Healthy Chocolate Mousse

This recipe along with my Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough would have my top recipe request and I keep forgetting to post about it (whoops). 

This is also probably the only recipe I'll ever make using a "special" type of ingredient that can't be substituted since its what changes some Yoghurt and Cocoa Powder into a mousse like consistency and that special ingredient is PB2 powder - Original or Chocolate both work. 

If you live in countries like the US, PB2 should be pretty widely available and while its pretty hard to find in shops in NZ and is a lot more expensive ($20 upwards for a small tub) it can be done. But I get mine from here - iherb.com where a big tub (double the size of a small tub) ranges anywhere from NZ$13 to NZ$15 depending on the exchange rate at the time and if you use the code "QJM503" at the check out to get $10 off your order. 

And while you can use an ingredient like Peanut Flour I wouldn't recommend it as it doesn't become as thick or have the same amount of flavour as PB2 considering PB2 is powdered peanut butter rather than only dried peanuts. 




Now onto the recipe: 

Ingredients: 

- 150g pottle of any type of Yoghurt 
 -2 Tspn of PB2 Powder 
- 1 Tspn Cocoa Powder 
- Sugar/sweetener to taste 
- Any other flavourings you want, though not essential - Mint or Orange Essence, Natural Peanut Butter ect ** If your adding anything other than Peanut Butter as your flavouring or just want a plain Chocolate Mousse, I would recommend using the Chocolate flavour rather than the Original**

Method:

- Add all the ingredients into a bowl and mix until theyre all combined and you have a thich mousse like consistency 
- Add whatever toppings you desire - I love pouring in some Oats and adding a scoop of Natural Peanut Butter 

If you decide to try this recipe please tag me on Instagram @fragiletofit I would love to see your recreations and what you though of it. 

Happy cooking, 
Sophie

The Long Awaited Recipe

I have been asked multiple times for this recipe on Instagram but thanks to my slight OCD when it comes to recipe have yet to post it in the comments since each ingredient doesn't stay on an individual line. After meaning to post this for a while but never getting around to it the day is finally here. Healthy Chocolate Cookie Dough!! with only 5 ingredients, its healthy enough to eat for dinner like I do on a regular basis and (depending on the chocolate you use) completely VEGAN

Ingredients:
- 1 can of Chickpeas - Rinsed and Drained
- 2 Tspn of your favourite Nut Butter
- Sweetener of choice - to taste
- Vanilla Extract - to taste
- Chocolate Chips

Method:

- Put all the ingredients into a high speed blender - I used a Nutribullet
- Blend until smooth pausing every few minutes to scrape down the sides
- Fold in the Chocolate Chips

Just like that you have Cookie Dough. Please tag me on instagram (@fragiletofit) if you decide to try it out, would love to know what you think :)

Guilt Free Single Serving Baked Cheesecake

Here is the recipe for my breakfast this morning. Yes it looks extremely daunting but I promise you that you will be able to do this in your sleep, its insanely simple, just quite a few (simple) steps. Today I went for one of my favourite flavours of Blueberry and Lemon but I'm sure you could do any flavour you wanted and it would work out just fine. If you ever decided to try out this recipe please tag me or send me a picture on Instagram @fragiletofit

So now onto the recipe:

The Base:

- 1/2c Old Fashioned Oats (1/4c made into Oat Flour)
- Sugar/Stevia to taste
- 1 Egg White
- 1-2Tspn Water - enough to bind the mixture
- Vanilla Essence to taste


- Preheat oven to 150C
- In a bowl add the Oats, Oat Flour and Sugar/Sweetener.
- In a small bowl mix together the Vanilla and Water
- Add in the Egg White and start to mix together - there wont be enough moisture to make the mix wet enough
- Slowly add in the water and vanilla mixing as you go until everything has become wet - should be the consistency of wet sand
- Press mix into a non stick spring form mini cake tin
- Bake until hardened like a regular cookie - 10 to 12 minutes
- Take out of the oven and allow to cool while you make the filling

The Filling:

- 150g Vanilla Yoghurt
- Sugar/Stevia to taste
- Vanilla Essence
- 1 Egg White
- 1/2 of a Lemon - Zest and Juice
- heaped 1/2 tspn Corn Flour
- 150g Frozen Blueberries (fresh should work too) - divided

- In a bowl combine the Yoghurt, Sweetener, and Vanilla
- Add in the Egg White and briskly mix the egg white in - will look like its curdling but keep mixing and it will start to go back to how it should normally look
- Add in the Lemon Zest
- Add in the Lemon Juice tasting as you go - could also do this step before the egg white if your afraid of raw egg
- Mix in the Corn Flour
- Add in a handful of the Frozen Blueberries and mix through - I leave about 1/3 back to make into a syrup when I serve it
- Bake in a 150C oven until there is a slight wobble in the centre - the time will vary depending on the dish you use but mine took around 40 minutes
- When it comes out of the oven allow to cool completely to room temperature
- Place Glad wrap/cling film on the top making sure it completely touches the top of the cheesecake
- Refrigerate overnight

To make the Blueberry "Syrup" take the remaining Blueberries you didn't put into the cheesecake and put them in a bowl in the microwave for about 40 seconds or until they start to release liquid and it starts turning syrupy and shiny.

