This recipe can yield up to 18 servings of delicious Pizzelles. Preparation time is 15 minutes while cooking time takes about 20 minutes. The delightful treat should be ready in 35 minutes. Each serving of Pizzelles contains 270 calories, 11.9g total fat, 70mg cholesterol, 249mg sodium, 35.8mg total carbohydrates, 0.7g dietary fiber, and 4.7g protein.

Ingredients

Eggs - 6 pieces
White sugar - 1 1/2 cups
Margarine (melted and cooled) - 1 cup
Anise extract - 2 tablespoons
All-purpose flour - 3 1/2 cups
Baking powder - 4 teaspoons

Directions

1. Beat the eggs with a handy kitchen electric mixer. Incorporate sugar and continue beating until the texture becomes fluffy. Add the melted margarine and anise extract and stir. Introduce the all purpose flour and baking powder into the mixture and gradually stir. Continue stirring until the dough becomes sticky.

2. Pre-heat the Pizzelle iron. Make sure to follow the instructions of the manufacturer on pre-heating procedure. Take rounded spoonfuls of batter from the mixing bowl and drop it into the Pizzelle iron. Close the Pizzelle iron and cook for about 90 seconds. If no smoke is coming is coming out of the iron, then the batter is cooked already. Remove from the Pizzelle iron and cool in a plate. Once cooled, place the Pizzelles in an air tight jar and store at room temperature.

Much Thanks to http://www.mediterraneanrecipes.org for sharing this healthy recipe

This is my second day on the Maple Syrup Diet. When I started yesterday at 9pm, after hitting the gym and eating taco bell's volcano nachos for lunch, I decided this diet could work for me. Making the mixture was a cinch, however the taste was spicey as hell X_X! I had to pinch my nose while drinking the mixture and still you can taste the cayenne pepper xP pleh! But after awhile I can see why people lose weight from this diet. After you drink the mixture...YOU DONT WANNA EAT ANYTHING AT ALL! The pepper is soo strong mixed with the acidity of the lemon juice...your stomach feels like its saying "WTH DID YOU JUST GIVE ME!! IM GONNA EXPLODE!" Forcing you to do nothing but burp, let excess gas out, and sit down because if you move...you feel like your about to die! I felt tired more quickly that night and headed to bed at 2am instead of the usual 4am lol. But still woke up bright and early and did not have any fatigue or headaches at all. Perhaps cause I had at least eaten something that day. I went to the bathroom to weight myself and I had lost 2lbs! I immediately thought, WOW SUCCESS! LOL Though I know the reality was, in the morning you weight less and all last night you just spent peeing for numerous hours before your went to bed....OF COURSE UR GONNA LOSE SOME WEIGHT! lol But this is day 2. I've decided to take the mixture only at night, cause if I were to have bathroom issues, I didn't want them to occur during school/work lol. I ate again today, the same lunch as yesterday. 1 plate of volcano nachos with no beans or meat, sour cream and lava sauce on the side so i can control my crazy crave of drenching everything in sour cream LOL and I also had an extra large diet pepsi...pleh which i dont usually drink but it helps with the hottness of the jalepenos and lava sauce xp I figured If i lost weight by eating yesterday, I can do the same thing today!

I started the Maple Syrup "diet" on Tuesday and today's my 5th day. Amazingly I have not had any hunger pangs, fatigue, not even a headache .... I prefer to drink herbal laxative tea throughout the day instead of the sea salt water which I think is yuukky!!

I got loads of energy on day 3 and cleaned up my office of all rubble and even did filing which I always leave for the PA.

An European study published in the New England Journal of Medicine in 2003 followed more than 22,000 people living in Greece and investigated their eating habits. During the 4 years of the study, researchers found that the closer people followed the so called "Mediterranean diet", the less likely they were to die from either heart disease or cancer.

Fruits, vegetables, nuts and grains

The Mediterranean diet traditionally includes fruits, vegetables, pasta and rice. For example, residents of Greece eat very little red meat and average nine servings a day of antioxidant-rich fruits and vegetables. The Mediterranean diet has been associated with a lower level of oxidized low-density lipoprotein (LDL) cholesterol — the "bad" cholesterol that's more likely to build up deposits in your arteries.

Nuts are another part of a healthy Mediterranean diet. Nuts are high in fat (approximately 80 percent of their calories come from fat), but tree nuts, including walnuts, pecans, almonds and hazel nuts, are low in saturated fat. Nuts are high in calories, so they should not be eaten in large amounts — generally no more than a handful a day. For the best nutrition, avoid honey-roasted or heavily salted nuts.

Grains in the Mediterranean region are typically whole grain and usually contain very few unhealthy trans fats, and bread is an important part of the diet there. However, throughout the Mediterranean region, bread is eaten without butter or margarines, which contain saturated or trans fats.

From: http://www.mayoclinic.com

There are three kinds of dietary fats: saturated (animal), polyunsaturated (plants, seeds, nuts, vegetable oils), and monounsaturated (olive oil). From a nutritional standpoint, all types of olive oil are approximately the same, with 80% monounsaturated, 14% saturated, 9% polyunsaturated fats on average.

So for Lent I thought that I would give up sweets, puddings, chocolate, biscuits, cake. In truth I don't eat a lot of these anyway and would tend to snack only occasionally on such foods but, hey, I thought "try to consciously cut out the snacks".
For the first week I switched to just wanting to eat crisps/chips/cheese(things that I rarely if ever eat) I was fascinated to see what happens if you give up one thing in your diet how you'll replace it with the nearest food type. I think it's because now I am not grazing so when it gets to meal times I really want a big meal. I eat porridge every day but find that when I miss it these are the days that I am most likely to want to eat the other rubbish; a lesson in there somewhere...In South Africa this week so bound to want to eat steak/drink wine. maybe if I ONLY consume the steak and the wine I'll be ok...

A lady on the train today was not taking any precautions against getting her purse stolen, which meant that I accidentely peaked into her bag for a second. I was a little surprised to see a healthy, probably organic, orange in her bag, wrapped in Clingfilm (cellaphame). Isn't this totally unnecessary? I see this as a sign of how peoples attitudes have changed for the worse in recent years. This woman was making an effort to be healthy, but felt the need to protect the contents of her bag from this filthy fruit. Is the skin of an orange so acidic that it burns through Versace leather purses? Will it leave a horrid lingering stench of citrus in her bag if it is not vacuum wrapped?

I now make a point of not putting fresh fruit and vegetables in plastic bags when I shop at the supermareket. I just leave them rolling around in the trolley, before placing them on the conveyor belt, then straight into my cloth bag. Why do people wrap fruit? It grows with its own wrapping! Stop living in fear or fresh food people, learn to accept it, just how your grand parents did.

As I now realise that I need to take my diet more seriously, I have calculated my nutrition for today. I used Fitday.com to determine how much protein was in the food I have eaten. The following table shows the results:

Calories Eaten Today:

grams/cals/%total
Fat: 72 /647 /38%
Sat: 19 /168 /10%
Poly: 19 /173 /10%
Mono: 27 /246 /14%

Carbs: 160 /566 /33%
Fiber:18 /0 /0%

Protein:125 /499 /29%

Total: 1771 calories

Today I have discovered that tuna really is full of protein. I had two tines of tuna, 260g in total, and that alone was responsible for 65g of protein today. If I am to take my bodybuilding seriously, I need to start eating tuna everyday!