The Health Benefits of Chocolate!!!

Kimmy, your comment inspired me to look up chocolate and see if there was anything good about it... besides it's amazing taste! Here's an article I found on it.

Courtney

Chocolate is one of the most popular sweet-tasting treats in the world and has been for centuries. But part of the myth surrounding chocolate is that if it tastes so good, it must be bad for your health .
But the surprising news from the scientific community is that this reputedly decadent treat actually has some health benefits, especially if you choose your chocolate wisely.

Is Chocolate A Health Food?

Chocolate contains more than 300 chemicals, and has been the subject of a number of studies by universities and other scientific organizations. Here's a quick rundown of the results. (Note, we have no way of proving or disproving these claims so we offer them here as a stimulus for further research. If you're really interested in the subject, this may provide you with a starting point.)
* Cacao, the source of chocolate, contains antibacterial agents that fight tooth decay. Of course, this is counteracted by the high sugar content of milk chocolate.
* The smell of chocolate may increase theta brain waves, resulting in relaxation.
* Chocolate contains phenyl ethylamine, a mild mood elevator.
* The cocoa butter in chocolate contains oleic acid, a mono-unsaturated fat which may raise good cholesterol.
* Drinking a cup of hot chocolate before meals may actually diminish appetite.
* Men who eat chocolate live a year longer than those who don't.
* The flavanoids in chocolate may help keep blood vessels elastic.
* Chocolate increases antioxidant levels in the blood.
* Mexican healers use chocolate to treat bronchitis and insect bites.
* The carbohydrates in chocolate raise serotonin levels in the brain, resulting in a sense of well-being.


What Chocolate Won't Do

There are many myths and half-truths about the effects of chocolate on the human body. Here are the latest findings on several of them.
* Studies show that chocolate is not a causative factor in acne.
* Cacao contains the stimulants caffeine and bromine, but in such small quantities that they don't cause nervous excitability.
* Chocolate is not addictive.
* Chocolate contains stearic acid, a neutral fat which doesn't raise bad cholesterol.

Congrats to Courtney for being FREE!!!!

Haha! This has nothing to do with health, but Shout out to Courtney for getting her liscence today and becoming a totally independant human being who can go to starbucks whenever she wants!!!! haha, lol, hug! * Kylie *

10-Calorie Snacks

The SELF 10-calorie diet trick Enjoy up to 200 calories per day of your favorite snacks to stay slim and satisfied. Print the lists below and nibble away!


10-Calorie sweet snacks from SELF

½ Nestlé Pretzel Flipz
1 apple slice
1 Austin Zoo animal cracker
1 container tropical berry or strawberry-kiwi Jell-O sugar-free gelatin snack
1 dried pineapple piece
1 grapefruit segment
1 gummi bear
1 Hershey’s white chocolate pretzel bite
1 Keebler mini vanilla wafer
1 Miss Meringue mini vanilla meringue cookie
1 Mr. Goodbar Bites
1 navel orange segment
1 peanut M&M
1 Rolo Bites
1 Snackwell’s chocolate chip bite-size cookie
1 York Bites
1 Whopper
1.5 banana chips
1.5 Hershey’s Kissables
1.5 Quaker Quakes mini rice cakes (cheese, ranch or sour cream and onion flavor)
1.5 Trader Joe’s Mini Fruit Slices candies
1.5 Twizzlers black licorice bites
2 cantaloupe balls
2 large strawberries
2 pieces Brach’s candy corn
2 Skittles
2 Teddy Grahams
2.5 baby carrots
2.5 cherries
2.5 Jelly Belly jelly beans
2.5 Reese’s Pieces
3 Altoids mints
3 cherry tomatoes
3 plain M&M’s
3 red or green grapes
3 tangerine segments
3 watermelon balls
4 Nestlé Toll House semisweet chocolate chips
4.5 mini marshmallows
6.5 raisins
9 Brach’s Cinnamon Imperial Hearts
10 raspberries
12.5 blueberries
¼ cup fresh cranberries

