weight loss and health

Healthy Hot Chocolate

I started looking around for a healthy hot chocolate preparation recently with the desire to replace my not so healthy evening chocolate drink of Milo.

It’s not that I don’t love Milo – I really do, and I’ve been drinking it since I was a kid, but it contains a lot of sugar.

I’ve also started taking collagen powder recently and was looking for something I could incorporate the powder into to make it taste better. I’m not a fan at all of the flavour of unflavoured collagen powder!

What I found while looking for the ultimate healthy hot chocolate mix was quite interesting. I found that:

There are many, many healthier hot chocolate powders available
They are prohibitively expensive
Most have ingredients that you can put together at home yourself

So I set about making my own recipe, using simple ingredients that I had on hand.

The thing about a recipe like this is you can cater it to suit yourself in so many ways. For example, instead of using hot water you could use your favourite milk or milk alternative as the liquid. Just warm all the ingredients together, make sure they are stirred well and you have a deluxe version!

If you’re looking for a dairy milk alternative, any of the following would work for this recipe:

You could use your favourite sweetener in place of the honey (like monkfruit sweetener or stevia)

If you don’t like the taste of cinnamon, just leave it out. You could do other add ins like protein powder or magnesium powder to increase the health benefits. There are lots of options!

If you are a lover of dark chocolate (hello!) you could also melt and mix that in.

Healthy Hot Chocolate

Kelly

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Prep Time 1

Servings 1 serve

Ingredients

1 tsp Cocoa powder
1 scoop Collagen powder
1/4 tsp Cinnamon powder
1 teaspoon Raw honey
250 ml Hot/warm liquid I use a mixture of hot water and dairy milk

Instructions

Add the dry ingredients and honey to your cup. Pour in the hot liquid and stir well. Add milk or other liquid, if using.

Healthy lifestyle plus a recipe for you

by Kelly 10 Comments

If you follow me on social media you will already know that I’ve embarked on a healthier lifestyle. It has been just over 2 weeks and I feel like I’m adjusting – it was very hard initially!

I’m not the sort who copes well with small changes – I’m more of an “all in” kinda girl, so it was important for me to make major changes.

Although I’d like to share my thoughts in more detail with you as I go along, for now I’ll just show some examples of what I’ve been eating. It’s actually been pretty easy to put together healthy meals for myself, even though this seemed daunting at first. I thought it would be too difficult and too expensive to not always eat what the family was eating. It turns out that this was just one of many excuses I’d been storing up in my head!

I have lost a little weight, which has been encouraging.

So, here is a snapshot of what my healthy eating has been looking like. Most of these are pretty simple, throw together, low cook dishes without a real recipe. Just how I like it.

Lets start with sweets. (Also just how I like it!) Chia vanilla pudding with peanut butter banana. It looks sloppy and not all that appetising but as an afternoon snack, it is THE BOMB!

I can’t take credit for the delicious Quinoa and corn salad, my husband made that (he is an awesome cook). Thrown together with some chopped raw zucchini and tomato and voila! Lunch!

Baby spinach and chickpea salad with lemon and yoghurt dressing. Another light and easy lunch.

There is a bed of brown rice under the tomato, spinach leaves, red salmon and walnuts. Topped with low fat yoghurt and low fat mayonnaise.

Salmon and salad pita wrap.

Half a chicken breast, drizzled with sesame oil, seasoned and baked in foil in the oven and served with a bulgur wheat, tomato and cucumber salad. Squeeze of lemon juice and done.

OK, here comes the recipe, because, if you’re like me, one of your biggest challenges is your sweeter than sweet tooth.

Lets call them my

Rustic Banana Biscuits

Ingredients:

2 cups rolled oats, blitzed in a food processor

2/3 of a cup of rolled oats extra

2 large, very ripe bananas

1 small egg

1 tablespoon peanut butter

50grams dark chocolate, chopped into chunks

Preheat oven to 180 degrees celsius (350 F). Blitz your 2 cups of rolled oats in the food processor until fairly smooth.

Mash your bananas, stir in the peanut butter. Whisk in egg with a fork. Add both batches of oats and mix well. Add the chocolate, mixing all ingredients together.

Place scant dessertspoon full of mixture in blobs on a tray lined with baking paper. Press tops lightly with a fork.

Bake for 12 minutes or until browning. Cool on a baking rack.

Perfect for a healthy afternoon snack with a hot cup of tea.

Bon appetit!

I have made a Facebook group so that I have a place to share information and support others (as well as get some much needed support myself!) Please join if you would like to be involved!

Did you like this post? Would you like me to share more of my healthy journey? Let me know by leaving a comment, I’d love to hear your thoughts!

Whole wheat raspberry and banana hot cakes

by Kelly 3 Comments

I got a grain mill! Yes, the 10 year wait was worth it, it is a Hawos Billy 100 and it’s really wonderful. It was a huge toss up between electric and hand operated, but I’m so glad I went with electric as I think having to hand grind would put me off wanting to use it.

