Life is uncertain. Eat dessert first.

I have to admit, I have a very sweet tooth. And by "very sweet tooth", I mean "Augustus Gloop, the little fat boy from Charly and the Chocolate Factory who falls into the chocolate river, sweet tooth".

If I wasn't so determined to get the most of my body and to compete in bodybuilding, I definitely wouldn't have any problem to look like him in a matter of days. I LOVE sweets and their sheer endless varieties. Chocolate, pastries, marzipan, nuts, pudding, cakes, pies, candy, gum, lollipops, ice cream, fudges, candy bars, jelly candies, gummies, kettle corn, caramel, you name it, I love it.

I don't go crazy when I eat them, but I enjoy them occasionally, and especially for dessert after a meal.

Part of this little "taste-of-sweet-after-a-meal" craving might be the result of my upbringing. My grandmother used to cook for us almost every day lunch and if she didn't cook a "sweet dish", like pancakes with fruit jams, cinnamon oatmeal, sweet grits, or Marillenknödel (Austrian apricot dumplings), she would ensure that every meal had at least some sort of dessert with it.
Sometimes it was canned peaches or other fruits, other times homemade vanilla pudding or a pie. Long story short, I am somewhat "conditioned" to finish off a meal by satisfying my sweet taste buds.

This kind of created a big problem, at least for me, because since I am preparing for a bodybuilding competition, I obviously can't eat sweets anymore.

At the beginning I would eat my meal, get full, but still had the feeling that my hunger wasn't a 100% satisfied. I quickly realized that this was due to the lack of "closure", usually initiated by a dessert or sweet dish. 

When I started working out again more seriously last year, I would cheat and give in to those cravings by eating a chocolate bar, some candy, a piece of chocolate, a sugarfree pudding, fruits or cottage cheese with cinnamon and stevia. 

However once I started preparing for my first bodybuilding show and got on a very serious and strict diet 11 weeks ago, even these little "treats" became history and this feeling of "incompleteness" after the meals came back.
It was by sheer accident that I found my "diet saver" when I was searching for calorie free snacks and meals online.

The Walden Farms product line.

Walden Farms produces calorie-free condiments, such as Barbecue Sauces , different salad dressings, Ketchup , mayonnaise, dips and "praise the lord, hallelujah, ave maria" also sweet condiments such as Caramel Dip , Chocolate Dip , Whipped Peanut Spread and various Fruit Spreads and fruit jams.

I am not sure how they make it and what they put in there, to be honest I don't even want to know, but their stuff is pretty darn good and tremendously helped me to stick to my diet for the past 77 days. All their products are absolute sugar, fat, carb and calorie free. While the taste of most of their products is relatively good, they are obviously not the "real deal" and can't compete taste wise. However, being in the middle of a 16 week diet without any sweets, sugars, fruits or dairy products, a teaspoon full of chilled Walden Farms chocolate dip tastes like heaven and I have to admit, I am a Walden Farms addict.

The only downside I have discovered yet is that all of their products are relatively high in sodium, so with my show now only 5 weeks out, I will have to cut them out completely soon.
Another discovery I have made is that chilling the dips will alter their consistency and, in my humble opinion, increases their taste. I eat them by themselves, as a spread on top of low-calorie rice cakes (a little 40 calorie treat) or use them as ingredients/flavor enhancements in diet-approved recipes.
One of my very favorite meals is my breakfast, consisting of oats and either an egg white omelette or 50 gr of whey isolate. I mix 1.5 cups of dry oats with water, microwave it for two minutes and stir some stevia, ground cinnamon and a teaspoon of Walden Farms Caramel Dip in it. To add some flavor to the egg white omelette I simply add a tablespoon of Walden Farms Ketchup and I have a great tasting 650 calories breakfast with 65 gr of protein, 81 gr of carbs and 9gr of fats to get my energy levels up and my day started. 

While I found some substitutes to satisfy my "sweet tooth" during my diet, I cannot wait for my diet to be over so I can finally treat myself and my taste buds with real, delicious, calorie rich chocolate.
With this day in mind, I bought a ginormous bar of delicious Milka chocolate in Germany and brought it back from my trip in April.
The giant 300gr, 1,668 calories alpine milk and cookie chocolate bar has been sitting in my fridge ever since my return and is eagerly waiting for June 23rd. And so am I.

Last week was very challenging. Again I had to leave town for work and even though I did not stay overnight, commuting back and forth for four hours each day for 4 days in a row, working a second job and getting solid workouts in, was quite a task. I would get up in the morning at 6:30, get ready, take the train to Washington D.C. at 8am, work for seven hours, ride the train back for two hours, prepare food, eat, leave for my second job at 8:30pm, work until 2am, hit the gym on "my way back home", get home at 4:40 am, hit the hay, get up again at 6:30am and do this for 4 days straight. Needless to say I was slightly sleep-deprived and pretty exhausted all week and when Sunday finally came around I completely crashed and basically slept all day.
Not sure if it was the extra caffeine but surprisingly I had some of my best workouts last week. Maybe I should switch my workout schedule to 2am indefinitely? Well, considering how sh***y I felt Sunday, maybe not.
Yesterday I was exactly 5 weeks out from the "big day" and with this work trip behind me, I have only one more business trip to deal with before the show and hope to master this one as well as my previous ones. Hopefully the Excalibur has a nice gym and I will get my chicken, rice and oats through airport security without any problems again. 

"I'd give up chocolate, but I'm no quitter!" 

                                                              Author Unknown