Battle of the Bulge on a Budget: Part 3

Part 1 of Battle of the Bulge with links to free online tools and resources is here.

Part 2 talks about a great book I read recently called Love to Eat, Hate to Eat and my exercise journey.

Here is my most recent tip for battling the bulge (on a budget): Dark Chocolate! So I am sure most of you think that is the last thing anyone should eat when trying to lose weight, but it seems to be one of the few desserts I can eat and not go overboard. But here's the caveat: it must be very dark chocolate with a high cacoa content. So much so that its very intense and not super sweet. I've found that less than 150 calories worth does the trick, and more than that starts to taste strange and bitter. Of course this won't work if chocolate is a "trigger" food that prompts over-eating for you, but for me chocolate doesn't. Ice cream, crackers, chips are all like that for me, so I just don't keep those in the house most of the time. But dark chocolate (bought with sales and coupons in individual packages in a larger bag) seems to work well for me!

As far as my previous strategies, the green smoothies are still a go, and I have found that they do help with cravings and energy later in the day. They do have a tendency to gross out co-workers though, so be discreet;) I good combo I tried yesterday was 1 1/2 frozen banana, one chopped up apple and 2 good handfuls of baby spinach (with plenty of water).

Exercise starting to pick up, my lovely friend Mariah and her family are visiting the area so we are starting to walk (and hopefully work up to jogging) together with our babies. Daniel and I have been taking evening walks to the park too, so gradually my health health and stamina seem to be improving. I even went out to jog yesterday morning (although I only lasted for about 12 minutes;)! So...progress.

More frugal tips that you can ever use can be found here!