Today I have a recipe to share that I made with my first batch of freshly ground wheat. Wow, what a blessing to have food that nutritious and delicious!

This was my healthy lunch experiment for the kids and they turned out so beautifully! The children quickly became like lions to the prey, they absolutely loved them. Moist, fluffy and so healthy!

Ingredients

4 cups of freshly ground whole wheat flour (or packaged whole wheat flour)

2 tablespoons LSA mix (ground linseed, sunflower and almond)

4 teaspoons baking powder

1 teaspoon cinnamon

5 egg whites, beaten until stiff

1 egg yolk

1/4 cup of date syrup or honey

1 over ripe banana, mashed

3 cups milk (full fat, low fat or skim are fine)

2 tablespoons natural yoghurt

1/2 cup raspberries (I used frozen)

Method

Place all dry ingredients together in a large bowl.

Beat egg whites until stiff.

Whisk together egg yolk, syrup (or honey), banana, milk and yoghurt.

Pour these wet ingredients into the dry and mix thoroughly. Fold in the beaten egg whites along with the raspberries.

Fry in a hot, non stick pan or a regular pan with a little rice bran oil to prevent sticking.

Serve warm. I served with a dollop of yoghurt, dusting of icing sugar, raspberries and drizzled with maple syrup.

For a special dessert these would be awesome with whipped cream or ice-cream and raspberry coulis.

It’s cheap, it’s healthy, it’s No Bake Date Slice!

by Kelly 3 Comments

I love medjool dates but unfortunately, at around $20 a kilo they’re a bit much for our modest budget. I thought I’d start experimenting with the much cheaper (at $2.99kg) dried, packaged, pitted dates.

And I’ve had success! This is a delicious, healthy and economical treat. I love to have a piece in the middle of the day or in the afternoon with a cup of tea and the children love it too.

Recipe

40 dried and pitted dates

1 cup desiccated coconut

1 cup rolled oats

1.5 tablespoons cocoa powder

1 tablespoon tahini

1 tablespoon honey

1 teaspoon vanilla extract

2 – 3 tablespoons date syrup *see method

Place dates in a large bowl and add enough hot water to just cover the dried fruit. Soak for at least an hour, longer is fine.

Strain dates, reserving liquid. *This liquid is your date syrup.

Place all ingredients into a food processor and blend thoroughly.

Press the processed mixture into a tin or container lined with non stick baking paper (I use a bread loaf tin). Let the baking paper fall over the edges of the tin, this makes it easy to pick up later. The back of a spoon is useful for pressing. Sprinkle with extra coconut if desired.

Place in the fridge for at least 2 hours to set. Take out of tin using the edges of the baking paper to pick it up. Cut into squares and keep in an airtight container in the fridge.

Note: Date syrup is also delicious on yoghurt if you have leftovers and can also be used as a sweetener or topping for fruit.

Weight loss

by Kelly 7 Comments

Image from here

I don’t usually talk about weight loss here because I think people in general are fairly image obsessed and I don’t want to add fuel to the fire. On the other hand, one of the purposes of having this blog is to help and inspire others so…..

I’ve been working on losing my post baby weight for about 3 months (I was overweight before the pregnancy too). My main goals in the beginning were to feel healthier, have more energy, fit back into old clothes, be fit and to wobble less when I walk – I kid you not!!

So far I’ve lost 8kg. I walk on a regular basis and am increasing the intensity. I have a lot more energy. Lastnight when I went out for my walk, to my surprise I almost lost my skirt a couple of times it’s gotten so big on me!

I’m not one of these people who obsesses and measures everything they eat, how many calories they burn etc. I just think of myself as careful and I believe it’s essential to incorporate exercise. So here are my main tips:

* I eat my evening meal fairly early. I allow myself to have dessert if I feel like it (most of the time now I don’t because I’m satisfied). Then I don’t eat anything for the rest of the evening. Nope, nothing! And by doing this I’ve realised that when I was eating in the evenings it was only out of habit, not hunger.

* I have gradually cut down the sizes of my meals. My meal sizes were way too big before, and as you lose weight you find you will naturally make your meals smaller because you just don’t need so much!

* I don’t deny myself anything but everything is in moderation. So I will eat one tim tam and leave it at that, considering it a “treat”, not a regular food.

* I believe that weight loss and living healthily is about living more naturally. I can’t stand it when I see posters for “meal replacement shakes” everywhere, and I think these companies trick people and play on their emotions. It is not natural to try to fill your stomach without eating properly and eventually your body will need more, leading you into failure. I eat butter, I drink whole cream milk, I eat meat, I eat bread, none of these are bad and are closer to the natural product.

*Be patient! My weight loss has been slow, but every little bit adds up and I feel very positive.

I’ve been following along with Gilly through her weight loss. If you have a lot to lose, a blog can be a very useful tool for keeping you accountable.