Transcription
Hello my loves and welcome back to my channel. Today's video is going to be about how to detox from sugar. It was a very, very requested video, and I think it's so important because we have grown up with such a wrong mindset about sugar. To look backwards to it, and we haven't been educated. Although, until I started having hormonal problems, I didn't know what blood sugar is. I didn't know that we have a hormone called insulin. And because we, as women, the hormone insulin, for example, it decides so many things for our menstrual cycle. They literally communicate non-stop. So, it's so important to educate ourselves and actually have a good relationship with sweetness and with sugar.
And yeah, we're going to talk about what blood sugar is, what insulin is, how it affects our hormones and our menstrual cycle. We're going to talk about what actually sugar does to our body and how we can detox from it and live a refined sugar-free life because it's not hard. We're going to cook at the end of the video, and you're going to see how many options you have. I'm not going to include many recipes. I'm going to include maybe two, three recipes because I have cooked the past week three refined sugar-free recipes, and my boyfriend has been in heaven. I would add some recipes just to show you how easy it is and how not boring it is to live a refined sugar-free life that you can do so many different things and so many different options with, without refined sugar.
I don't know how we haven't grown up with education like this, that you can cook things with natural sugars. I don't know about you, but I'm growing my kids only with natural sweetness, and from a very young age, I'm teaching them the difference. And of course, I'm not going to say you should not eat, uh, sneakers if you don't want. I think sometimes education and knowing what it does to your body is more for you, for your decision-making, than just saying no, you cannot have it without explaining. Because like this, it's a forbidden fruit, and you want it even more, you know. So I think that's why education is so important. But no, they told us, "No, you cannot have it." And that's how eating disorders were born because we wanted it even more and more.
So my mantra that I have been living is "Sweeter without sugar" because you can be sweeter and more beautiful without sugar. Always, what am I saying when I cook recipes and things like this? "Sweet for the taste, smart for the body." That's the only way this works. So you're satisfying your cravings, but you're thinking about your body and your hormones. Because as a nutritionist, I know that at the end of the day, hormones decide everything. How you look like, how you feel like, everything. You don't love sugar. When somebody says, "Oh, I love sugar." No, your brain loves sugar. Sugar cravings are a physical signal from your brain. You're not addicted to sugar. Your brain has just learned that it can get quick hits, quick hits of energy and boost. And your brain is addicted to sugar. Therefore, your brain controls you, and that's why you think that you don't have discipline or willpower. When this is not the case, you can be a very strong person, but if your brain controls you and your brain tells you, "No, do this," you cannot control this. You know, you can be the most control freak and everything, but at the end of the day, your brain, your hormones, your brain chemistry, they control you.
And when we talk about cutting back on refined sugar, I'm not talking about a life restriction. Restrictions are dangerous. As I said, this is how eating disorders are born. They turn into obsession, into obsession with what is forbidden. And we don't want this. For example, I don't crave anymore. I had a month where I ate burgers every week, one week, every time. Burgers. And I got so used to it, and I don't fancy them anymore, though, you know. But if I restricted them, I would have wanted them every day. Allow yourself what you fancy. Don't restrict. Guilt is the biggest enemy, not the refined sugar. Yes, refined sugar is an enemy too. But from restriction, this is how obsession is born. I want you to forget the word restriction. Maybe you can choose it with "smart swap" or something like this. But restriction is erased from your vocabulary. I am eating sometimes cookies outside. I am eating sometimes, for example, a donut. My favorite dessert in restaurants is soufflé. A chocolate soufflé. Every time that I go to a restaurant and I see that they have a chocolate soufflé, I don't say, "Oh, no. This is refined sugar. I'm not going to eat it." I say, "This is my favorite dessert. I'm going to have it." Because the joy that it's going to give me is going to nourish me. And the guilt, if I feel guilty after this, it's going to take all of my joy. It's going to end up in restriction, in binging, and everything. The joy that the cookie or the dessert is going to give you is more nourishing than the guilt. So, like a toxic ex, you have enjoyed it and you forget about it. You continue your life. We aren't chasing a number on the scale here. We're chasing a feeling in our bodies because we want to feel good after the meal, not only during the meal. The joy continues for the five minutes that you're eating it. But after this, how do you feel? And I'm not talking about guilt and etc. I want you to really forget about those things, guilt, restriction, and things like this. I am talking about how you feel in terms of inflammation, in terms of acne, in terms of mood swings, in terms of cravings, because this is what refined sugar and quick hits, quick blood sugar spikes give you. We're chasing steady energy, not mood swings. We're chasing that skin glow that comes because your body isn't inflamed from inside and out. Just remember it like this: clean food, clean skin.
