The Rich Benefits of Eating Chocolate

Tough to keep things like chocolate in perspective - high quality dark chocolate can be enjoyed with minimal blood sugar disruption, but if you are not capable of eating only a small amount daily, just stay away until you are healthy, with stable blood sugar and close to desired level of body fat.

• Science now shows that chocolate may be good for you. Five chemical compounds contained in raw, unadulterated chocolate are highlighted to show exactly what they are and how they work.
• First, antioxidant polyphenols that neutralize free radicals provide some of the most compelling aspects of eating chocolate because they can reduce processes associated with the development of diseases like Alzheimer’s, heart disease and cancer.
• Second, chocolate contains anandamide, named after the Sanscrit word for “bliss,” which is a neurotransmitter in the brain that temporarily blocks feelings of pain and anxiety.
• The caffeine and theobromine in chocolate have been shown to produce higher levels of physical energy and mental alertness while, counter-intuitively, lowering blood pressure in women.
• Chocolate’s heart-friendly properties may be due to the presence of epicatechins, antioxidants which are found in higher concentrations in darker and raw forms.
• Studies showed that one-and-a-half ounces of dark chocolate a day for 2 weeks reduced stress hormone levels.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2013/10/14/chocolate-benefits.aspx?e_cid=20131014Z1_DNL_art_1&utm_source=dnl&utm_medium=email&utm_content=art1&utm_campaign=20131014Z1

Potato or Sweet Potato?

The BLUF: You can eat potatoes or sweet potatoes and be healthy, IF:
1. You are not carbohydrate intolerant (IOW, you have not already lost the too much belly and have not already restored glycemic control).
2.  You are not sensitive to potatoes, which can have some neolithic agents of irritation and unhealthy for some.
As with most things, there are few absolute rules and enough subtlety to make it difficult.  That said, the blood glucose meter reveals all.  If you eat a potato with your paleo-ish meal and glucose rockets above 160, you will want to eat a half potato with that meal the next time, and test the result.

They’re both called “potatoes”.

They’re both nutritious, energy-rich tubers and ancient, honored foods whose cultivation stretches back thousands of years.

They both originated in Central and South America and have since spread throughout the world.

They both taste great and make a fine side dish.

Yet, botanically, potatoes and sweet potatoes are completely unrelated.

Potatoes (Solanum tuberosum) are in the Solanaceae family, related to tomatoes, peppers, and eggplant along with deadly nightshade. Plants in this family produce solanine, which is poisonous. So don’t eat the leaves or stems of any plant in this group, or potatoes that have gone green. Solanum phureja is a rarer, more wild-type species of potato cultivated in South America.

Sweet potatoes (Ipomoea batatas) are in the Convolvulaceae family with flowering morning glory vines. Unlike potatoes, you can also eat the leaves of sweet potatoes, which are very nutritious.

Also note: sweet potatoes aren’t yams. True yams are another type of tuber (genusDioscorea).

Great info bit:
As you can see above, sweet potatoes are indeed sweeter: They have 7 times the sugar content of regular potatoes. (However, if regular potatoes are stored in cold storage, over time their starch content slowly transforms into glucose and fructose.)

http://www.precisionnutrition.com/regular-vs-sweet-potatoes

This is a great read from PN, dig in.

Bulletproof Coffee

I have come to enjoy intermittent fasting very much - independence from eating, feeling good, and the ability to go for long periods without eating or discomfort are a few of the benefits.

A new tool I've grown to really like in the diet wars is bulletproof coffee!
http://www.bulletproofexec.com/bulletproof-coffee-recipe/

In general, I'm interested in reducing my coffee consumption.  I've run hard for years on as many cups per day as I could stand (two pots/day was a "good start"), but I finally burned out some receptors or something and found myself with negative symptoms as a consequence.

One way to break a very strong pattern of behavior is to simply never do "the thing" unless it is very, very good.  Chocolate?  Sure I eat it but I only eat very good chocolate (enough to equal 10-20g of sugar every work day for lunch, during the spring/summer), never that mass produced shite that you can get for a dollar anywhere/everywhere you go.  After a while of only eating good chocolate, the low grade shite tastes like .... well, not too good.

Ditto with beer.  I never drink the swill I used to drink in college.  I have become a beer snob, much to my own benefit.  If it's not expensive, very interesting beer, I just leave it be.  This is also much to my benefit.

So with coffee, the first rule was "no shite".  The second rule was to avoid coffee when I habitually want it the most - first thing in the AM.  To do that I substituted decaf.  To enjoy decaf more, I added Kerry Gold salt free butter and MCT oil a la "bulletproof" coffee (salt free because salt doesn't go with good coffee, I eat plenty of that in my other meals).  That's a good move for daily energy levels (low that slow burn from short and medium chain triglycerides in butter and MCT), and it pushes back my start time for coffee without fighting any sense of deprivation.  

I'm drinking about 3 cups per day now of caffeinated coffee.  Achieving independence from habit/addiction always feels good!

Since I'm downing all this fuel first thing in the AM, I don't know if I'm really doing intermittent fasting any longer - but I still don't have a meal most days until 1100 (unless I want one earlier).

All this means to you is, first, there are experiments you can try to start you off on the path to a good food day, and good food days are the goal.  Second, the same tips that work to reduce coffee consumption can work to change any habit.  First, just try to eat the "food" you need to get rid of less frequently, and only when it's not your favorite time to eat that food.  Then, find a substitute that doesn't do as much damage.  Try to avoid thinking "I can't have that" and think "I can wait another hour to have that", or, "I can have that if I do something I need to get done, and then I get the "junk" as reward." IOW - use a dose of the "junk" to inspire you to complete a task, and use the task as a delay tactic so you interrupt the "craving-satisfaction of craving" cycle.

Each of these tactics has been helpful as I reduced my diet cola consumption from several per day (40-60 ounces), to one per day (20 ounces), to perhaps 2-3 per week.  That experiment, by the way, hasn't made any noticeable impact, but I don't like the stuff as much any more, so the bottom line is - I have more money to spend on good coffee, good butter, and good chocolate.