10-calorie crunchy snacks from SELF

1 cashew half
1 Cheetos Puff
1 large celery stick
1 French onion SunChip
1 Lay’s potato chip
1 pecan half
1 reduced-fat Pringle
1 shoestring french fry
1 Snyder’s of Hanoverhoney mustard and onion pretzel nibbler
1 taro chip
1 Tostitos Scoops! chip
1 Trader Joe’s Bagel Chip (everything flavor)
1 Wheatables cracker
1.5 almonds
1.5 Calbee Saya snow pea crisps
1.5 Kashi TLC honey sesame crackers
2 baked bite-sized Tostitos tortilla chips
2 Big Cheez-It Crackers
2 Fritos
2 Sabra Mini Crunchy Pickles
2.5 baked Cheetos
2.5 pistachios
3 Eden Foods Brown Rice Chips
4 Cheddar Goldfish crackers
5 green-bell-pepper rings (raw, 1⁄4 inch thick)
7 pieces Pirate’s Booty
7 sugar snap peas (raw, in pod)
7 Veggie Stix
9 roasted and salted pumpkin seeds
10 cucumber slices
10 Wheat Chex
11 pieces shelled edamame (soybeans)
18 roasted and salted sunflower seeds
20 roasted and salted soynuts
42 Cheerios
1⁄3 cup air-popped popcorn

~Hey guys, I thought this article was really interesting!
Courtney

Healthy Snack: Celery

So I was telling Mollie and Brooke this yesterday, but I thought I'd let you all know since it's kind of cool. Anyway, it takes more calories to digest celery than is actually in the celery. So it's kind of like negative calories. Plus it's really good for you. Dip the celery in peanut butter and it's even better for you. Peanut butter contains a lot of protein, good fats (yes there is such a thing as good fats!) and lots of other nutrients.

A really funny and interesting article I found...

Who hasn't spent way too much moolah on a box of those cleverly packaged 100-calorie baglettes of cookies or crackers? Even though you know they cost roughly twice what a regular bag does -- not to mention that all that packaging is a mini-environmental disaster -- still, they limit temptation. Save your dough and satisfy your snack attacks with one of these treats. Lots are single servings; nearly all the rest can be popped into mini-plastic bags and thrown into a pocket or bag. No will power needed.

5 Hershey's dark chocolate Kisses or, if chocolate's gotta be Dove for you, 2 Dove Promise dark chocolate miniatures

2 fresh figs or 1 juicy pear

½ English muffin toasted with just enough cheddar to meltingly cover the top

1 heaping cup of cherries

12 almonds

12 dried apricot halves

1 Dannon Light & Fit Raspberry Smoothie

1 Klondike Slim-a-Bear fudge bar

48 Rold Gold pretzel sticks

2 Dole frozen fruit juice bars (go wild and have 3 if you like -- at 30 calories a pop, who cares?)

1 Starbucks 8-oz. Caramel Macchiato, made with nonfat milk

Eat Right Tip

DON'T HIDE THE EVIDENCE
Your stomach doesn't know how much it's consumed without some help from your eyes, says Brian Wansink, Ph.D., of Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and author of Mindless Eating (Random House). In one of his studies, when tables were bused at a Super Bowl party, people ate about 24 percent more wings than when the nibbled-on bones were left on the table. Keeping the evidence of what you've eaten—candy wrappers, discarded chicken bones, soda cans—in front of you may get your body to register "I'm satisfied" sooner.


~I found this tip on a fitness website. I thought it was interesting.
Courtney

(no subject)

 so i think it would be really cool if we could all get together once a month and exercise, because i usually go on runs a couple days a week but its always by myself and a house got robbed like 2 blocks from my house so its not that safe for me to go by myself, so maybe we could all meet up and go on a run, or play tennis or just do something in a group.any suggestions??

 

                                                             -Amy

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