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Did that heading draw you in? Come on now, be honest? I can’t even begin to understand our collective desire to be a heap of skin and bones. As I’ve said many a time, I would so much rather be chubby and just keep eating great food, and living the way I live.
See, the thing about diets, as we spoke about in my podcast with weight loss coach Ashley Gibson, is that 85% of all people who attempt to lose weight on a diet will fail. And even worse than failing at losing weight, is the mental and emotional battery we put ourselves through after such an endeavor often leads us to seek solace, hugs, kisses and cuddles in the very thing that is our enemy- empty calorie, disease building, junk in the trunk enhancing foods.
I passionately promote the concept that if we eat whole foods, our body gets into the swing of things and over time will start to use what we give it incredibly efficiently and we easily and effortlessly come to a place that is healthiest for us- on an individual basis. I like my booty and I intend to keep it that way. Since recovering from Crohn’s, I gained back about 15 pounds and my weight has remained the same for two years with only minor fluctations. This indicates that what I am doing is just right for me.
Now that you have patiently sat through my preaching about how silly it is to try and starve ourselves and eat bad food, there are some amazing properties to specific whole foods that can help us shed a few. This is not by calorie deprivation, or over exertion or eating those lame-oid sugar-free, fat-free, pretend foods. What I am talking about is eating foods that help promote the efficiency of our metabolism. Please don’t go popping your ephedra tablets.
Foods can promote healthy weight in numerous ways- such as by giving the metabolism a boost, reducing cravings, and increasing feelings of satiety. One thing’s for sure- counting calories, carbs and fat grams fails 85% of the time. So here is my most amazing energy burning, metabolism optimizing, appetite satisfying morning delight.
First though, here is why it works so well!
- Maca: contains the essential nutrients necessary to boost thyroid function, helps to balance the components of the endocrine system, and promotes the use of glucose in the bloodstream for energy which means less gets stored as fat.
- Bee pollen: shown to have an ability to help in fat loss by increasing the rate of energy production in our cells
- Cayenne pepper: equalizes the metabolism and when taken regularly can boost metabolism by as much as 25%!
- Hemp seeds: Get full! Eat high fibre and high omega 3 fats to stabilize blood sugar and be hunger free until mid-afternoon. With less hunger you kick to the curb the oodles of mid-meal snacking with reduced cravings for starchy and sweet carbs.
- Dandelion root: has kidney and bladder supportive diuretic effects that helps reduce water weight. It may also help the liver regulate blood sugars to avoid hypoglycemia (low blood sugar), frequently an immediate cause of binge eating. An added bonus the increase in bile flow stimulated by dandelion helps to improve fat metabolism in the body.
- Caffeine: we’re talking very selective amounts here, may stimulate thermogenesis — one way your body generates heat and energy from digesting food.
- Raw Cacao: Magnesium is one of the most deficient nutrients in North Americans and the primary source, in nature, is found in cacao.Raw chocolate is known to diminish appetite.
Now if you blend all those super powers together do you know what you get? A beverage that could easily rival any coffee shop mocha-chiller-frappe-or-what-have-you but you will be full all morning long and it is healthy promoting! This is seriously my current obsession and here I am drinking it in all my morning beauty- dawning my ex boyfriends t-shirt (we dated in 2001).
So toss your scale out the window, drink up, feel great, take a walk and all your dreams will come true.
Meghan’s Mocha Chillape
Prep Time: 5 minutes
Cook Time: None
Ingredients (Serves 1)
- 2 Tbs raw cacaopowder
- 5-8 organic coffee beans
- 2 tsp macapowder
- 1/2 tsp dandelion root powder (break open three capsules, use the tea bags or grind down your own harvest)
- 2 tsp bee pollen
- 1 Tbs hemp seeds
- dash of cayenne
- 1 cup of ice
- 1 cup of water
- steviaor raw honeyto sweeten
Instructions
Blend all ingredients, then enjoy!
