Friday 21 December 2012

Holiday Musings and a Chocolate Review

Good Morning Friends :)

So... how did the apocalypse go for everyone? I did hot yoga, saw my good friend who just got back from a semester in Norway and ate sushi, so I thought it was a pretty great day!

I actually had no idea what to write about today, so I thought I would just talk about a few holiday bits and pieces and things that I like.

First of all, I want to thank everyone for their awesome comments on my post yesterday. I pulled a really daring move last week and was terrified initially, but the support you guys gave me just makes me feel great about myself and makes me want to do stuff like that more often!

So, how about some little tidbits?

1. This stuff is the bomb!


I can't get enough of it. Although, Sam has been making me pretty jealous by flaunting the peanut kind on instagram. I may have to shell out for that at some point... Haha, get it? Shell out? Never mind...

2. One of my favourite snacks lately has been greek yogurt mixed with chocolate and peppermint liquid stevia. It tastes just like candy cane ice cream! Okay, that's a lie, nothing can replace candy cane ice cream, but it tastes really good!


I just got 5 different flavours of NuNaturals stevia and it's so much fun to play around with flavour combos!


3. I miss Chelsie's blog (Balance, Not Scale); anyone else? In case you didn't hear, her blog got hacked and she had to shut it down. Luckily, I can harass her via text whenever I want to (hehe), but it is a little disturbing to think that there are people out there who devote their time to invading others' privacy. It just goes to show that you can never be too careful on the internet. All of those pictures on facebook of you doing kegstands? Take them down people! I'm begging you!

4. One of my favourite holiday treats is marzipan. It's sugary almond paste! There is no downside! My wonderful mother has stocked the house with tubes and tubes of it, so I am totally set for Christmas :)


5. I have been done my Christmas shopping for a whole week now and it feels great! The last present I checked off of my list was my dad's. I decided to make a calendar of pet-shaming pictures of our dog (a sweet idea that Alex gave me). It already arrived and it actually turned out really well! These are just a few of my favourites :)




She's actually a good dog, we love her to bits!

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I'll just do a quick little review for you guys of a product I tried recently: Perfect Fuel Chocolate. Basically, it is dark chocolate infused with ginseng. It is supposed to provide energy for endurance exercise, improve circulation and calm the mind. Pre-workout chocolate? Sounds pretty good to me!


One thing I really liked about it was the stats. One 14 gram piece (which is a good size) has 80 calories,  1 gram of fibre and 3 grams of sugar, so it is not going to make your blood sugar spike and then plummet.


Since it helps with energy and calming your mind, I decided to have a piece before a 90-minute hot yoga flow class to test its abilities. It was a morning class, so I didn't want to eat too much before-hand, but I thought this chocolate would give me the perfect energy boost. It definitely did something, because, while I sometimes get tired in the last half-hour of a long class, this time I felt pretty energized throughout. I even did the same class the next day without the chocolate and I felt a noticeable difference in my energy levels.


In terms of the taste, you know I'm a big dark chocolate fiend, so I loved how dark it was. Since the sugar content is pretty low, I didn't find it too sweet either. It also had undertones that almost tasted like espresso, but that could have been the ginseng. My only complaint was that the texture was chalky, almost sandy and not smooth like most other dark chocolate I have had.

This would be a good product for your if you are active, a chocolate-lover and like chocolate that has a bit of a bitter edge. If you can get past the texture, it might be worth giving it a try. Let me know how it works for you if you try it out!

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So, that's all for today! 

I hope you are having a marvelous holiday season so far!

Would you try ginseng-infused chocolate?

Do you have a favourite snack or treat around the holidays?