have definitely increased my grocery expenses in the past year. I am in no better or worse position than the average middle class family to incur this added expense. So how is it that I CAN afford it and others can’t? My argument is about priorities.

Everyone complains about not having enough money. Some can’t afford to live in a big house. Others can’t afford to own an expensive car, or send their kids to private school, or travel, or buy expensive clothing and purses. And for each person that complains about not affording something, that person has an expense the other can’t afford. The mom who can’t afford to drive a nice car, but her daughter goes to an expensive private school. The couple who can’t afford to own their own home, but travel to exotic places.

My point is that we are all spending money. It is a matter of choices and priorities what you spend your money on. Some spend in on True Religion jeans, others spend it on dining out at the latest “IN” club or restaurant, some spend it on golf, others spend it on cigarrettes. We all make these choices.

So what about food? I tend to think that there is a perception about food that it should not be expensive because it is a basic necessity and not a luxury. Not everyone needs a GUCCI purse, but everyone needs to eat. Its the same reason we all complain about Gas prices. Why are these basic needs bleeding our wallets to death?

My view on this is that food is no longer treated as a basic need. We have such an oversupply of all food products that what we eat has become a luxury. Groceries are stocked to their capacity. We have so many choices, and we constantly abuse this privilege and over consume food which leads to the problems we are facing with our weight and health. So in order to please the masses, greedy companies choose to use the cheapest ingredients they can find (i.e., corn syrup) to make the biggest possible profit on the quantities of food they sell. AND WE ALL BUY INTO IT.

We buy into the convenience, the pre packaging, the perceived value (look I can get 2 boxes of Lucky Charms for the price of one!) But there is a price to eating this stuff that we don’t necessarily calculate in our monthly budget. For example, the price of weight loss products that we are constantly buying to try to lose weight; the price of the medicine we use to treat the conditions that our bad diet causes (high cholesterol, high blood pressure, type 2 diabetes, etc.), the price of wasted food…how many of us buy tons of soda because we got such a good deal on it, and a couple of weeks later realize the soda is completely flat and has to be tossed. Or the bread is moldy, or the chips are stale. We buy cheap food and therefore we don’t care that much about it, so if we go out to eat all weekend and on Monday have to throw spoiled food away, we don’t pay much attention.

I have adopted a different strategy towards the food I eat. My husband and I buy expensive food. Organic fruits and vegetables, nuts, whole grains, expensive meats… all pricey. HOWEVER, in my house, we eat what we buy. We do not throw away spoiled food because quite frankly we can’t afford to!  If I cut up a few slices of an organic apple for my salad, and I have the other half of the apple remaining, I toss it into my smoothie instead of putting it into the refrigerator to turn brown and find it a week later. We eat out less. We typically don’t go out to eat for lunch, and we don’t order food during the week because we make enough food to always have left overs.  I hope to be able to say that in the future, our biggest savings will come from our medical bills….Of course, that remains to be seen!

Part of the biggest problem with healthy food is the vicious cycle we’re in. Healthy food is expensive so we don’t buy it, but since we don’t buy it continues to be expensive. What if all we bought was the expensive stuff and the grocery stores were left with all the junk food? They would definitely start ordering less of it and more of the good stuff. And the more good stuff they get, the cheaper it gets.  So what if we all bought what we needed. Meat, fruits, vegetables, dairy, nuts, and grains? But we left on the shelves the unnecessary stuff. The chips, the sodas, the frozen food, the cereal boxes…what if we eliminated the crap.

