Not So Sinful Snacks 1: Chocolate

Lets face it, we all start off with the best intentions with dieting and trying to lose weight, but our cravings often get the better of us. This happens particularly when we haven't got time to prepare something low fat and yummy. Quite often, when starting a new eating regime, it can leave us feeling lethargic as our bodies try to get used to fewer calories and the thought of cooking or baking, all for the sake of a snack, is just too much for your sugar starved brain to deal with! The best way to deal with this and not undo all of your good work is to plan for this when you're writing up your weekly shopping list.
So here are my recommended purchases for craving fixes.

Chocolate:
When we crave chocolate we have visions of us cramming a massive bar or a share size bag of malteasers into our mouths, but we actually need much less than this to satisfy the craving. I always have a bag of snack size choccies  in the fridge. Crunchies are the best as they are super sweet and leave your sweet tooth satisfied. The air in the honeycomb bulks them up so they are bigger in size than most snack size bars but really there are only 80 calories per bar, 3.2g of fat and 2 WW Pro Points. They're an expensive buy if you're on a budget but if you're watching your weight they should last at least a week for two people.

 If, like me, you love caramel, then the treat size Cadbury Caramel are great. They are also 80 cals and 3.9g of fat per bar. It says they are about 2 WW PP but allow 2.5 to be on the safe side. There is a problem with these however, as you only get two squares so it's gone in seconds! Not to worry though, my Mother has the solution to this. She freezes her chocolate. By freezing it, it prevents you biting and you have to suck so one square lasts ages! Whats even better for coffee lovers out there is a small cup of piping hot strong black coffee combined with frozen caramel and chocolate is a total taste explosion!

There is also the wafer thin good aul Dairy Milk but I never feel as indulged with that for some reason...it might have something to do with it being wafer thin and it's 19 cals more than either of the above. I'll be testing more as time goes on but Crunchies and Caramels are keeping my, pretty intense, chocolate habit in check for now.

A problem that a lot of people face with snack size chocolates is stopping at having just one, so I say limit yourself to 2. Thats it! That is the absolute max! If this is the case for me (happens almost daily) I schedule in an extra bit of exercise. 80 calories isn't that hard to burn off. I keep a twister board in front of the television, if I know I've been a bit bold I'll get on it for an episode of something or other. Half an hour will burn up to 200 calories but at the rate I do it it's probably closer to 100. 

For those that need a choccie fix more than once a day the Options Hot Chocolates are great. The normal ones are 40 calories and 1 WW Pro Point. Their limited edition luxury flavours are between 60 and 70 calories. I Highly recommend the Chocolate Brownie flavour!