Yummy low calorie dessert for dieters

I don't remember where I discovered this recipe - but I make it often, and I love it even if my children don't (all the more for me!)

Berry Creamy Fruit Sandwich
Cooking level: Easy
Cooking & Preparation time: 30 - 40 minutes
Serves: 4 people

Ingredients:

1 sheet Puff Pastry
Cooking spray
1 tub Vanilla Fruche
16 Raspberries
16 Strawberries (quartered)
16 Blueberries
1 tsp Icing Sugar

Directions:

1. Pre-heat oven to 180*C  (Sorry, I don't know the *F equivalent)
2. Place semi-defrosted Puff Pastry sheet on lightly sprayed flat baking tray. Slice pastry sheet in half lengthways. Slice pastry sheet into quarters width-ways. This creates 8 slices of Puff pastry.
3. Spray each pastry slice lightly with cooking spray.
4. Bake in oven until puffed up and lightly golden.
5. Transfer cooked slices to cooling rack and allow to cool to room temperature.

6. Once cool, on serving plate, place one cooked pastry sheet.
7. 'Butter' the underside of the pastry sheet with approximately 1 - 2 tablespoons of Vanilla Fruche.
8. Place 4 raspberries, 4 strawberries and 4 blueberries on the vanilla Fruche.
9. Add another pastry sheet as top layer of sandwich.
10. Make the three other sandwiches repeating steps 6 to 9.

11. Place one teaspoon of Icing Sugar in a sieve, and sprinkle evenly over each of the 4 Berry Creamy Fruit Sandwiches.
12. To garnish, place mint sprig on top of each sandwich. Enjoy! 

Try it, and let me know what you think of the dieting-friendly treat by liking or commenting on this page!

Overcoming the problem of skipping breakfast

In 2010-ish I borrowed a book from the Library. I don't remember the title now, and I have never seen the book on the shelf again despite a number of attempts to re-find it.

The book was to help you determine if you have a chemical imbalance as the cause of experiencing difficulties in reducing weight, and provided advice on overcoming sugar addiction. Packed with tiny tables with examples, the unknown author (my apologises to the author: you really deserve every praise and credit for producing such a wonderful helpful book) explained different chemicals produced by the human body and the impact it has upon metabolising food (yeah, I've read these types of books before but this was different to most), with the ultimate purpose of empowering the reader to get to the non-emotional root  and to then use the information one learns about their own body over a six week period to assist them in  setting and reaching their weight reduction goals.

I really wish I could remember the name of the book!

Being a bit of a Microsoft Word nerd, while I had the book I created an entire series of daily, weekly and analysing-the-data tracking forms based on all the mini-tables scattered throughout the book (bordering on plagarising I know, but I only intended to use the forms for my own benefit), which I then printed out (creating a inch-thick booklet for myself to complete). For the next six weeks, every hour on the hour during my waking moments, I dedicatedly spent less than one minute placing little dots into relevant grids for a number of considerations without over-analysing how I felt (as per the author instructions). For example, from memory one of the considerations was your current Hunger Level, and you marked on the grid whether you were (something like) Not Hungry, Mildly Hungry, Quite Hungry, Ravenous etc. Without thinking too much about it, you looked at the choices and chose your current hunger level. And then you moved onto the next consideration, for example your current Mood and whatever its choices were. Over the course of the day, you could see the rise and fall pattern for a range of considerations: hunger level, your mood, thirst level.

Seriously, I regret the day my last computer crashed resulting in my losing those electronic files. I spent weeks making those forms!

The information I gleaned from having carried out the exercise was... eye-opening. (There are so many words I could write here).

I learned that even though the foods I had eaten was on the most part 'healthy', my body was having problems because of my eating habits. My habit of never eating breakfast, even though it is common knowledge that people should never skip breakfast and I frequently endeavoured to eat this meal, was actually caused by a chemical imbalance preventing me from eating that meal!  Armed with this new information, I was able to experiment in how I could overcome this particular barrier (the author went in a whole new direction with her book from this point, which left me having to go it alone unfortunately).

It has taken me roughly two and a half to three years to train my body to feel hungry in the morning, and the solution in the end was rather simple: I couldn't eat my breakfast, so I turned to drinking it instead (to begin with).  Now, I can happily report that I maintain breakfast eating habits with eating a bowl of porridge or low-sugar cereals with a small handful of fresh fruit, or, on the days when I just can't stomach eating, I maintain my morning fuel-up by drinking a delicious smoothie - even if I have to water it down so I don't feel 'yuck'.

And, although I can't remember the reason why any more, I also eat thinly sliced Turkey on a sandwich twice to three times per week, because there is a beneficial chemical in turkey that was the secret to turning the situation around.

Anyway, if anyone ever knows the book I am talking about, please post the title in the comments section.  I still have my old completed tattered booklet, held together by a metal U-clip, but I would love to re-read the book, to understand how and why my former breakfast-skipping  leads to imbalance.