Most people think that blood sugar is only important when you have diabetes or PCOS and medical conditions like this. But this is a huge misunderstanding. Your blood sugar is basically the remote control of your hormones. Every time you eat something high in sugar, high in refined sugar, your blood sugar spikes. To fix this spike, your body pumps out a hormone called insulin. And think of insulin as a storage hormone because its job is, every time that you eat sugar, it comes out and gets the sugar and puts it away, usually as fat. But when insulin is high, your body simply cannot burn fat as energy. So you're not burning fat, you're burning glucose as energy. And only when this stored glucose that the insulin has put it away for energy is used away, like it's gone, it's used for energy, then only your body is burning fat. And if your blood sugar is constantly spiking and crashing the whole day, you're going to be in this physical and emotional roller coaster. When that sugar goes up and it crashes, your brain goes into panic mode because it doesn't have energy. It starts to crave quick hits like sugary things, things that are going to make you feel like this. That's why when you eat, let's say, uh, something sweet, you have an energy. That's why mothers don't give sweet things at night to their kids because they're not going to sleep because they have energy. And when this crash comes, your brain is searching for that energy. And that's why cravings come. That's why if I ask you, "Okay, do you want an apple or do you want this donut?" Your brain is not going to look at the apple. It's going to look at the donut because it knows that this is going to give it the quick spike to feel alive again. And it's, it needs it just to survive. You know, the brain is protecting you in terms of energy, in terms of surviviveness. It's not thinking that the apple is going to give you more nutrients. It thinks for now, eating for now that it needs to feel alive. That's why you find yourself standing in front of the fridge in the kitchen just craving everything and eating, eating sweets, and not satisfying yourself. You're just eating, eating, eating, eating, and you're not satisfying yourself. But this doesn't come from you. I want you to know this. This doesn't come from you. This comes from your survival instincts. Your brain doesn't care how you look like. Your brain doesn't care if you have abs, if you are slim, if you can fit into skinny jeans. It cares for energy, to have energy to function. It cares for survival, not if you're going to look good in a picture or not.
This gets even more intense the two weeks before our period, the luteal phase, because we become insulin resistant, which means that we don't handle carbs as good as we have handled them in our follicular phase, for example. And this is where girl science explains our frustration. During this time, except that we're insulin resistant, our metabolism speeds up, which means that sitting like this, I am burning more calories than normally because our corpus luteum, from where the progesterone is secreted, is energy-demanding. This whole process, the luteal process, is energy-demanding. So, it's logical that you're going to feel hungrier. And that's why it's the most stupid thing for you to try to burn fat, to lose weight, to restrict calories the two weeks before your period because your brain chemistry, your woman biology, is always going to win. You need more food. The body is simply signaling to you that you need more food to support the progesterone production. And you're going out there and you're cutting calories, and the body is smart. It's signaling to you that you need to eat more. That's why you feel hungrier. Respect those signals. As we said, if you try to fuel this hunger, the more hunger that you're going to have during your luteal phase with quick sugar hits like sugar, like candies, bread, pasta, just like this, you are going to feel worse because, as we said, we're insulin resistant, and the spike and the crash, you're not going to handle it so good. That's why some people, some women feel like a whole new person because the spike and the crash feels more intense, two times more intense. And the PMS, the premenstrual symptoms, are going to be even worse. Like you're going to hold more water, you're going to feel puffier, you're going to bloat more, you're going to have worse mood swings. For example, I am a complete, like, organization freak, and me, the remote, if it's not in one lane, I'm just going crazy. It makes me angry. But we need to respect that. And