Why are you craving what you are craving?

Want to know why you're craving what you're craving?

It's much easier to listen to your body if you are cutting sugar, reducing flour and limiting processed foods - once you are eating real foods, your body can tell you what it needs!

Download this list and keep it on your fridge to help you work out your cravings!

Flapjacks

Not those highly processed, odd tasting, chocolate flavoured topped things you can buy at petrol stations.  Not the packets of flapjack bites you can buy in the supermarket that just encourage you to munch mindlessly until the box is gone.  No.  Healthier flapjacks made with only 3 real ingredients.

200g butter
1 cup honey
2 cups oats

Melt butter and honey.
Add to oats.
Spread and press hard into a square pan lined with baking paper.
Bake for 20 minutes.

Leave to cool totally before cutting into squares.  They are a little more crumbly than shop-bought ones but who cares when they taste this good and you know what's in them?

You can add anything else you like to these, like raisins, grated apple, dark chocolate chips, nuts, grated orange rind etc.

Again this is not a calorie-free treat so should still be eaten in moderation.

Enjoy x

Sticky Toffee Pudding

This is possibly the most successful paleo alternative I have ever made.

My client is trying to steer clear of wheat and sugar.  The reason behind this is that most things made from wheat are generally high in sugar and unhealthy fat.  By avoiding wheat, you are avoiding just about every product that contains unhealthy fat, meaning that the fat left to you is all good!  Some research seems to suggest that wheat and sugar have an inflammatory reaction in the body - not just in the stomach but also smooth muscle (arterial walls for example) and joints.

Avoiding sugar reduces the over the top insulin response your body has to a sudden, sharp rise in blood glucose levels.  This evens out your energy and mood levels over the day.

One day my client came for a meeting and told me she had spent most of her previous pregnancy eating sticky toffee pudding and custard.  She blames the weight gain she experienced in her previous pregnancy on sticky toffee pudding!

She needed a fix.  She needed it now and she needed it to be as clean as possible!

This dessert took literally ten minutes to make.

For the toffee sauce:

60g salted butter
1/2 cup honey
1/4 cup coconut cream

Boil furiously for the time you make the cake mix

For the sponge mix:

200g creamed coconut (also known as coconut butter or coconut manna)
1 tsp baking powder
a squirt of honey
4-6 eggs

Add the honey, then the eggs one at a time to the melted coconut and baking powder
Add enough eggs so that it is a slightly runny cake batter consistency
Once the toffee sauce is boiled, share out between 6 cup cake cases
Add spoonfuls of cake mix on top until it nearly reaches the top of the cases
bake until golden and the cakes spring back when pressed.  Do not overbake.

Turn out upside down so the sauce covers the cake and serve with chilled coconut cream.

While this recipe is by no means calorie free, it is a better alternative to shop-bought, wheat and sugar-rich sticky toffee pudding!

Enjoy!