Question of The Day: What is the most ridiculous diet you or someone you know has ever tried?
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I believe fad weight loss diets are all ridicuoulous. A good example is the grapefruit diet that was so popular a few years back. They focus on calories rather than nutrition, which is why they all fail in the long run. Eating a plant based, whole foods nutrient dense diet will regulate your weight and keep you healthy for life. It’s not that difficult, but it doesn’t sell diet books.
Amen to that meatlessmama…. amen to that!
Whenever I think about ridiculous diets I always think about Regina George from Mean Girls “I really want to lose three pounds” hahahaha
I am allllllllll on board with your philosophy. I lost at least 1-2 sizes since last summer just by a eating nutrient dense and clean diet. I wasn’t trying to lose weight at all, it just happened to be a by product of my clean diet.
I have known many people (friends , family and clients) who have been on a popular “starvation diet”. I won’t mention names but it is a Dr whose last name starts with the letter “B”.
I get so upset every time I see those damn commercials!! It is a true starvation diet that is killing people! I have worked with so many clients to help repair their metabolisms and health post dieting. It takes a long time to regain their health.
Craziest diet I have ever seen!
You mean Dr. Bernstein? You must mean the Bernstein diet? The ridiculous Dr. Bernstein diet where they limit caloric intake to 800 cals/day and inject people with ‘nutrition’. Yes, the Dr. Bernstein diet gets results- perfect for crash dieting pre-wedding but I don’t know of anyone who goes on a diet so that can balloon to twice their starting weight when they start being a normal human being again (eating food). Wait… did you not want to mention any names
Dr. Bernstein (just in case I didn’t make it clear enough)
I’ve never really done any crazy diets. One diet I tried when I was 14 said that I needed to drink about 8 glasses of water/day. Since I try to do the best with eveything I start, I began drinking 8 glasses of water, and kicked a major Kool-Aid habit. I didn’t stick with the diet, but did keep up the water drinking and never went back to Kool-Aid again.
Does that smoothie actually taste good?!?!?! It’s so superfood loaded, but it sounds like it might not be tasty!! haha
It is totally amazing! Trust my sweet!
Someone once told me that he went on a rice diet once in a while – this was someone really overweight. even though it’s a quirky diet I don’t think it’s funny, it’s just sad: the diet consisted of eating ONLY rice, a set quantity – don’t remember the number, but I remember I was appalled when I heard – every day for 7-10 days, just stuffing your face with rice, rice, more rice until the metabolism freaks over all the carbohydrates and starts burning…shockingly, all the weight lost was regained quite rapidly afterwards. Go figure. I hope this person has found someone like you or some resource to get him interested in making real, healthy food and eating to please the body, not force it…
Which nutcase would go on a rice diet? Rice is only carbs and starch. What is it giving your body?
I’ll admit that I was tempted by the Lemonade Master Cleanse at one point. I read tons of rave reviews, not from the typical diet junkies who try every bizarre new trend, but from raw food enthusiasts and people who seemed otherwise knowledgeable about health and wellness. The plan: 10 days of lemonade only – fresh lemon juice, water, cayenne, and organic grade B maple syrup that supposedly supplies all your nutrients. At night, drink salt water to help you poop. Supposedly this will flush your body of years of waste and boost your energy. As it turns out, the energy boost is actually called starvation euphoria. Um… no thanks.
I know this one well… I once tried it and lasted until 5:00pm the day I started. I do think cleansing is great but the Master Cleanse was never designed for weightloss purposes and any thing this extreme should be done with some profesh coaching.
There is a quote from a movie – but right now I can’t place what movie it was from… : “I’m only one stomach virus away from a size zero!” I know it is terrible, but I had to laugh at that!
I have heard that line too… now I have to think where it came from. Let me know if you work it out!