150 Calorie Protein Ice Cream..

This stuff is freaking delicious and so incredibly easy to make - you only need three ingredients and you can customise it to whatever flavour you want by changing the protein powder or meal replacement powder you use.. Not to mention SUPER cheap compared to commercial protein ice cream brands who make you shell out $7 per cup here in NZ. Whereas you can make this for $2.84 per 2 cups of Ice Cream (I did a few calculations).

I have gotten a lot of questions on Instagram (plus a lot of criticism) from people asking me about this recipe. When they see the ingredients and more importantly that - in my case- I use a meal replacement shake mix rather then protein powder and I chose the meal replacement route for a few reasons.. For one thing I know and trust this brand of shakes. I use the Healtheries Naturally Slim Powder in Cookies and Cream - which is available nationwide in New Zealand - as I discovered these shakes during my weight loss journey a few years back and they were a real life saver. They are also pretty reasonably priced being $27.99 for 18 servings with a lot of the time it being on sale for around $24.00. and really another main reason why I use this over a protein powder is the nutrients that are within the powder. With this shake you get for every 2 scoop serving (amounts to a regular protein powder scoop) there is 97 calories, 10g of protein, a good amount of carbs, calcium and a whole lot of vitamins and minerals which you would never get out of a protein powder.

Keep in mind I don't count macros or do any type of special diet so this isn't a problem for me, but if it is just use something that fits with whatever you need.

So onto the recipe...

Ingredients:

- 1 scoop of any flavour Protein Powder (or anything else you want to use)
- 1 1/4c Milk (any type you want) - divided
- Sugar or Sweetener to taste

Method:

- Mix together your protein powder, sweetener and 1c of the milk together until everything is smooth and there are no lumps
- Pour mixture evenly into an ice cube tray (I even use a silicone mini muffin tray) and freeze the mixture completely.

When ready to eat:

- Put the frozen mix into the food processor with the remaining 1/4c milk and blend until you get a smooth ice cream consistency - will be more like soft serve
- Top with whatever toppings you want and enjoy

You Are NOT A Lost Cause - Truth Time

I stumbled across this picture and really it was just what I needed. Lately things haven't been going right - really about a month ago everything fell apart and functioning is getting harder by the day.

There have been so many times where I have come to the end of what I can handle and thought about just giving up, either by ending my life or at the very least slipping back into my eating disorder - partly because I feel it will help me forget (which rationally I know won't happen), but mostly because I truly feel like it's what I deserve after everything that's happened. I won't go into details considering I have no idea who will stumble across this, but with everything that's happened I genuinely feel like everything was my fault and that I bought every event my way because of one thing or another and now I am too weak to handle how it feels. In regards to slipping into my eating disorder I feel like I truly deserve all the pain (both physical and psychological) and mental torture that comes along with it and I guess in a way I feel like slipping back into my eating disorder will be a slow suicide rather then the quick (though maybe not so painless) pill taking or wrist slitting. Therapy at this point has only done so much and really I don't feel any closer to working through the other events (not ED related that have lead to this point.

Yes, that is how personally feel, but stumbling across this photo made me think about what everyone has said about those situations who I've told. None of them believe that any of the events were my fault and even though I find that hard to believe I guess I need to try and start to because they can't all be wrong. In regards to therapy I also need to remember that the person I see isn't specialised in this area and her area of specialisation is eating disorders. I need to remember just how lucky I am to be under her care and having the level of trust that I have with her. Without that trust I would still be trying to deal with this on my own and having it inhibit my therapy sessions on my ED with her. With her having to know about those situations allows her to finally figure out a bit more why I think the way I do at the moment. Also without her help I wouldn't ever get to see a therapist who specialises in the area I'm struggling with. Currently with her help (she is doing all the organising since I don't think I could do it myself) I am starting to look into getting to see someone who specialises in this area while also continuing my sessions with her and hopefully fully heal from everything I've been dealing with.

I need to remember how far I've come from where I was this time last year (in a hospital bed) and even in regards to how I feel at the moment, the fact that I am still alive and managing to resist slipping back into my eating disorder shows that I am stronger then I think. I have the support of so many people and I should be grateful for that and also that I am currently finding treatment that can help me heal from the things I went through.

