Day 46 - "Rich, Seductive, Chocolate"

In honor of yesterday being Valentine's Day, I wanted to talk today about an article I read in the January/February 2011 edition of Women's Health that was all about chocolate and its benefits.

In addition to chocolate tasting really good, chocolate is also really good for you and your health. Sure we all know that a good piece of chocolate is wonderful for medicating after a horrible day, but it also has a wide ranging list of health benefits as well!

Interestingly, chocolate actually comes from a cocoa fruit, and therefore has a lot of the same nutrients and antioxidants as many of our most well known fruits, sometimes even more. "In fact", according to Women's Health, "raw cocoa is even richer in flavonols (a kind of supersized antioxidants) than berries or tea." These flavonols aid blood flow, which is why it is believed that chocolate lowers blood pressure and decreases risk of heart attack and stroke.

In addition to this, chocolate is also believed to improve brainpower by improving circulation in your brain, which helps improve memory and learning, and also can guard against dementia.

Finally, chocolate may also help to improve immune function by revving up T-cell activity, which increasing the body's ability to fight off viruses; it can help your muscles recover after a tough workout; and it can help to boost your mood through its stimulants, including theobromine and phenylethyamine.

So how can you get these incredible benefits from chocolate? Women's Health tells us that we don’t need to consume too much chocolate, rather just about an ounce per day. They also recommend that you consume chocolate with more cocoa content; at least 50% cocoa. But more cocoa also means more flavonoids, which means it will taste more bitter. In order to get used to eating chocolate with a higher cocoa content, Women's Health recommends that you start with a lower content of cocoa and then just increase it more and more in order to get used to the taste.

Exercise: Today is another swim day where we will be swimming about an hour! Here's the workout:

100 freestyle warm up

7 sets of the following four 50s

50 freestyle swim

50 freestyle pull

50 freestyle kick

50 freestyle swim

100 freestyle cool down

TOTAL: 1600 Meters = 1 Mile

Eat: I love to snack throughout my day, but I also know snacking adds a lot of calories to my day's total. So here's a trick I like to use: when I find myself getting hungry, a lot of times I'm actually dehydrated. So when I feel the temptation to grab a snack out of the pantry, I turn instead to my fridge and grab something to drink.

Relax: To relax today, I sat down and enjoyed catching up on one of my favorite shows: Pretty Little Liars. Sometimes it is good to just kick back and watch a show that's all for enjoyment. I love the fact that it is about teenage girls and has a lot of mystery to it. I suggest watching one of your favorite chick flick/good trash TV shows today!