Chocolate Cravings (split thread)

[Aggie]

Someone's been stretching all my pants...   *grumble*

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Embrace sin, for instance right now I'm eating some chocolate covered raisins. I shouldn't but I'm sure it would do wonders for you.

[Aggie]

That's the problem, I don't want "sinful" weight.  Skinny-guy fat is not a good thing.

I do admit that one sign of 'need to gain some damned weight' is chocolate cravings.  Considering I drink cocoa a couple of times a day, it's more like 'I can haz fat & sugger plz?'.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

If we keep going we should split this stuff...
---
If I stop eating chocolate I get heavy cravings, OTOH the times I felt depressed it definitively helped me out.  Now, as a good addict, I don't notice the amount of chocolate I eat... until I stop. 

[Aggie]

Ayuh, the chocolate cravings lately are probably also stress-linked.  When I'm stressed out, I often don't eat enough calories, so it's tough to pinpoint it.



Probably the fat, mostly, as I prefer very dark, not too sweet chocolate.  Even high-cocoa dark chocolates are pretty high in fat.  Also, I will permit myself to indulge in chocolate, but refuse to buy most other junk food or sweets, so it's a default stand-in for other foods, too.

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

You have to remember that it is the amount of calories you burn what matters, that is, if you are burning it (which it seems you are) then you can eat empty calories, or just check the diet of the Amish and their rates of cardiovascular diseases.

[Aggie]

Yeah, but the other side of the coin is all the crap that goes with 'junk food', including ridiculous sodium levels, preservatives, food additives and pesticide residues for certain conventional products.  I'm not opposed to cooking high-calorie food but won't buy junk or fast food.  Since dairy is out (try to stick to organic dairy, but the only cheap stuff is yogurt. Organic cheese in Canada? Hah! Might as well grate silver over my pizza!), my only practical method of adding calories is either bigger portions (esp. carbs) or more olive oil.  I burned out on big portions after my last round of weight-gaining.  Need to pick up some more bags of nuts (almonds, pecans, etc.) and tubs of hummus at Costco, which are good rack-a-few-calories-up snacks.

There are of course other factors that can impact your health (cholesterol etc.) quite aside from the simple BMI side of this, so I don't want to just start downing gobs of lard. Starting to exercise more these days, which is good for my overall fitness but will demand MORE CALORIES!


Yeah, I know I'm whinging about something I don't need to subject myself to, which is a sin.... 

[Sibling Zono (anon1mat0)]

Ok, so don't put butter on your bread, use olive oil (and basil, and garlic...).

And keep eating chocolate!

[Aggie]

I don't eat much bread, is the problem, or I would use the butter.   Hard to get tasty bread, I despise cold sandwiches or toast for breaky, and the shelf life isn't long enough to get through a loaf without having to throw it in the freezer.  Actually trying to start eating more wheat as I've been on primarily rice for far too long, but that will most likely manifest as pasta (lower GI values apparently, too).

Gradually re-tweaking my adopted Asian diet to something a little more global.