Yes, it will be hard but it won't be impossible to get back to the happiness I used to feel. I need to remember (as well as everyone that is reading this) that I am NOT a lost cause.

Small Steps to Freedom From an Eating Disorder

Today has given me a small glimpse into what life before my dieting soon to turn into an eating disorder began.

My eating disorder (like everyone else's) focuses a lot on details.. For my ED in regards to packaged food its always having to get particular brands and flavours of things and if I can't get what I need (even if their staples) I will have to go without until I can find them. Sure, I may look around for something similar but normally I will walk away empty handed.. Very rarely I will come away with something different and if I do it will only be because its lower calorie then my usual choice and if it's good then the lower calorie option will become what I always have.

Today has been a lot different. Not having what I would normally have for breakfast (this time I was without apples and sunflower seeds) leaded me to take the plunge and go for the readily available yet higher calorie options of peanut butter and a banana to replace them. Normally I wouldn't have done this especially considering there were a few other lower calorie options that I could have had. But I decided to go with what I really felt like rather then what me ED wanted.

Now onto lunch.. Decided to have soup because it has been such a cold and miserable day but didn't have cauliflower which is what I could normally add in to help thicken the soup and also didn't have bread to have with it. Those may not seem like big things not to have but then my mind went into the whole "well you might as well go without" frame of thinking which really just leads onto a slippery slope. So instead just went without with the cauliflower - since a few less vegetables one day never hurt anyone and instead of having part of the carbohydrate made up with corn and some with bread, just had all the carb made up by sweet corn. Yes, the soup wasn't as thick as normal but it still tasted the same and really that's all that matters.

These are things that I (as well as anyone with an ED) struggle with everyday and really considering it's become such a normal part of our thinking we never even notice it happening. All we feel is the anxiety and dread when we find out there isn't any of X ingredient that you would normally have. On both meals today I actually caught myself starting this thinking and really made me think but why? Why am I so afraid of having something a little different if that's what I truly want or if that's all I have at home right now? Doing both the things is NORMAL while being afraid of them is not. I've come to realise over the past few weeks just how prevalent my anorexia and my preoccupation with food still is even after being over year in recovery and being weight restored for about 9 months. But just because it's still around doesn't mean that I will be living with it for the rest of my life, it just means that I have a lot more work to do on getting through this and being rid of this illness. I'm in no way kidding myself, it's going to be harder then ever especially with different circumstances happening in my life right now. But I am determined to one day be free of this.

Life Outside of an Eating Disorder.

More often then not people struggling with or in fact even in recovery from an eating disorder say that they don't know who they are without it, hence this is some of the reason they try to hold onto a little piece of it (myself included). Even though we know that this logic is flawed, it's petrifying to try and think of a world that doesn't revolve around food, calorie counting, exercise and anything else your ED may entail.

But if you think about it the way we think about it actually makes a lot of sense. Just think about how much time and energy you put/are putting into your eating disorder, at it's worst it's an all consuming thing, it becomes a part of you and in the darkest times may even seem like your only friend and the only way to cope with everything else that feels out of control in your life.

From my experience I saw my eating disorder as mostly as a means for control and order at a time when I felt that everything that was happening was completely not how it should have been. Also in some sick way it was a last ditch attempt to maybe some how fix what was a big shift in my life - even though pretty much by that point I wouldn't have been able to pull myself out of the disorder even if I wanted to - But I thought that finally getting treatment may help fix a problem that was completely out of my control and to be honest had nothing to do with me in the first place. But with all those good intentions recovery didn't help mend that situation.

Yes, recovery didn't have the desired effect I wanted it to but really since the situation didn't involve me I really shouldn't have thought it would. But recovery has taught me so much about myself and just how strong I can be. I remember what it felt like when I first TRULY laughed when I started being in recovery from my ED. It felt completely foreign and uncomfortable but most of all UNNATURAL. If you have ever met me personally (and have actually gotten to know me considering I'm pretty shy until I get to know someone) then you would know just how out of character that is for me. When I was younger I used to laugh at anything and everything, yet my ED and depression took that away.

Recovery is about finding yourself again, finding those old and new passions you have, laughing when you find something funny even if it feels unnatural because one day soon it will feel like you had never stopped. But most of all life outside an ED is about freedom. Freedom from rules, routines, numbers, rituals... Just living life to the fullest the way you want to, having a week where you don't exercise here and there, eating as much as you want at a buffet with your friends because the food is that good and not worrying about it because in perspective its one day/week out of the hundreds upon thousands you are going to live.. But in saying that also why waste that one day/week listening to what your ED says when you could be living life?

Your ED is only there to bring you down. People say they feel like a "bad/fake anorexic" where in reality the only "good" anorexics have been killed by the illness.