In the meantime, I try to SAVE by:

• buying from a coop –http://www.anniesbuyingclub.com/welcome.cfm
• buying from Costco or BJ’s since buying in bulk is cheaper. (I buy here the stuff that won’t go to waste like the greens for my salad because we use it every single day. Organic chicken because it remains frozen. Organic frozen berries for the same reason.
• my friend and I actually shared our Costco purchase this week. We split the walnuts, the kiwi, the yogurts for the kids. We split the cost and don’t have to worry about the kiwi going to waste. We are going to do that again!
• For whole foods, I actually found an awesome way to save 10% on all my purchases.  http://spendfored.org/index.php?id=50 (Check this website out and see how you can donate to charity and save money on your groceries. This is awesome!!!
• And of course, the traditional coupon. Whole Foods is coming out with more coupons and sales and I take advantage every chance I get. For example, once in a while they sell their wild caught salmon for 7.99/lb which is even cheaper than Costco. I buy as many pounds as I can and I keep it in my freezer. I know I have salmon once a week for the next few weeks and I got a great deal.

We have decided that even if we have to sacrifice in other areas of our life, we will not sacrifice what we put in our bodies or our children’s. Food is fuel and we want to put the best fuel in us as we can so we can run a long healthy life! So the next time you think you can’t afford healthy food, just remember priorities.

What are your priorities????

Hope everyone had a wonderful weekend!!!! Since most of us use our weekends to go out to eat with our families, attend birthday parties or social events, and relax….we don’t really want to cook or worry about food. This is why most people admit to “cheating” on the weekends. If this is you, don’t feel guilty about it. ITS OKAY!!!!!! I for one had pizza and fried mozzarella this weekend on Saturday!

But the beauty of this lifestyle is that there is no race to the finish. You are NOT on a countdown to lose any amount of weight in any amount of time.
So now its Monday again and routine sets in. You have been given an opportunity to start over again and incorporate good decisions in your diet.

So maybe start the morning this morning with a

• Pear, lemon, cucumber, celery, and water smoothie. Lemon and celery detox your body and cucumber is excellent for your skin.

Commit to making good decisions this week and make it your goal to have more vegetables this week than you did last week. Maybe next weekend, you’ll still have pizza but you’ll want 2 slices instead of 3. Or maybe you’ll have a burger but pass on the fries. The more you start to enjoy eating well, the less you’ll enjoy eating the bad stuff.

And you’ll know your lifestyle has changed when you only cheat when its absolutely worth it…instead of cheating just because its the weekend!

HAPPY MONDAY.

About 7 months ago, my wife bought “grass-fed cow’s milk.” I complained to a co-worker that my wife was spending even more of my money on wacky shit like “grass-fed cow’s milk!!!!!” My co-worker’s response is part of the reason that I’ve lost 48 pounds in the last 6 months. She said to me “you know that cows are SUPPOSED to eat grass right?” What an awakening! Why does our society allow companies to sell milk from cows that DON’T eat grass, and make THAT the norm? Why is “grass-fed” the exception when it is what nature intended?
This is when I realized that I am the cow and that society is feeding me what I’m not meant to eat: Processed crap, ingredients I can’t pronounce, high fructose corn syrup, fried garbage!!!! Humans, like cows should eat grass!!! I don’t mean that literally of course, I mean that we should eat what humans were meant to eat. We should eat mainly fruits, veggies, and nuts. That is what grows from the earth and has no ingredients made by man. I like food that doesn’t have ingredients. Broccoli: ingredients: broccoli. Simple.
My wife and I are not by any means vegans or vegetarians. We eat meat regularly…almost every day. But what I mean is PILE ON THE GREENS!!!! Make vegetables the main course! Shift The paradigm!
Don’t view chicken as your entree: make a huge and ridiculously delicious veggie recipe, and make the chicken or steak as the smaller side dish.
I have fallen in love with vegetables, and realized that they should be mainly what fills you. The steak or fish or chicken should be the “side dish.” By all means make them delicious, but make the veggies, previously considered “side dishes,” the main course! Eat all you want!!! Stuff yourself with them. Pile on the greens!!!
Get your mind away from what you have been raised to believe. What are “side dishes?” and what are entrees?
I will teach you easy ways to make awesome veggie-centric dishes. Soups, for example, are great ways to pack in tons of veggies with few carbs and little or no animal protein. Shift your paradigm! You don’t need meat or potatoes/rice in every dish. I’ll walk you through it. Stay tuned…