Divine

I had a cup of Cold Stone Creamery's dark chocolate hot chocolate, and want to report it is a definite thumbs up! Did I travel across town to stand in line and drool over ice cream and fixin's while waiting to order the hot chocolate? No I did not! I was given a box of the Cold Stone Creamery Smooth Cravings hot cocoa mix and simply mixed the contents of one packet with hot water. It was crazy good!

I like instant hot chocolate mixes, and enjoy the sugar free Swiss Miss version when I need a little sumpin' sumpin'. It's completely guilt free. I have even been known to use milk in place of the hot water on occasion, but the truth is, it is still a milk chocolate, watered down version of good hot chocolate. The Cold Stone Creamery brand has nailed my dark chocolate obsession with a mix that is even good mixed with water. I can only imagine how much I'll enjoy it when I try it with milk.

It isn't guilt free, but it's not horrible. It has 2.5g of saturated fat and 140 calories. When made with 2% milk, the fat probably doubles (I couldn't find my calculator so I'm making an educated guess on 6 oz.) and the calories increase to 220. It's not too awful for the fat/calorie conscious, but you couldn't sip it all day.

The packets get the sweetness just right. The full dark chocolate flavor is really good and rewarding. I have no idea what it cost because it was a gift, but I'm definitely going to check it out and keep some on hand for dark chocolate cravings.

What a great find right before the snow flies! Now all I need is a fire in the fireplace!

Oh yes, I also saw marshmallows the other day in a french vanilla flavor. Wouldn't a couple of those on top of the hot chocolate be ridiculous? Yum!

Fitting chocolate into my diet

I am loathe to admit it, but I went on something like a diet to lose something like 10 or 12 pounds. My diet consisted of reducing fat from my meals but not really eliminating anything. The hardest part was finding a way to include chocolate in my day, but most of the time I managed. How? Portion control.

For some reason, I cannot live without some chocolate items and can take or leave others. I went with strictly dark chocolate M&M's rather than dark chocolate peanut M&M's (which contain more fat) in order to satisfy the M&M fix in a reasonable manner. Then I would take a small portion of them (six or seven when grabbing a snack)and if still hungry I'd top it off with reduced fat wheat thins or a handful of real popped popcorn (not microwave) or something more filling.

I completely ignored high-fat items that I can live without: chocolate cake, chocolate doughnuts, most candy bars. If I needed a pick-me-up and the indulgence that a candy bar provides, I'd shoot for a 3-Musketeers which is lower in fat. Get the picture?

I also found if I behaved better when eating dinner (fat-wise) I had more room to enjoy dessert. And guess what I found for when I didn't? Fat free snack pack chocolate pudding. I know it's probably a chemical nightmare, but I swear it gave me what I needed when I couldn't afford to have what I wanted. And if you put it into a pretty little dish, you can forget about the peel off top and plastic packaging that makes it look ugly and cheap.

Now I need to report an amazing feat. A friend at work gave me a Willy Wonka chocolate bar. You know the ones that are darker chocolate with milk chocolate disks on top? Truthfully, none of it is earth-shatteringly delicious, but it's a nice mid-afternoon snack at my desk. Okay, here is the amazing part. I took two weeks (ten business days) to eat it. Swear to God. I ate one square a day which I think is pretty remarkable. There may be a day where I ate two and a day where I forgot, but for the most part I stuck to just one.

So I just wanted to make the point that it's possible to have your chocolate and eat it too. Rock on.