Chocolate Cravings
 

I consider myself a choloholic. If it's not chocolate, it's not worth it. Since I am diabetic, I recently bought a six pack of sugar free chocolate pudding to satisfy my cravings. I ate 2 of them about a week ago, and haven't had the desire for them since. I don't even think about them. I think maybe knowing that they are in the house and readily available has taken away the cravings. This may not work for everyone, but it's working for me!

Carol

Wow that's impressive. Well done, I only wish I was that disciplined. If I had chocolate in the house it would be demolished in 5 seconds flat, but if I refuse to buy it then I don't get any cravings, or if I do they go away fairly quickly.

Carol - totally agree! When I have the stuff around and make nothing "off limits" I stop wanting it so much...

Good for you! You found a way to deal with the cravings! I enjoy dark chocolate. I keep those ghiradeli squares in my desk. A single dark square is only 4.5 carbs and not too many calories. I savor it and really enjoy them occasionally.

Feel free to jump on over to the diabetes section. We have some great people there! Our ongoing forum is the "July chat".

Sugar-free dark chocolate is delicious :] My mom and I keep dark chocolate handy and just break off one or two pieces at a time if we want our chocolate fix.

I also will put a packet of hot cocoa in a cup of black coffee and it's a nice chocolatey treat for only about 100 calories (around 2 points if you're on WW, depending on what kind of hot cocoa you use).

Quote:

Originally Posted by savvybee (Post 3918782) Sugar-free dark chocolate is delicious :] My mom and I keep dark chocolate handy and just break off one or two pieces at a time if we want our chocolate fix. I also will put a packet of hot cocoa in a cup of black coffee and it's a nice chocolatey treat for only about 100 calories (around 2 points if you're on WW, depending on what kind of hot cocoa you use).

Oh, I forgot about the hot cocoa! I buy that sugar free also, but that is usually a winter treat.

Carol

Chocolate spice tea. If there are any calories at all, they will be close to zero.

I also do the thing with having very small piece of very dark chocolate, but it doesn't work for everyone. It helps that I'm vegan and thus am limited to dark chocolate, and dark chocolate works much better if you're eating tiny pieces. I've tried this with 85% and with 72% chocolate, and it was much easier with the darker chocolate. I literally took 5 weeks to polish off that 100g 85% bar. Generally I have 3-5g sized pieces, with the result that 3g is pleasant and 5g feels like a real indulgence.

I love Nutella. It's like a melted Rochelle. I have 1 tsp of it (2 tbs is a serving) and I am so satisfied.

I can't keep chocolate in the house. If I really, really want some, I'll go somewhere and buy one serving of something. It's really the only way I can not overdo it.

There's a chocolatier in town that makes incredible little chocolates in odd but delicious flavor combinations. One little piece costs about $1.50 and is about 3/4 inch square. It's easy to buy just one. Though it's more fun to buy two :lol:

I have always wanted to try Nutella and now you have me thinking about it. It may help with my cravings for nuts which I am no longer allowed to eat. I can eat nut butters though.

Carol

You can stop at one teaspoon of Nutella?!?!?!?! I have trouble stopping at one JAR of Nutella! :lol: It does not enter this house, unless it's the single-serving packet that I can get at World Market - and even that is VERY rare. I love the stuff.

Just for information's sake (and I love chocolate as much as anyone) I read somewhere that an overpowering craving for chocolate is really your body wanting some magnesium.

I take 500 mg of magnesium at night before bed and I never get a chocolate craving anymore.

Now if only that would work on ice cream cravings. ;)

I'm not diabetic, but my mother is so I've gotten used to not really eating any sugar. What I used to do to satiate a chocolate craving was blend up 1 cup of skim milk (or almond milk, whatever), 1 tbsp of unsweetened cocoa powder, some artificial sweetener and ice.

I can't fathom eating small amounts of chocolate nut spreads either, although I'm thinking of risking it again at some point now that I'm more disciplined. They're high in fat, too. Being vegan, I worked out my own recipe which comprises of hazelnut butter, non-hydrogenated margarine, agave syrup or similar (maple syrup is out of this world but a bit too high GI for me, the syrup from the stem ginger jar is surprisingly good), and cocoa powder. You just stir them together in a jar, and the hardest part is making sure you don't get cocoa powder in the margarine, and come to that the weird tendency of cocoa powder to start flying out of the jar and settling everywhere once you start stirring. Anyway, my mother was visiting last year, tried a bit in a cautious sort of way, said it was the best chocolate spread she'd ever tasted, and pretty much polished off the rest of the jar on the spot. What usually happened with me and the chocolate spread would be that I'd use the knife to spread some on toast or a rice cake, and then somehow the jar of chocolate spread and a teaspoon would follow me into the other room and the jar would end up empty shortly afterwards. (Admittedly I'd only make up half of a smallish jar at a time, due to the aforementioned peculiarities of stirring cocoa powder. But still.) And I'm not someone who binge-eats, as a rule. I am going to have to be insanely disciplined and probably maintaining for a while before I even think of making up another jar of the delicious stuff.