giving our body quick spikes and crashes makes this worse. And on top of this, our serotonin and GABA, all those happy hormones, are lower during our luteal phase. You see where I'm going? If you give the quick sugar spikes, if you stress, you're going to make things worse. Our luteal phase is so complex. But my loves, don't worry. I am working every day, 24/7, on creating an app that is going to make everything, like, to make sense and help you, like, be easy, one scroll away, to see what's happening in your body right now and what you need to do in terms for you to feel better and work with your cycle. Luteal phase is so complex. So, what I wanted to say is that our reactive cortisol is higher, which means that stress situations are going to hit us harder. So that's why you have more situations where you're mad at people, where you want to cry, where you want to hit somebody. It's just, you handle things worse. You handle it not with emotional intelligence and not with your whole mind because of all of those things that are happening. If you're smart and if you give your body complex carbs like squash, pumpkin, sweet potatoes, oats, fats like chia, salmon, almonds, like nuts, a lot of fiber like vegetables, fruits, and smart sweetness that I'm going to show you a little bit later in the video, you're going to support this energy-demanding, insulin-resistant, reactive cortisol phase. So, yeah, an app is coming. Literally, I'm investing all of my savings right now. I don't have external investors. I'm investing all of my savings. I'm investing all of my knowledge, all of my time, just to make our lives easier. Not only yours, but mine too, because I am living with this knowledge every day in my mind. But sometimes I forget things, and I need to open my little held Bible that I have written because I have like notes and things like this. It's hard for me. I would love to get my phone and to see, "This is what I need to do now. This is what the symptoms are. This is what I need to take in mind." It's going to be amazing. But literally, cycle thinking, working with my hormones, educating myself about it saved my life. And I want more girls to know about their feminine biology. That's why I'm doing this. So, what I wanted to say, you giving the right things that your body and hormones are asking for in each phase is like stopping the storm before it even starts. You know, stopping the tornado before it even starts.
So, continuing with our topic, refined sugar. Refined sugar is basically an inflammation. You are eating yourself into inflammation. When you eat it, it causes stress inside of your cells. And now, think about your period. The days that you're bleeding, they're already an inflammatory like event, an event that is happening. So your uterus can contract and you can bleed. When you're adding refined sugar on top of this, you are just putting oil into the fire. You're just making the fire bigger. This is where those localized heavy cramps, like such a pain, acne, cystic acne are coming from. Yeah, you're in an inflammatory like event. A little bit of acne can come, but you're making things worse with refined sugar because this is inflammation. So, what we want to do during our period is actually to focus on anti-inflammatory foods instead of inflammatory foods. And once I stopped all those blood sugar spikes and I detoxed a little bit from refined sugar, my face got clear. I mean, look at it. All of you are asking me, "What's your skincare?" In my last video, I told you, literally, in the morning, I put two things from my skincare: Vitamin C and a hydrating toner. This doesn't come from skincare. This comes from no inflammation in my body. My skin got clearer. It's glowing, and my face got snatched because it's not puffy. I'm not holding water induced from inflammation. Since I started focusing on my blood sugar, my digestion changed. I'm going to the bathroom twice a day, like clockwork. In the morning, after I drink a little bit of water, right away I go to the toilet, and midday I go again, like clockwork. The best thing is that the bloating is gone. So, no refined sugar and blood sugar spikes are not only for diabetes. And when you stop sugar, when you stop feeding the bad bacteria in your gut with constant sugar, they stop producing this gassy, heavy, uncomfortable feeling. And because your gut is where most of your happy hormones are made, your mood is stable. I am not a different person a week before my period anymore. I don't have those moments where I want to cry because of nodding, because my blood sugar is flat.
