Meet The Creator Of The Recipes

carolyn hansen Hey there - my name is Carolyn Hansen. I am the creator of the series of alternative-approach recipe books featured on this site.

Most women, when they are finally exposed to the strategy I use to quell the desire for junk food are shocked to learn just how easy it is to reproduce the results. These same women also cannot believe just how much time they have invested over the years trying to combat the effects of their poor eating choices - those foisted upon them as unwanted pounds of excess body weight.

So if you'll allow me a couple of minutes I'll briefly recount for you my story and show you how I was able to overcome my addiction to junk food. More importantly, you'll discover how I was able to do this without having to give up the desserts and treats I so enjoyed.

If this sounds somewhat paradoxical, don't worry, I would be a little skeptical too. Especially given just how much of an improvement the result of making this change in the way you eat can have on the quality of your life.

too good too resist

Too Good To Resist

Let me see if I can explain why this is, and how it can have such a profound effect on other areas of your life that have absolutely nothing to do with what you put into your mouth...

It has been my experience, as I am sure it has been yours, that very few people can resist the desire to eat something sweet. And because of this, fighting that urge can become a life-long struggle.

This seems to be particularly true of us women who are forever willing to attempt pretty much ANYTHING that seems like it might land us the sleek and desirable body we see in the advertising channels day in and day out.

Nature seems to have imbued our bodies with two completely contradictory drives that pull us equally hard in opposite directions.

buckwheatie chocolate cups

Buckwheatie Chocolate Cups

banana pudding

Banana Pudding

creamy lime bars

Creamy Lime Bars

As a young woman I experienced this uncomfortable tension for the longest time. All the way from puberty until my mid-thirties. In hindsight, and I always feel shame admitting to this, I literally tortured my body, both by denying my sweet tooth - and then giving into it by bingeing on the worst possible foods I could put into my body.

It wasn't just physical torture I put myself through when I did this. The amount of mental anguish I endured was just as dehibilitating. Ultimately I had to admit to myself that if someone was in control of the way my body looked then it certainly was not me.

Eventually I found a way to overcome this problem - one that I now share with women all across the world who have had to put up with the unnecessary stress and feelings of powerlessness that come from living in a world in which physical confections are ALWAYS within sight and within reach 24 hours a day.

What I mean by this is that if I asked you to head into your kitchen right now, what are the odds that you would be able to find some guilty pleasure that you know is ruining your long term health but which you simply cannot live without?

If you can say "Zero, Carolyn. I actually feel no need to indulge myself this way..." then you can close this page right now. You are the woman that the rest of us aspire to be! You will find NOTHING on this page that can significantly improve your life.

But if the idea of removing the desire to eat junk food sounds like it could benefit your health and well-being, stick around. Because what I discovered in my late-thirties in regards to how to satisfy your sweet tooth without punishing your body has the potential to completely change the way you view your food and the shape of your body for the better.

Lip-Smacking Sweetness - Without The Sugar
By Way Of A Chance Discovery

bodybuilder

I needed to be lean.
At any cost!

Quite by accident I stumbled onto a recipe for white chocolate gogi fudge that was unlike anything I had come across before. This was during the eighties, a time when my career as a bodybuilder was floundering because I had yet to figure out how to rid myself of the "baby fat" that made me look smooth and undisciplined when I stood on the stage.

Secretly I was starving myself. Especially before competitions. I would deny myself what I craved the most, the sugary foods that every woman knows balances out moods swings. And then, when my willpower failed me, I binged.

white chocolate gogi fudge

White Chocolate Gogi Fudge

Of course, the next day I would feel mentally crushed and I would swear to the gods and myself that this would never happen again.

So you can imagine the mixed feelings that welled within me when someone I was certain should have known better offered me that gogi fudge one day at the gym. It turned out that I was not the only one struggling with "sweet tooth issues".

But whereas I had resorted to repeatedly doomed attempts to resist my cravings through sheer willpower, some of my health-conscious friends were taking an entirely different approach.

Instead of resisting the forbidden foods they craved, rather ingeniously they had begun to re-invent them

I learned that day that it was possible to create white chocolate fudge without any of the traditional unhealthy ingredients such as white sugar, white chocolate, marshmellow cream, sour cream, cream cheese, condensed milk or butter that seemed to be required to make white chocolate but which could actually be dispensed with.

The recipe contained nothing more than cacao butter, cashews, raw agave nectar, and goji berries. It almost seems weird that chocolate can be made with ingredients like these:

goji berry superfood

Goji Berry Superfood

cacao butter

Cacao Butter

raw nectar from the blue agave

Raw Blue Agave Nectar

That got me wondering what else it was possible to prepare this way using non-traditional but healthy ingredients, and ever since then I have been dabbling in my kitchen. The result is more than 200 recipes that even a die-hard nutritional purist like myself can recommend without reservation.

That's because the desserts, snacks, treats that these recipes produce can legitimately be regarded as a wholesome substitute to the usual junk food that is so popular but is also so unhealthy to consume. The recipes behind the foods described on this site are wheat-free, gluten-free, dairy-free, sugar-free, soy and egg-free, and unprocessed.

This makes a HUGE difference when it comes to "watching what you eat".

Why? Because now you are giving your body what it needs for the long term rather than the temporary mental high that comes of eating a sugary treat that contains almost nothing in the way of nutrients. In fact it's worst that than. You could say that traditional treats with their high level of processed ingredients are anti-nutrients. They oppose your bodily needs.

This is an important distinction that until I was introduced to the subject I could not fully fathom. I had been so focused on trying to stick to a low-fat diet to burn fat that I had overlooked a powerful principle of body weight control.

Nutrient-rich desserts and snacks are strongly metabolic foods. They cause your body to burn fat!

This means you do NOT have to be afraid of delicious foods the way you may have been until now. Not only is having a sweet tooth perfectly normal, but you should satisfy it. This is the ONLY way to fully quell cravings that can lead to overeating.

blood sugar stabilising desserts

The Midriff Friendly Approach
To Tasty Treats

The trick is knowing how to do that in a way that stimulates a favorable metabolic response - that stabilizes blood sugar to keep your body in a fat-burning state.

It turns out that this is not at all difficult to do - otherwise I would never have been able to come up with the more than 200 recipes for desserts, snacks, and treats that fill the books found on this site.

Not only am I about to introduce you to a line of foods that you can feel good about eating, but these recipes contain so much in the way of anti-oxidants, minerals, protein, complex carbohydrates and healthy fats that they can almost be considered meals in themselves.

If you have been looking for a way to get off the dieting roller coaster and bring some stability to your eating cycle and body weight you will love these recipes. I eat them year round, I maintain my body weight, and you can too.

On the home page of this site you will find a complete introduction to my recipes for healthy desserts and snacks. In fact, you will find more recipes described there than you could ever tire of making :)