Category: Uncategorized

by Libby

Berry Cacao Smoothie

This antioxidant-rich berry cacao smoothie is a delicious and nourishing treat for any time of day! Featuring cacao powder, chia seeds, avocado, and organic frozen berries, this creamy and delectable smoothie is full of nutrients to keep both your immune system and tastebuds happy. 

Happy Valentine’s Day!

On today’s chocolate-loving holiday, we are starting things off with my favorite berry cacao smoothie!

We have already covered some of my other favorite “chocolate-centric” recipes including my mocha almond joy smoothie, chocolate raspberry avocado pudding (the perfect Valentine’s Day dessert!), and – today’s recipe’s cousin – the best chocolate strawberry smoothie. You are on the Everyday Chocolate blog after all!

I don’t praise the cocoa bean just for its amazing taste potential… although that alone is reason to rejoice. Cocoa bean “products” in their purer forms, such as organic cacao powder (featured in today’s smoothie) and high-quality dark chocolate have the potential to ALSO add a hefty nutrition punch to your daily diet. Depending on the specific brand, we are talking quite possibly an excellent source of magnesium, iron, and antioxidants.

Winning on multiple fronts!

As your trusted nutrition AND flavor connoisseur, I would not lead you astray, especially on a holiday of all days. Let’s read on for the details!

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by Libby

Understanding Anorexia: The Highly Sensitive Personality Trait

I recently read Elaine Aron’s book, The Highly Sensitive Person: How to Thrive When the World Overwhelms You and found it incredibly helpful. As someone who often feels frazzled, overwhelmed, overstimulated, and in need of a great quantity of alone time, understanding this more and how I can “help myself out more” in managing this trait through various daily life choices has been quite useful.

I have known for years that I fall into the 15-20% of the population who would be classified as “highly sensitive,” but learning more in-depth about this is helping me to reframe some of my past experiences as well as move forward in making helpful changes in my life and business so as to not feel so overwhelmed, frazzled, and exhausted.

Thinking more about about the high sensitivity trait in general also has had me thinking more about how COMMON I think this trait is among people who end up developing anorexia nervosa at some point in their lives.

While I haven’t been able to find any stats that directly measure this, my personal experience with anorexia, my experience counseling people with anorexia, and what I know of anorexia from years of study leads me to believe that the vast majority of people with anorexia (past or present) are likely HSPs (highly sensitive persons).

Are you a highly sensitive person?

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by Libby

6 Tips for Managing Anorexia Recovery in College

For many people, college can be a time of increased stress and anxiety. If you are a college student who is ALSO walking through anorexia recovery, it can certainly be a lot to manage.

In today’s blog post, I’m sharing 6 tips for managing anorexia recovery in college. College can be a time of GROWTH and HEALING in your anorexia recovery journey. With some additional intentionality and the right support in place, heading away for school doesn’t have to be a setback in your relationship with food and your body.

While a difficult stat to accurately quantify, according to this website, the average age of anorexia onset is 18.9 years — exactly the age of most college freshmen! While the vast majority of college students won’t ever end up meeting the strict diagnostic criteria for anorexia nervosa, it is still a population at increased risk for the development of an eating disorder. And, formal eating disorders aside, many/most college women do wrestle with at least some degree of disordered eating. You can read more about what I mean by an eating disorder versus disordered eating here.

6 Tips for Managing Anorexia Recovery in College:

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by Libby

Everyday Eats {January 2024}

Happy Wednesday!

How is your start to 2024 going??

Personally, I am happy 2023 is behind us, but who knows what 2024 will hold!

Glad to be here posting after a couple of weeks! We were in Phoenix about a week and a half ago with Alec’s side of the family… it was so nice to get some sun for a few days! We returned back to the frigid temps in Michigan and a couple of cars covered in snow/ice. We forgot to put the car I usually drive in the garage before we left and it was the hardest time I think I’ve ever had getting the ice scraped off! 2 inches of solid ice on the back windshield… I was heading out to get groceries/run errands during which the almond milk I got from Costco froze/expanded/leaked onto my trunk and underneath the top flooring… and then all froze again making it much more of a hassle to try and clean up… let’s just say it was an interesting time getting back into the swing of things that day! Thankfully Alec, as the resident car expert, offered to clean up the almond milk debacle…

While it’s nice that it’s a bit warmer this week, I’m also not a huge fan of the constant colder/warmer cycles our winters seem to be composed of nowadays! I’d rather just take snow for 3 straight months compared to all this melting/back-and-forth/ice and cold rain…

In other news, how about Michigan Football??? More on that below.

