Healthy Christmas-Muesli-Biscuits

As poor running rat is not able to eat 'normal' sweets during christmas time I needed a plan what to do about my addiction to all kind of sweets. I was almost forced to invent those absolutely healthy biscuits. 
                                                     You need:  

100g raisins

100g almonds (minced)

300g oat flakes

100g butter

2 eggs

200g honey

150g spelt flour

1 teaspoon cinnamon

                                                        1 teaspoon baking soda
 

Mix oat flakes, raisins and almonds in a bowl. Add also baking soda and cinnamon. Let the butter melt and add. Let the butter cool down while stiring. Also add the honey and the eggs. Add  enough spelt flour to create a homogeneous doug. Form little piles and bake at 150 to 180°C until the biscuits are light brown.

Sorry for your new (but wholesome) addiction!

Healthy Sweets Only

I thought a picture in your mind might be helpful: I took a picture of the variety of sweets that I consider healthy. 

There are all kinds of nuts in the background because nuts have the healthy unsaturated fats. In the middle we have dried apples and bananachips though bananachips are rather an exeption because they they are made with a lot of added fat and sugars (often from honey). Moreover, there is dark chocolate: 99% cacao and organic on the left (and that is really not sweets anymore) and 81% on the right which I really like.

If you want to buy all those nice things it might me adviseable to start looking in a healthy food shop. If you buy them there you can be sure that you buy good stuff without refined sugar. But there are also many supermarkets which have a quite wide range of those good sweets. 

On the other hand, I (running rat's dad) make the dried apples myself. It's easy and you know exactly what they contain. Moreover, they taste just like the ones you just bought for a lot more money than they are worth. It might be as easy to make bananachips but I didn't try (yet).  I used to buy them in a pet shop for my pets until I realized how tasty they were.

When it comes to the chocolate I often buy them in the shop I work in though it is not the same quality than in the healthy food shop. However, it is convenient and cheap.

Although this is an okay range already I still look for other things I might like. I didn't try dates, figs and a lot of other dried fruit yet. But often they do contain stuff I don't want in my food like sorbic acid, sulphur dioxide or other sulphides. These substances are used as antioxidants. Citric acid does the same job though. It is found in limes and lemons. But you an eat the apples just as well if they are not treated with lemon or lime juice. They do get a slightly brown then.

So if you also want to cut back on sweets during christmas, too, try dried fruit and nuts. They are perfect substitutes. I already feel lighter (and lost a whole pound)!

I am a Professional now!

Now that I have a schedule to train after I feel so much more professional. Actually, I ran a 10km-run last week though it was pouring outside. I'll run in a few minutes though it is freezing outside. I am so a Pro! Unfortunately I chose the schedule for ambitious marathon training. I really want to be ambitious, fast and everything but my left knee and my right foot refuse to be. So I had to stop training last thursday though I vexed myself with traveling to see my running group late at night and in rain. After one fast kilometre I felt a severe pain in my left knee. Trainer#1 said I had to go home. Though it just stoped raining. I was kind of wet and angry. Now that I had schlepped myself to train in the cold and dark I couldn't and instead had to limp home.
At least until now I'm able to stick to my 30 day trial more or less. It's not exactly easy (I had a very weak day on fiday) as I eat even more than before and after all I have to see the Christmas Market downtown almost daily and the sell so nice sweet stuff: sugary almonds and other nuts, gingerbread, gummibears and wafers with cream. *sob*
Luckily, I found a very nice substitute for me: they also have nice fishy stuff: fried fish, calamaries and so on. It's not exactly the healthiest food you can imagine but at least it is not sweet. They also have nice rolls filled with cheese and bacon.
At length, I found out that I tend to eat food that contains a lot more fat than before I limited the sweets to an absolute minimum. So this may be a hint on the new 30 day trial in January.Fortunately, I also found so many 'good' sweets in a health food shop close by. You can't say that they're cheap but they are definitely healthy. Some of them are also almost fat-free. But the nice and tasty ones do contain a lot of nuts and therefore, a lot of fat. But as we learned already unsaturated fats from nuts are not really bad.
After writing so much about food I am hungry. See you soon!

7 Days out of 30

I made the first week of the 30 day trial 'Healthy Sweets Only'. I made it but rather not exactly as I wanted.
This time it is really not my fault. I was kind of forced to bake for boyfriend#1 as it was our first anniversary and he likes sweets so much. We're now together for a whole year.
So I needed something that told him that I care. I made a gingerbread heart as they are common in Germany. How could I not taste the dough? It was filled with choci. How could I not lick the with melted chocolate covered spoon?? I tried hard and even ate huge amounts of vegetables while baking. But then they were not half as tasty as the gingerbread.
On the other hand, I did quite well the rest of the week. Since chocolate is not really allowed, except of this one:

I started to cook nice things and eat whole meals and not only single apples and tomatoes. I feel fine and I am really proud to having outlived advent coffee with my family, several stollens, biscuits and other sweets and not eating any. And that was after a 20km run when I usually eat everything I can find.

Running Rat's father does approve the 30 day challenge very much and decided to make about three pounds of dried apples for me. He's just so nice! Now I have those nice, healthy sweets on my coffee table and can eat as much as I want. So much better than biscuits or stollen (I try to tell myself). But well that is what I need: support. Running Rat's mother rather likes to support me by giving me chocolate and advocaat. That does not help. But she means good as parents always do.
Anyway: I really needed to cut back on the sugary stuff. Even boyfriend#1 was kinda shocked by the amounts of choci I consumed every night during November.
But actually I think it already worked. I only can't tell exactly if I feel better because I'm so proud of myself or if it's really all the good food that makes me feel better.
I actually think I could live like that with even more comfort than before. I can eat everything in huge amounts like huge meals and everything without beefing up. Just by avoiding all the sweets I really don't need to be happy. But I guess we'll see soon. 23 days to go.
Tomorrow I've to make cookies for grandma.

30 Day Challenge

I concocted a new plan.
As you probably noticed I'm addicted to chocolate. I really have a hard time sticking to the 'good' chocolate when there is so much choice. Especially now that it's almost Chistmas and you can buy even more sweets than usual. Our Christmas Market just opened and you can guzzle your way completely through the whole town. As addiction never is a good thing I need to change. And I think I've got a good idea.

I'll start a new 30 day trial from tomorrow. 'Healthy' sweets only. Such as 85% cocoa containing chocolate, dried fuits and nuts. No milk chocolate, nougat or marcipan allowed. If I have a choice I'm eating whatever I want.
So that means that I'll stick to the good stuff for at least 30 days. I'll track what I ate and how I felt during this time and hope to get results afterwards.

As they found out dark chocolate is actually quite healthy I guess I should feelt great. Dark choci lowers blood pressure and keeps your heart healthy because it works against blood clotting. Also, it contains antioxidantes which help to protect your body from free radicals.

Dried fruit and nuts are wholesome snacks, too. Of course you should be aware of the calories they contain if you want to lose weight (just the same with chocolate). But in the end they are much more natural than a candy bar. Moreover, nuts contain unsaturated fats which are actually 'good' fats. They help to prevent heart diseases and keep your LDL cholesterol level low. They also contain omega-3 fatty acids which you usually only find in fish. These also help preventing heart diseases.

My goal is to be strong enough to say NO against all the unwholesome stuff during christmas time and also later on. I'd rather lose a couple of pounds because of more controlled eating instead of gaining weight during christmas time.
I also hope not to buy as many sweets as usual if I'm only to buy the 'good' ones because they are usually more expensive.

I'll keep you updated. :)