Diet breaking conundrum

bainbridge · 6 Apr 2021 at 21:06

Hi GD. I've been on a diet for 3 whole months and doing really well, but now I have these things and I'm struggling:

The plan is to melt them down in a cooking vessel and then pour the molten chocolate into ice cube trays, then I'll wrap them in foil and allow myself 1 chunk per day after dinner. The little chocolate balls are already snack sized and I'm already well into the caramel bars at a rate of 3 squares per day.

The questions I have are:

Will the chocolate reset after being melted?
Will they come out of the ice cube trays ok or do I need a release agent of some sort?

Rookie questions but usually chocolate in my possession doesn't last long enough to be considered for anything other than scoffing asap!

bainbridge · 6 Apr 2021 at 21:26

I'm starting to lose enthusiasm for my plan. The missus advises that I can't just melt them in a pan because the chocolate will burn, apparently I have to use a bowl in a pan of hot water.

Microwave seems like an easier way.

bainbridge · 6 Apr 2021 at 21:38

dLockers said:
Post a picture of your belly so we can better advise.

Belly sucked in:

Belly doing its own thing:

Please advise.

bainbridge · 7 Apr 2021 at 14:43

Thanks everyone for your responses. It's interesting how many people mention the psychological side of eating and dieting, which I totally agree with. I was brought up to clear my plate and would get told off for not doing so, something I continue to do. To combat this I have a smaller circular dinner plate for my meals, different from the fancy big square ones everyone else in the house eats from. Smaller portions = less food to not let go to waste by not eating.

As an FYI I was 15 stone at Christmas time, and started dieting on 02/01/21. I'm now 13stone 7lb, but the weight loss is slowing. I'm on 1900 calories or below per day. I just need to keep the diet going until it gets warm enough to start cycling again and once I'm burning off extra calories I should start losing at a faster rate, my target is 12.5 stone.

I've stopped having desserts after dinner but like a little bit of chocolate, I don't have a particularly sweet tooth and am more of a savoury guy, but I'm also very greedy and will eat anything put in front of me.

I put my foot down at Easter and told family I don't want any Easter chocolate, but still got given these 3 eggs (1st world problems). My missus is a feeder, and while she's under 9 stone herself, she buys so much food it's unbelievable. Every Easter she makes "Easter nests" out of breakfast cereal, chocolate and Cadbury mini eggs. This Easter I counted 70! Pic below of the remaining ones she's not yet been able to give away, yes there's so many they're even filling up the salad spinner:

I told her that this year I'm not going to eat a single one, and I haven't.

So I'll melt down this chocolate, do the maths and pour them into chunks of about 50-75 calories, which is less than a bar of chocolate but enough for a treat after dinner.

I appreciate the comments, both humorous and serious

bainbridge · 7 Apr 2021 at 14:54

VincentHanna said:
@bainbridge

OR

Send them to me: Where did all the easter eggs go?

Lol

The caramel egg is now minus the caramel bars and I've emptied the lindor eggs into another container.

You're welcome to any of the lindor balls which contain coconut though, I'll post them for sale in mm

bainbridge · 11 Apr 2021 at 19:44

Update: This weekend I set about melting it all down. It turns out I'd also been given a lindt chocolate rabbit and a ferrero Rochet squirrel. Here's the entire haul:

I wanted to melt the rabbit whole, like at the end of Terminator 2, but the missus said I needed to break up all of the chocolate and start with a small amount. Here it is, broken up and ready for melting. Yes I did do WWF style elbow drops on the eggs to crack them:

The chocolate melted down into 1 bowl of yummyness:

After being poured into ice cube trays and left overnight, I popped them out of the trays:

The ones in the small ice cube trays came out with a Matt finish and some of the ones in the big ice cube tray came out looking like they were made in a chocolate factory, and some didn't:

I don't care, they're both delicious. Even the small cubes are pretty big, so I decided to cut them all in half and make smaller morsels:

The final total is 50 small chocolates and 26 big ones, now individually wrapped in tin foil, I missed a trick by not keeping the original foil egg wrapping, but would've needed more anyway. There's some lindt balls in with the big ones, obviously no coconut balls though:

A small chocolate is approximately 8grams and 43 calories, and a big chocolate is approximately 12.5 grams and 67 calories. So, I've enough chocolate to last over 2 months. If I've had a good day calorie-wise, I can treat myself to a big chocolate after dinner, and if I'm nearing my daily calorie limit, I can have a little chocolate after dinner and it's not the end of the world.

bainbridge · 11 Apr 2021 at 20:42

Dunners said:
You sound pretty sensible. Once I ate one of those about 20 would shortly follow!

I'm a greedy git and have found rationing helps me stop binging

bainbridge · 30 May 2022 at 21:30

2022 update:

I've no idea what they've put in the Easter eggs this year, but I was melting this year's eggs down but they wouldn't liquify, it just turned into a grainy sludge! The lot went into the bin.

It's a good result really, because it's put me off chocolate altogether!

bainbridge · 31 May 2022 at 15:19

Lysander said:
I think a lot of mass-produced chocolate is poor quality. I can't and won't eat it. Basically anything made by Cadbury or Mars. I'm even going off Lindt these days. My mum bought me some Lindt 60% dark chocolate truffles for Easter which I still haven't finished and that was the only chocolate I got.

Oh, I did get some Mini Lindt milk chocolate eggs but those will go in the bin. Green & Blacks also tastes like plastic to me. I absolutely hate Easter eggs and have to remind people every year not to buy me any.

I agree, it put me off chocolate completely.