I want you to understand something. This isn't about being on a diet. This is about understanding that we, as women, are biological beings with specific needs. It's about choosing the smart sweets that, by the way, taste 100 times better than the ones from the supermarket because you know that it keeps your brain, skin, mood, body clear. Just eating for our brain chemistry. We're eating for our stress hormones to stay low because, yes, cortisol, amazing hormone. It helps you to wake up, but cortisol needs to go like this. So, you wake up, you go to sleep, it needs to be, you wake up and like this, not like this. Once you break that cycle of spiking and crashing, you understand that this uncontrollable feeling was just a symptom of you being not balanced, being out of balance. You aren't losing anything by stopping refined sugar. You're getting your glow, your energy, your dream body back. You're stepping into a version of yourself that is stable and in control. And honestly, this is the best, most attractive version of you.
And we have to talk about how crucial this is for PCOS, too. Because for some of us with PCOS, blood sugar is the root of everything. When your blood sugar is constantly high and your insulin is high, it goes to your ovaries and it says to your ovaries, "Produce more androgens, produce more testosterone." This is exactly where all those irregular periods, cystic acne, weight gain, puffiness come from. So you cannot fix the symptoms of PCOS without fixing your insulin first. Balancing your blood sugar is how you tell your ovaries that everything is safe and they that they can start ovulating and producing progesterone again. If you're ready to break the cycle and detox from sugar, know that this is not a situation where we are going to starve ourselves or exclude all the sweetness from our life. No, because as I like to say, you can be sweet without refined sugar, too. Even you're going to be sweeter without refined sugar. So, instead, we're going to outsmart the cravings with a protocol that focuses on our biology instead of discipline. And here, we're not talking about losing weight. We're talking about gaining your control back. To actually detox from sugar without a mental breakdown, let's do a 7-day challenge with seven non-negotiable rules. Even if it's harsh to call them rules, let's call them self-care moments. Okay, seven self-care moments.
First one, no refined sugar. If you fancy something sweet, you're going to make it at home, or you can get a fruit, or you can get like a stuffed date with, uh, honey. Sometimes even a spoon of honey is the ultimate refined sugar-free snack. You know, no refined sugar. If you want something, you make it at home. And for you to be easier, before you start, I would do like a big batch of some dessert that you like so it can be just easier for you.
Number two, always eat sweets as a dessert or paired with something. What I mean by this, okay, you eat a meal, you eat the dessert after this. Or, for example, yesterday I fancied a banana bread because I'm exactly before my period, and even it can come right at now. I fancied something very much more sweet, and I did a banana bread, actually, that I'm going to show you as a recipe after this. And what I did, I paired it with Greek yogurt on top and some blueberries. So we have the protein and the fiber from the blueberries. You always need to pair sweets with protein, fat, or fiber, not plain. So, let's say you pair it with something like this, or you just eat a fatty block of cheese. Let's say a fatty block of cheese like this, or several nuts before that. Really, trust me on this. This little change changes the whole picture. Or let's say I am going to have a date. I'm going to open the date and I'm going to put almond butter inside. Almond butter is healthy fats and protein and fiber.
Number three, move after your meals because your muscles are like a glucose sponge. So, let's say you ate something that can spike your blood sugar, and moving your body after this, your muscles are absorbing this glucose. So, the blood sugar spike is way less. You can have like a little digestion walk, 10-15 minutes. I like to do this on my treadmill. Or you can go outside, or if you have a house on the backyard, or you can do some squats, or you can, uh, clean at home. Uh, you can do the dishes. Just some kind of a movement. Doesn't matter if you're going to use your hands, your feet, your whole body. Just some kind of a movement.
