Apricot orange 'bliss balls' and gluten free choc chip cookies

This year has been particularly tricky for me because I really love to bake. Healthy eating and baking don't generally go hand and hand and so I've had to find some healthy alternatives to treats. One of my favourite go to snacks are these little 'bliss balls'. They take about 5 mins to make and are seriously so delicious. You just need a blender or food processor.

• 1 cup dried apricots
• 100g ground almonds
• ¼ cup sunflower seeds
• 2 Tbsp desiccated coconut
• Zest 1 orange
• 1 Tbsp natural honey
• 3 Tbsp coconut oil
• 2 Tbsp water
• ⅓ cup desiccated or thread coconut, for coating

1. Place apricots, ground almonds, sunflower seeds, coconut and orange zest in a food processor and process until the mixture is like fine crumbs.
2. Add honey, coconut oil and water and pulse.
3. Roll tablespoons of the mixture into balls approximately 3cm in diameter. Roll in desiccated coconut to coat and chill in fridge for about 1 hour until firm.
4. Store bliss balls in a covered container in the fridge.

Recipe is from Taste magazine.

These cookies are also one of my favourites.

This recipe is based on the one from Elana's Pantry (a really awesome Paleo blog). 

2 ½ cups of ground almonds
¼ teaspoon salt
¼ teaspoon baking soda
10 tablespoons butter, melted
1 tsp vanilla
½ cup honey
1 cup dark chocolate chunks
A  handful of walnuts or pecans

Combine dry ingredients in a large bowl
Stir together wet ingredients in a smaller bowl
Mix wet ingredients into dry
Form 1-inch balls and press onto a baking paper lined baking sheet
Bake at 180° for 7-10 minutes
Cool and serve

Makes 24 cookies

Paleo 101 according to sugarholic gets healthy

What is Paleo? and why I'm doing it...

My first vlog (exciting!)

My Paleo progress!

I've just celebrated my 3 month Paleo anniversary this week and I'm super excited to say I have lost just on 10 kgs! WAHOOOOOO!!! This is a really great achievement for me, I've started a lot of diets in the past but have never stuck with them. I think the big difference to this lifestyle is that it's actually really easy to do and you don't get hungry! The hardest part for me has been cutting out bread! I absolutely love my toast so this was especially hard to eliminate.

Apart from the no bread or pasta I've found the Paleo lifestyle really easy and delicious. It basically consists of a hearty breakfast of eggs,bacon/sausage and /or veggies and then a healthy lunch of salad or cold meat/fruit and then dinner can be anything you like ranging from steak to fish to Paleo lasagne (with courgette instead of pasta) and lots of veggies of course!.  For snacks I've been getting into making paleo treats like apricot,coconut balls, almond and berries muffins or a slice of Paleo banana bread with butter, yum!

I think the best part of a Paleo diet is that you can easily adapt lots of recipes to be Paleo by just eliminating the carbs. For example you can still have meatballs and sauce just serve it on shredded cabbage instead of the pasta or you can have your pancakes for brunch just make them with almond flour instead!

Here's some pictures of my success so far...

I'm pretty proud of my progress :-) 10kgs down 10 to go!

The first picture is from Dec 2013 the second is from April 2014 (5 months apart)

This one below on the left was taken when I decided to try Paleo in Jan 14. The second mid March 14.

Finally. this one below is a picture of me Jan 10th 2014 verses today May 10th 2014

I HAVE A NECK! that's pretty exciting! I actually can't believe how different my face is, it's pretty cool!

So what is Paleo?!

I thought this might be useful for anyone wondering about the diet, sums it up really well! It's the Paleo food pyramid :-)

I've also added some information on my 'What is Paleo and why am I doing it?' page.

Hello 2014 this is going to be my year!

Last year I hideously feel off the no sugar bandwagon and ended up going straight back to my old eating habit after about 2 months of healthy eating! I started this blog as a fun way to document my new lifestyle changes and track my progress. Progress was pretty slow going though... especially when you go back to your old habits in the winter months and end up baking cupcakes when you're stressed:-(

BUT! I'm pleased to say that I'm back on track and since the 31st of Dec I've been clean eating and walking almost everyday and I feel GREAT!

So to catch you up...

I've been reading this awesome lady's blog and getting truly inspired by her transformation.

"http://www.canyoustayfordinner.com/"

She lost weight steadily and has kept it off for 7 years! You just need to go there, she is so beautiful and funny and her recipes are flippin delicious!

I've been following her meal plan for the last 10 days and I'm feeling awesome! The food is really tasty and I don't feel like I'm being deprived of anything which I think is really key. I'm also thinking about trying the Paleo diet...

I thought I'd post some pictures of me this week and hopefully I will have some good progress pictures to show you in the coming months....

Oddly my skin has been really bad this week I think It might be purging itself of all the bad things that were in my diet or something? But seriously my skin has never looked so bad... Fingers crossed it will resolve itself by next week :-)

I've also decided to have some weight loss goals and rewards. I saw this idea on "The shrinking violets blog" (another incredibly inspiring girl!) Basically its cool things you can reward yourself with when you achieve your weight loss goals.

I'm really looking forward to all of these things and am almost at the first one already :-)