Chocolate Junkie Bowl

Craaaaaaaazy chocolate cravings tonight.

Apparently, chocolate addiction is a thing. I have it, I'm sure. I've finally narrowed down the moments when the cravings hit. When I'm super tired and stressed (Smallest Offspring refuses to sleep properly for two days); and after the Offspring are all in bed, with the cuppa Mr makes me each evening as we blob on the couch.

I've never smoked, nor been addicted to alcohol or drugs, so I don't have much to go on here by way of comparison, but I'm pretty sure the perpetually running script in my mind could be substituted for what it must be like to try to come off these other addictive substances:  'eat chocolate now, go on, just a little bit, go out and buy some, the service station is open late, you deserve it, just one bit won't hurt, you won't have to eat it again tomorrow, just once today, you could have some and no one will know..... ' and so it goes on.

Having 'given up' sugar, somehow chocolate (delicious, creamy amazing New Zealand Whittakers Chocolate) is really putting up a fight.

It wasn't until about 10pm when I realised I might be able to assuage the cravings in a sugar free (and late-night-outing-avoiding) kind of way.

Chocolate Junkie Bowl

3 large dollops of Greek Yoghurt (probably about 1 cup, if we're measuring)
1 tablespoon raw organic cacao powder
1 tablespoon raw organic cacao nibs
1/2 banana, choppped.

Mixed that lot up, demolished it in short order. Cravings gone.

Now, if we can just work out how to get the Smallest Offspring to fall asleep before midnight...

Thursday Breakfast Snapshot

Breakfast snapshot

Coco-nutty Granola Clusters with Greek Yoghurt and Banana.

Quick and easy to prepare, but took me nearly an hour to eat it in between dealing with the offspring and their morning of crazy. 

I'm pretty sure sugar free purists have a whole not eating bananas thing, but I needed a bit more ooomph this morning after a big day and night of breastfeeding, and I really didn't have the time and mental space to scramble eggs this morning. Although, as I sit now and write this instead, maybe I should be eating eggs instead of telling you about NOT eating eggs?

Breakfast Breakthrough

Small victory in the breakfast department with regard to the eldest offspring this morning. Lately, as 10 year old boys do, he's been bingeing on bread. LOADS of toast with only Olivani spread, no topping of any description, followed by a massive bowl of cornflakes or weetbix. I'd taken to calling it his 'beige breakfast' and added boiled eggs to it when I could get the energy (or inclination, depending on the mood of smallest offspring) to boil them for him.  It was empty carbs, and I noticed his mood was often even more pre-teen than usual when he had his beige breakfast.

This morning he calls from the kitchen "Hey Mum, can I make a smoothie? Think I might have it with avocado toast!"

Cue me fainting dead away on the floor in the next room.

Not only is the EO planning on eating real, nutritious food - he's planning on actually using the blender - a kitchen appliance other than the toaster. He has to go OUTSIDE (gasp) to pick a lemon from the tree for his avocado toast. He even grabs a spoonful of protein powder to add oomph to the banana, yoghurt (ok, it WAS chocolate yoghurt) and milk smoothie.

It's these moments that you want to watch, record for posterity and fuss over for hours. Equally frustrating with pre-teens, it's these moments they want you nowhere near you, much less photographing and fussing. So I play it cool, doing a silent mummy dance on the inside.

And try not to die a little at lunchtime when he tells me he wants a chocolate sauce pancake.