Number four, I always pair carbs, let's say like pizza or pasta, with something. I go to a restaurant, I order a small side salad, like this greens, leafy greens with a little bit of olive oil, before my pasta. I eat it because fiber slows down the glucose absorption. Let's say that this is your stomach. So when you eat fiber, fiber is very, is harder to get digested. So it stays like this. It makes like a barrier. The pasta comes like this because if the pasta goes right away, it's going to go like this, and it's going to get faster absorbed the glucose. But if you have fiber, the fiber sits here, the pasta is here, they sit, and they get absorbed slower. So the glucose spike, the blood sugar spike is way less. It's better. So always, or if I'm at home and I cook pasta at home, I'm just going to eat like one, two almonds. So easy. So easy. As I have said in one of my videos when I was in Italy, and always walking around with a little pack, a plastic pack bag with several almonds, and I sit on a restaurant, one, two almonds, and I don't care anymore. That's it. I don't need to think about it because I know that my insulin is going to be okay, and I'm not going to store fat. You know, not everything is calories. Not everything is calories, but hormones.
Number five, have a savory breakfast. Or if you fancy something sweet for breakfast, like me, because I love something sweet for breakfast, always balance it. That's why all those recipes that I'm uploading, for example, oatmeal. I put oats, I put chia, you have the complex carbs, you have the fiber and the healthy fats from the chia. You have, I pair it with a little bit of Greek yogurt on top. You have the protein and the probiotics. I put almond butter and honey on top of this. You have again healthy fats and protein. Enjoy. So, it's a sweet breakfast, but you see a balanced breakfast that is not going to do the same as a, let's say, a pasta croissant or something like this. It's not going to do the same. So, yes, there are days that I fancy my avocado toast, and there are days that I fancy something sweet for breakfast. And this is not about restriction. This is about smartness. Again, "Sweet for the taste, smart for the body." This is my mantra.
Number six, if you drink coffee, only after breakfast. Why? Because it's going to give you again this quick energy and the crash again after this. And you're going to fancy something quick again. And on top of this, our cortisol is always high already in the morning. Let's not get it higher, you know, than actually naturally it should be. Wait a little bit. Have your breakfast and have your coffee after this. If you're not hungry before the coffee, get only several nuts or a block of cheese again, something like this, just to signal safety to your hormones. And the only sweet thing that it should be inside is honey, or let's say oat milk. Oat milk. My opinion on oat milk is not the best because when they make oatmeal, they strain all the good fiber, and you basically are left with only glucose that doesn't give you anything. And on top of this, they are sprayed with pesticides, and they add sunflower oil inside, especially the barista editions. And sunflower oil is inflammatory. So if you're going to have it with oat milk, make sure that it's bio and make sure that it's only after breakfast.
Number seven, and the most important one, eat slowly. This signals safety to your brain and to your body, and you don't get stressed. You don't get cortisol-induced insulin spikes because cortisol can spike your insulin too. So you don't get cortisol-induced insulin spikes, and you don't get the cravings for quick sugars after this. So signal safety. That's why nervous system regulation is so important for people that try to lose weight, to balance their blood sugar in general. Just signal safety to your body. And the first thing to start with is eat slower and notice after seven days how you're feeling because the feeling is addictive. No more bloating, water retention, the skin is getting better, no more mood swings, and just the world is butterflies and flowers. And after those seven days, I encourage you to do this for a whole 30 days, for a whole month, because that's when the switch happens. That's when the real change happens. And after those 30 days, your whole life is going to be easier in terms of cravings and sugar. You actually stop being a prisoner to the sugar. And it can be hard the first week, the first days, because it's basically like detoxing from a drug. Refined sugar, white sugar is a drug, but it's going to be worth it because there's no point of chasing inflammation, choosing inflammation, and feeling bad. So, let's break the cycle.