Some recent eats from the holidays / into January! 

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by Libby

Two Main Drivers of Chaotic/Compulsive Eating

Do you ever find yourself feeling chaotic and compulsive around food, whether that occurs once in a while or on a routine basis?

I think many of us likely answer “yes!” to that question (at least to some degree!).

If you’re like many of the clients who I work with, more often that not, you find yourself feeling “out of the driver’s seat” when it comes to your food decisions.

How do we go from feeling out-of-control and chaotic around food to a calmer and more centered place?

One place to start is by thinking about two of the main drivers of chaotic and compulsive eating:

(1) Physical food restriction and (2) Mental food restriction

In this post we will explore examples of what physical and mental food restriction can look like, and how these dynamics might be sabotaging your desire to feel more centered around food!

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by Libby

2023: Year in Review

Hello friends!

I hope you all had a very merry Christmas! I’m closing out the year of blog posts with a 2023 year in review… sharing some of what’s been happening in my life this year in high-level, summary form! I find it useful/fun/encouraging this time of year to take some time to reflect on the year we are finishing before heading into a new one, and I would encourage you to consider doing something similar if you haven’t tried it before! 🙂

2023 Year in Review:

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by Libby

Everyday Eats {December 2023}

Happy Wednesday!

I’m feeling epically ready to rest and recharge as we head into Christmas and New Years’. Anyone else?? I know the holidays can bring up a mix of emotions, and some years may be more joyful or difficult than others. I hope that with whatever you have going on in your life right now, you are able to take some time to rest and recenter a bit.

Backing up to the previous weekend, we had dinners scheduled Saturday & Sunday with friends we are connected to from college. It was so great to catch up — it had been much too long since seeing both couples/friends! Prior to that we were sick/recovering from colds… it seems everyone has been getting sick lately! Hoping we have gotten all our sickness out of the way before the holidays…

Before we get to some December eats, I wanted to wish you all a Merry Christmas! However you have found your way to the blog, I am grateful that you are here.

Closing out the year with some pre-Christmas December eats!

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by Libby

My Favorite (Go-To) Simple Meal & Snack Ideas

Hi everyone!

Today I wanted to share a round-up of my favorite/go-to simple meal and snack ideas. While cooking more involved dishes is something I do enjoy when I have time, most of the time I am thinking creatively about quick and easy ways to get nourishing, satisfying breakfasts/lunches/dinners together throughout our busy weeks. Anyone else with me???

I’m looking forward to a bit more time to make some of my favorite recipes over the Christmas season. At the same time, what I most want over my holiday time-off is downtime for reading, resting, and relaxing. That likely means a continued focus on simple, yet delicious meals and snacks.

I always find it helpful to see what other people are making throughout their weeks, and how they tend to go about getting dinner on the table on top of the busyness of regular life. Everyone’s life is unique, and thus we all may have such different preferences for going about prepping or acquiring meals and snacks, which I find fascinating!

I hope my go-to ideas inspire you as you consider ways to “navigate food less stressfully” in your life this holiday season and in the new year to come!

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by Libby

Navigating Food & Body Image at the Holidays

I can’t believe we are already well into December! As the end of the year draws near, I am looking forward to more time to rest, lots of walks outside, and getting to all the books I want to read that are piling up!

Since the holidays tend to be more challenging for most people when it comes to food and body image, I wanted to do a brief post on some tips and strategies for navigating food and body image this time of year.

First, I will provide some examples of what disordered eating could look like at the holidays. Then we will get to 5 strategies for experiencing a life-giving and truly healthy approach to food and your body during the holiday season.

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by Libby

Everyday Eats {Thanksgiving & End-of-November 2023}

Hi everyone!

How was your Thanksgiving? I feel like it came and went so quickly!

Our long weekend was a mix of relaxing, getting some random things done, enjoying the actual holiday, and severely stressing during the final minutes of the Michigan-OSU game. Let’s just say my heart rate was rather elevated, but as they say, all is well that ends well!

At least here in Michigan, the weather leading up to and on Thanksgiving was amazing! While it is getting colder and grayer now, we have had the sunniest November I can ever remember. That has been such a blessing!

We enjoyed several long sunny walks over the time off. This beautiful sunrise was from one of my recent runs! I’m always grateful for this field that allows me to see some of the early morning sun.

On to discussing some November meals, snacks, and desserts! 

As always, these posts are meant to inspire you in your own culinary and eating adventures! Each of us has our own nutrition needs, food preferences, and individual patterns/rhythms when it comes to eating… I recommend eating in a way that works best for you! 🙂

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