winter warming.

One thing I've been missing are cups of hot chocolate. When me and my daughters have been out on a cold day - and we've had some cold, wet days this year! - we love coming home, getting warm and having hot chocolate together. Some days an infusion of lemon and ginger doesn't really do it.

So my physio had a fantastic suggestion.

Why don't you have a mug of cocoa, sweetened with honey?

My mum used to make us cocoa on cold winter days and I didn't really like it but I was a child and sugar was a part of my life so I bought a tub of Cadbury bourneville cocoa today and heated up some milk. I mixed a teaspoon of cocoa with a little cold milk, I mixed in the hot milk and added a squeeze of honey.

Oh. My. Goodness! It was divine!!

I'm so glad that I can still indulge in hot chocolate :)

forgetfull

I don't think about writing here as much as I should. But there is a good reason. A reason that I haven't quite come to terms with.

Sugar rarely tempts me.

Okay, there was that blip as the weekend but I didn't actually eat anything sugary. But yesterday at the breastfeeding group I W's cutting cake for the mums and didn't even consider cutting any for myself. Not at any point did I wish that I could have had some.

Later on I saw a tv advert for Twix - a chocolate bar. As they drizzled the chocolate over the biscuit centre I tried to imagine the taste - as I have many times before without effort. I've drooled or of desire for that chocolate. But yesterday? I just couldn't achieve that reaction! It was like trying to imagine the taste of wood!

So now I have these feelings - kind of like I've lost a part of myself. Sugar has always been there. I love the extravagance of scones with jam and cream, cakes with slightly too much icing. A chocolate bar sneaked here and a packet of custard creams in front of a movie. These threebgs all seem lost to me now.

No one mentioned the grieving.

dopamine.

I was at my regular physio appointment last night. I'm a runner and was injured last year, I'm slowly (literally!) getting back into the swing of things but to avoid re-injury I need to pay for pain on a regular basis.

Knowing that he believes the same as me, that fat is healthier than sugar, I talked to him about my 3 month plan (between screaming and swearing as he cracked my back, loosened my itb and kept my achilles loose). He told me something interesting.

Apparently nearly all food releases dopamines in our brains which causes us pleasure from eating. The only food that he knew of which doesn't have this affect is broccoli! This is why most kids don't like it - of course 50% of my kids do.

Anyway, if we eat food regularly the quantity of dopamine released becomes lower which encourages us to eat a balanced diet. We look for new foods or food that we haven't eaten recently in order to get a bigger dopamine release.

However - the release of dopamine doesn't decline with sugar consumption meaning that we never get sick of these foods and that includes many pre-packaged 'savoury' foods which are packed full of sugar too.

It's certainly something else to think about. And reminds me about a complaint I once had about mother nature not realising that we had invented the supermarket. Why couldn't we evolve away from the need to overeat.

This helps me to understand that it isn't about needing to evolve - it's about our reliance on crap food.

aaaggghhhhhh!

I WANT SUGAR AND I WANT IT NOW!!! 

Talk me down people, talk me down!

Premenstrual and with a prepubescent, hormonal child who just OD'd on sugar at a pizza hut party. She's rolling like a roller coaster on super speed and I'm just waiting for the crash.

It's going to be ugly...