And now it's time to bake. And remember, if you don't have something sweet made at home already, like the baked good things you're going to see, always remember that just a date or a stuffed date with something like almond butter or honey or dark chocolate, whatever you like, or even just a spoon of honey is the ultimate amazing sweet treat, or even just a fruit. You know, during summer, I love to do fruit salads. I don't fancy heavy sweetness like brownies and banana bread like I do during the cold seasons, but I fancy something fresh. So, I cut my favorite fruits, let's say kiwis, strawberries, ananas, like pineapple, and a little bit of honey, a little bit of lemon or lime juice. And this is the ultimate sweet treat for me during summer. So, I cannot simply put all of the recipes that I have, but I upload a lot on Instagram. I have the recipes in my books, and as well in the cycle syncing app that is coming. There are going to be so many sweet options as well. There are going to be for every each phase of your cycle or just general, like this. So don't worry, but I'm experimenting too, every day. Experimenting in the kitchen is just unlocking your creativity, and you're finding so many different tastes and things like this. You don't know how many times I hate throwing away food, but you don't know how many times I did a mistake. For example, once I made a banana bread, and I added a lot of baking soda and baking powder, and it ended up tasting like soap, and I ended up throwing it away. Please God, forgive me. But this is how you learn to cook, and this is how you learn, um, to trust yourself and your taste and everything. So just experiment in the kitchen. There are no limits when it comes to options like refined sugar-free options in the kitchen. You can do every combination that you like. You don't need metrics like 10 grams of this, two tablespoons of this. By starting experimenting, you're simply going to be comfortable by just trusting the textures, you know, and nobody's born like this. As I said, I have made so many mistakes. So, just be yourself and let your creativity blow.
Let's cook one of my favorite refined sugar-free desserts, which is pumpkin or squash brownie. You can make it with sweet potato, too. But I want to use while we still have squash and pumpkin in the supermarket and use them to cook things. So, I'm going to do a squash fudge brownie today. And it's really perfect for your luteal phase because during our luteal phase, we need to add those slow-burning carbs because our progesterone is very sensitive to stress. And if we cut carbs and have stress-induced blood sugar spikes, or vice versa, our body converts progesterone to cortisol. So it's very important to fuel our body and not cut carbs. But as well, the controversial thing is that our body, we're more insulin resistant, which means that we're not handling carbs so good as in follicular and ovulatory phase. For example, if you eat pasta right now, your body reacts different in your follicular phase and your luteal phase. But our luteal phase, our progesterone, our corpus luteum, from where the progesterone is secreted, it's energy-demanding. Our metabolism is faster. We're burning more. So we need more. But this glucose, we're not going to give it from cookies, from Dunkin Donuts, and things like this. We're going to give it from smart carbs and smart desserts like the one that we're going to make today. And I really love. I know that our four phases, menstrual, follicular, ovulatory, and luteal, four phases, and they're separated into two phases, like two, two. We have menstrual and follicular, and after ovulatory, we have the luteal phase. After the first phase is when the follicle is developed. The ovulatory phase is when the, when the follicle releases the egg. And from this follicle that has released the egg, is created the corpus luteum, and from the corpus luteum is secreted progesterone. That's why it's called luteal. But I love food-wise to separate them different, not the follicular and luteal, but I love to put follicular and ovulatory as almost the same eating habits, and luteal and menstrual as the other eating habits. But less talking and more cooking. Look how beautiful she is. So, while we're waiting a little bit more for the pumpkin to cook, and by the way, it's cooking so fast. Boiling is one of the fastest forms of cooking anything. I have pitted 117 grams of dates, and I'm going to blend them right now. It's so hard to blend dates in a regular mixer like this. Usually I make it with this, but I broke the attachment. It is really burned out. And right now the insurance needs to cover it and to fix it. So I'm going to use the mixer. Now I'm going to add two teaspoons of almond butter for this caramel taste. Don't tell my that is germaphobic. We're going to add around 30 grams of honey. This is pure, unprocessed honey, and it's so aromatic. It's