I know, it's been a long time! I sort of fell out of writing this blog, but I really wanted to finish it up as I really learned a lot about my body and myself during the process and I feel it is important to track that and help others in their journey!
One of the things I craved badly during the diet was sweets. I don't generally have a terrible sweet tooth, but I do like to have something sweet after dinner, and really like to balance out something salty/savory with something sweet.
As you can imagine store-bought items were an absolute no-go! So I had to get creative. Pinterest became my best friend.
Very early on I found a healthy Wendys Frosty copycat recipe as well as a single serving mug brownie {click the word "brownie" for a link to the recipe!} I could tweak to fit my needs.
I ate that stupid brownie almost every day! It was so easy to make and tasted amazing. There were a few tweaks I made to the recipe to make it fit the elimination diet. I used brown rice flour, 100% maple syrup in place of brown sugar, I used olive oil in place of canola oil, coarse ground sea salt instead of table salt, and I also used almond milk.
For the frosty {click "frosty" to follow link to recipe} , everything listed {almond milk, ice, vanilla extract, and unsweetened cocoa were all elimination diet approved!}
So as a general rule, maple syrup subs in perfect ratio for sugar {maple syrup can be subbed in the place of honey too!}, you can usually sub in applesauce or banana for egg in most sweet recipes {you can usually find the ratios to do so online!} and unsweetened coacoa powder is your friend!
Please, please don't do what I did and go out and buy all the fancy natural foods from Trader Joes {cacao nibs, carob powder, tapioca flour etc} I spent well over $600 on those things and never used half of them. Sort of defeated the purpose of trying to save money on the allergy test! You can do this with basic natural/gluten free/organic items from your local grocery store!
If you look up paleo, gluten free, and clean eating deserts on pinterest you can find lots of options that help eliminate some of the items you need to, to make the desert fit the diet. You can find lots of creative ways to make almond butter, cocoa powder, fruit, maple syrup
As far as snacks at work went, of course fruit was a big one, but I also LOVED dark chocolate covered almonds. Healthy for you and if you get the right brands, you can get them with no sugar or oils etc added. Just remember to check your label, they are not always just dark chocolate and almonds. My favorite brand was Fred Meyers' house brand!
Also a quick one I could grab on the go was silk's dark chocolate almond milk.
Okay kiddos, that's all for today! I hope this helps you out with fulfilling your sweet tooth!
Sweet Dreams Dieters!!
Tara Lynn