Got it! Devil Wears Prada: “I’m on this new diet. Well, I don’t eat anything and when I feel like I’m about to faint I eat a cube of cheese. I’m just one stomach flu away from my goal weight. ”
Lovely
Some statistics even give a 95% of “failed” diets, meaning 95% percent of all dieters gain back every single pound, sometimes more, within the first three years. Two thirds of them gain it back within the first year. (Joy Nash mentioned this from the International Journal of Obesity in her “Fat Rant” on Youtube.) Weight cycling is so incredibly unhealthy, much unhealthier than never dieting at all.
I think if you do some forms of enjoyable activity (sports, dancing, walking, whatever) and eat stuff that is good for you, even if you don’t lose a single ounce, you will be much healthier than going on diets. Thanks for the inspiration, Meghan, you always have such yummy recipies!
I couldn’t wait for the weekend to buy all the ingredients. I made it, love it and had to control myself to not make it 5 times a day. Your drink looks better, thicker in the pics. Any tips to share? I only have a simple blender and a magic bullet. Thanks
The tip to get it looking like mine? Vitamix
Or a really powerful food processor might work too.
Forget about “getting skinny”, this just sounds delicious!
That’s exactly the point. So delicious! What’s skinny anyway? I do have skinny wrists- that’s about it
Aww, man! I just quit coffee last week. Where was this recipe when I was c-r-a-z-y on caffeine?!
Make it with swiss filtered decaf
always a solution
Hi there,
This sounds delish but what if I substituted unsweetened vanilla almond milk for the cup of water? Besides a few added calories, would this significantly change the effectiveness of the ingredients?
Lisa
Go for it! And who cares about calories anyway
[...] I drink coffee? Nope. Not in seven years (wow, does time fly). I’ve been known to throw a few coffee beans into a frosty smoothie for flavour, but a whole cup? Wowsers, I would be climbing up the [...]
[...] I drink coffee? Nope. Not in seven years (wow, does time fly). I’ve been known to throw a few coffee beans into a frosty smoothie for flavour, but a whole cup? Wowsers, I would be climbing up the [...]
[...] I drink coffee? Nope. Not in seven years (wow, does time fly). I’ve been known to throw a few coffee beans into a frosty smoothie for flavour, but a whole cup? Wowsers, I would be climbing up the [...]
Hi, I found you through HEAB’s site! I admit it, I saw your title header and couldn’t resist clicking and looking into it. What can I say? I’m weak
Your smoothie sounds absolutely delicious! Especially with the addition of coffee beans (I have a um, “slight” coffee addiction… hehe), yums.
And on the fad diet thing, I have tried everything short of the Tapeworm Diet and Cabbage Diet (Napa Cabbage – good. Any other cabbage – not that great). I did the water cleanse (lasted 4 hours, which was amazing even for me), did the juice fast cleanse (about 2 days, max, as I always only do it every other 2 days), and just about everything else. But I stopped. Why? Because I discovered this amazing world of food blogs where people tell you that you CAN lose weight just by eating healthily and eating whole foods. There’s no need to starve yourself; it’ll only do you more harm than good in the long run.
Looking forward to reading the rest of your blog! =)
LOVE your comment Sylvia- thanks for stopping by.
oh my! I made this, minus the coffee beans (we have none) and no ice. And sweetened with dates instead of honey. Yes, it is tasty!
GAH! this is SO good!!! thank you for this super delicious treat. I just went out to gather all of the ingredients (aside from dandelion, which I harvested myself this past spring!)
I rarely ever drink coffee because I hate the way it makes me feel but I love the flavor of it. This is a good way to enjoy it! I used a serving of medjool dates over the honey, but next time I will try that and also go easier on the amount of cayenne. I used just a dash but the kind I have is very fresh and potent.
I’m in my first semester studying holistic nutrition, and I can’t wait to share this with my classmates. They’ll love your blog!
[...] The weather was so warm that I indulged in one of my most favourite breakfasts! A little variation on this original Mocha Chillappe. [...]