like it's like a peel. It smells like a peel. Just going to add by eye around 30 grams, which is maybe around four teaspoons, I think. I love cooking by eye. I love experimenting. I have grown up with a mother that always cooked by eye, and always when I asked how, always when I asked her, "How did you make this?" and she said, "By experimenting." I think experimenting and failing is the best way to learn to cook. So I think the four going to add a pinch of salt, a pinch of cinnamon, of course, for this blood sugar. We are going to add two eggs. Two teaspoons of baking powder. A little bit more. Around 60 grams of cacao almond flour. Okay. I think I'm not going to add the whole pumpkin. I forgot to add a little bit of vanilla extract. If you want to make things spicier, I have cut a little bit of dark chocolate here. You cannot because my boyfriend loves dark chocolate and everything with extra chocolate. And here I'm not thinking only about myself but about him too. Two pieces of dark chocolate. I'm not overdoing it. Really. This is my favorite recipe for luteal and menstrual. Okay, I have put the brownie in the oven for around 35 minutes, 180 degrees Celsius, and I have mashed the rest of the pumpkin that I'm going to leave in the fridge and use, for example, in my oatmeal or my chia pudding. But something that I love to do is get honey, by the way. Get a little bit of it in this pumpkin. And this is the ultimate switch. My mom, since I'm young, she has always done pumpkin in the oven with honey and walnuts. And I love it. Pumpkin with honey. If you haven't tried it, just this spoon is so satisfying. I got the brownie maybe one hour ago outside and I left it because I had some work, but it looks amazing. I'm just going to get it out and cut it.
Hello again, my loves, and welcome to the next recipe. Today we're going to make my favorite, favorite thing, banana bread. It's of course refined sugar-free. I have decided now to mix it with coconut sugar, which is not refined sugar, and honey. But for your information, you can make it only with coconut sugar or only with honey. So, let's start. So, I'm going to use three eggs because more eggs, more fluff, and the banana, the banana breads tend to look more moist, more like a no-bake cake. And I want now to achieve this more fluffy bread. More eggs, more fluff. But don't add 10 eggs. We're just going to add three eggs. Right now, we're going to add our coconut sugar, which is going to be around 50 grams. So, I'm using 50 grams coconut sugar and 50 grams honey. But if you want only one, of course, you add 100 grams coconut sugar or 100 grams honey. You can do this by hand, but at the end, for what my boyfriend bought me, this beautiful mixer, if it doesn't make my life easier. So, I'm going to beat the eggs, the coconut sugar, and the honey for like three minutes. So, meanwhile, while it beated the eggs and the sweeteners, I mashed three bananas, a pinch of cinnamon, pinch of salt. So here I have mixed normal flour, almond flour, baking powder, and baking soda. I am adding one and a half teaspoons of baking powder and very, very, very little baking soda. So the baking powder is for this spongy cake lift, and the baking soda is just to react with the bananas, but you don't want to add half, half of them, very little baking soda because once I did it, and I got a soapy taste, literally I was eating soap. So, those are the safe measurements, and I'm going to add them very gradually to the mixture. Now, the mixture is done. And this is the part where you decide if you want to mix something inside. You can leave it like this. It's going to taste amazing. You can add a little bit of dark chocolate. I love to add cut dates, like on chunks of, like on chunks of dates, but right now I have some old blueberries, and I don't want to throw them away. So I'm going to add them inside with a little bit of dark chocolate for my boyfriend because he's a chocolate freak. It's very important to transfer the mixture right away in the baking dish and to prep before that the oven because it's not good for the baking soda to sit without doing anything. So, I have transferred everything. I'm not going to shake it because it's a mixture, and I'm going to bake it for around 40 minutes on 180 degrees. It's so squishy and delicious. And I think this is the best banana bread I have ever made. So good. Everything is basically by eye. We just want to get this consistency as a crust for the base. So, it's going to be hard, not sticky. I'm going to add almond butter, little bit of vanilla extract, a pinch of salt, little bit of cinnamon, and if you want, you can add a little bit of a protein powder or a little bit of another flour like oat flour, or I think I'm going to add a little bit of a chickpea flour. Just let's see how the consistency is going to be. At the end, we're just experimenting, and every time it ends up delicious. Now, this is a little bit of chickpea flour. You can add whatever almond flour you want. Chickpea flour, cashew flour, oat flour, coconut flour, whatever you want. I have melted a little bit of coconut oil here because after it's in the freezer, it really sticks everything together. I'm going to add one teaspoon of honey. While I'm melting the dark chocolate, I'm going to prepare my caramel sauce. Usually, you can do it with like, remove the dates from the base and do it with dates, almond butter, and honey. But I really prefer doing it with just almond butter and honey without the dates, and to put the dates into the base. So you have like pieces of dates inside. I don't know. This is how I prefer it. You may prefer it the other way. I'm just going to add a little splash of milk because otherwise it's too thick. The mixture. This is how it looks like. And I'm just going to pour it on top and spread it. And I'm going to put it in the freezer for a little bit until it gets a little bit cold, and so the hot dark chocolate can actually stay thick on top of it, not melted. Look how perfect and glossy it is right now. Now I'm going to add the melted chocolate. I melt it on a water bath because I think it's better for the chocolate and it doesn't burn. And now we're going to put it on top. Good. Things like this satisfy me so much and make me so happy. It's unbelievable. I'm going to put it in the freezer for a little bit. I'm going to do some work, and then we're going to cut it and try. It's time to check what the magic with it. So pretty. I don't want to cut it at all. It's just dark chocolate started breaking, and it's not even. My reaction speaks for it, right? I cannot stop it. It's so good. Maybe I needed to add like a thicker layer in the second layer, the middle layer, which is almond butter with honey. But it's good like this, though. Oh God, my boyfriend is going to be so happy. He is going to die about this. I know that now I made it. When he comes back from home from work, today's finished.
Okay, my loves. Now for the coconut lovers, we're going to make date coconut bars. I experimented with this recipe I think one, two weeks ago when I tried to make a healthy version of Bounty, and to be honest, this combination I liked better than even the real Bounty. So, we're going to recreate it again with some tweaks, better, of course. So, yeah, let's start. I'm going to add the thick part from coconut milk in the mixer. Last time I added the thick part and the water, and it was not so thick. So this time, we are getting only the thick part. So it's more like a mousse, you know, not so watery. Now you can add as much as you want of the coconut flakes. I don't know how they're called. Coconut flakes. I'm just going to add by eye depending on how thick I want it. Now, we're going to make something like a bar of dates in whatever shape you want. Usually, I buy already pitted dates because I bake so much that it's just easier for me to have them done. And now, we are going to try and smash them very good. Think of this only as a template, and you can always add like whatever layers you want. Doesn't need to be coconut. It can be always a cashew cream. It can be hazelnut cream. It can be tahini. It can be whatever you like. It can even be jam. It can be even fruits, which is dark chocolate. Think of this really as a template, and do whatever combinations. Use whatever nature or sweetnesses you like. I have honey, I have date syrup, I have coconut sugar, but right now I am going to stick to honey because this is just my favorite combination. But you can do whatever you want. So this is how it looks like. Now I'm going to make the third layer of sweetness. We're going to mix again my favorite almond butter. I think every two to three weeks I go and I buy a new jar because it's already finished. But I like the most not peanut, not cashew, almond butter. So you can do it with whatever you want, really. There are no limitations, and there are no rules. The sun went down so fast. Doesn't matter. I'm going to add a little bit of the coconut water here, the one that is not so thick, so I can make a better, not so thick mixture with the honey and the almond butter. You can add a normal milk, but since I have opened the coconut milk, I decided to use it. And this is how it looks like. And we're just going to transfer it evenly. Now I'm going to place this in the freezer for around 30 minutes so everything can actually stick together. So when I put the melted chocolate on top, it can freeze right away and don't go anywhere. I feel that I'm experiencing night and day all over again because now the sun is back. I don't know what's happening in this Germany, but I'm experiencing all seasons and day and night every day. But the most importantly, it's them. I think I needed to leave it a little bit more in the freezer, but I was so excited to try it.