In my time on the Belly Fat Cure, one of the earliest things recommended was very dark chocolate, first Jorge Cruise was recommending the Green & Black’s’s 85% Dark Chocolate, and more recently the Ghirardelli Midnight Reverie 85% Cacao dark chocolate. Both offer dark chocolate with only 5 grams of sugar per serving. I’ve never been a big fan of dark chocolate in my life so I’ve resisted trying either brand…until now.

Pretty much my indulgences in Chocolate on the Belly Fat Cure have been in the form of sugar free chocolates such as the line of sugar free chocolates from Hershey’s which includes miniature sized candies of several Hershey owned brands like Hershey’s (Chocolate Bars), Reese’s (Peanut Butter Cups), and York (Peppermint Patties), which have been fine, but sometimes not quite as indulgent as I would like. I’ve also just allowed myself to have the chocolates I do like but only in very small tiny portions, such as a single Dove square, or my favorites imported from Canada such as mini Aero bars and mini Coffee Crisp bars. I’ve actually done quite well with those, I ordered some from Canada in July and I still have a sizable number of the mini bars left and it’s now February. In the old days they wouldn’t have lasted a week, much less 7 months so far.

So I happened to be in the store and saw the Ghirardelli chocolate, and thought I’ll give it a try as I can have four squares of it for a single serving. So I got it out to the car, and opened up the package and broke off a small piece and bit into it, and let’s just say, I quickly posted on Twitter that not only was it my first ever purchase of the 86% Cacao chocolate, but also my last purchase and that my opinion of it was that it was “Fucking Disgusting.”

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Following my visit to the Sonic Drive-In in Vista, I stopped at the nearby Frazier Farms Market mainly to see they had any Ginger Ale Zevia, which they did have, but I was intrigued by what I saw next to the Zevia. With so few beverage manufacturers realizing that there is a market for sugar free drinks that don’t use artificial sweeteners, it’s always a nice surprise when a new comes to market that is able to be naturally sugar free, and today, I discovered a new product that I just had to bring home to try out.

That new product is Steaz Zero Calorie Sparking Green Tea. Essentially it’s a flavored tea product made with sparking water so it looks and tastes more like an exotic flavored soda instead of a tea product. The tea is sweetened with Erythritol and Stevia extract thereby making it a great option for people following Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure program. The teas are also organically grown with special mention on the bottles about how its sustainably sourced for a natural and organically based beverage. There’s also several logos on the bottle to indicate it’s compliance with several programs such as certifications for being organic, vegan, fair trade, and a low carbon footprint during manufacturing. Essentially indicating the company is as environmentally focused as it is profit driven, definitely an admirable quality.

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To help promote the Belly Fat Cure book, Jorge Cruise has been making a couple of appearances to sign books for the public. At the moment only two appearances had been scheduled, an appearance earlier in the month at a Costco membership warehouse in New York, and today at the Morena Boulevard Costco here in San Diego. The signing started at noon.

I wasn’t planning on attending but I had an appointment to check out a room for rent in the Pacific Beach area at 2 pm and Pacific Beach is just a couple of miles from the Costco location. I took care of my morning errands and got to the Pacific Beach area at about 1 pm and since I had an hour before my appointment, I headed right over to the Costco. I wasn’t sure if it was still going on but thought I’d check it out just in case.

Sure enough, the signing was still going on and Jorge was busy talking to folks and as soon as he saw me he introduced me to the group of people around the table. He invited people to ask me questions and I did field a few from people who had seen the sugar video I did with Jorge. Overall it was really nice to meet some people interested in losing weight. Also there was Michelle McGowen, a fellow Belly Fat Cure success story. Jorge then shared samples of his sugar free brownies with the crowd and amazed them all with how sweet tasting a sugar free treat can be.

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One of my favorite things of 2009, was discovering Zevia’s all natural sodas when I was introduced to the Belly Fat Cure by Jorge Cruise. I’ve been a big fan of Zevia since my very first purchase. Their sodas are all natural, and naturally sugar free, and calorie free. They are sweetened by Stevia, a South American plant who’s name means “sweet leaf” and Erythritol, a sugar alcohol that naturally occurs in plants.

At the time I first started trying Zevia, they only had four flavors, Cola (similar to Coca-Cola or Pepsi), Natural Twist (a lemon-lime soda similar to 7-Up or Sprite), Root Beer (similar to A&W), and Orange (similar to Fanta). Soon after they introduced two new flavors, Ginger Ale (similar to Canada Dry) and Black Cherry (similar to a Cherry 7-Up). And now they’ve introduced a new flavor called, Dr. Zevia, which naturally is similar to Dr. Pepper.

It was quite a while following the introduction of the Ginger Ale and Black Cherry Zevia flavors before I ever found them in the stores, so this time I ordered a couple of cases of the new Dr. Zevia directly from Zevia. Fortunately they were offering a great discount at the time which dropped the price of shipping for the two cases down to just a couple of bucks over top the price of the cases. And after a couple of weeks of waiting for the order to ship and for FedEx Ground Service to deliver it, the Dr. Zevia had finally arrived.

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As some of my readers may recall, a few weeks ago I had a craving for some A&W food, and to my surprise discovered all the locations in San Diego County had closed up shop. (Click here to read about it if you missed it.) Since I was in Orange County for Robert Shadbolt’s birthday at Disneyland, I decided on the way home I was going to seek out one of the A&W’s on the way home from Disneyland. But I wasn’t really hungry and by the time I found the location in Mission Viejo with a slight diversion off the highway, it was a few minutes before they closed.

I didn’t really want food, so I elected to just get a Root Beer Float, except using the Diet Root Beer instead of the regular. Officially even those are a no-no items on my Belly Fat Cure program, because the ice cream has sugar in it, and the Diet Root Beer has aspartame in it. But as a Dr. Edward Taub frequently states, “Everything in moderation….including moderation.” And so I had a small Root Beer Float with two bad ingredients. On the Belly Fat Cure, I’m not supposed to have a meal that exceeds 5 grams of sugar and 2 carb servings or a 5/2. The Diet Root Beer Float was a 17/2, which is okay on the carb end, but 2 more grams of sugar than I’m supposed to have in a whole day. Still far better than the 57/4 getting the regular root beer version would have been. So I cheated on my program a little.

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The other night I happened to be visiting the Bed Bath And Beyond store in the 4S Ranch Section of Rancho Bernardo. I left Bed Bath And Beyond empty handed and figured I was in the area, I should check out the Jimbo’s Naturally store which is the local health food store which happens to be in the same shopping complex. I happened to need some unsweetened almond milk, so I thought should just pop in.

While browsing through the store, I ended up over by the cooler that stocks bottles of water in a variety of sizes, everything from gallon size bottles on down to individual sizes. The display case had a big section filled with bottles of water that featured really brightly colored pictures of fruits and berries. While the photos of the fruits and berries caught my eye, it was the name of the product, “Hint” and it’s tag line, “Drink water, not sugar” that made me pick up a bottle to read the label. Just looking at the Nutrition Facts label, hint water is identical to ordinary water, no calories, no fat, no sodium, no carbohydrates, no proteins, and no sugar whatsoever. The only difference to be found on the label is in the ingredient list, where in addition to purified water, it has whatever it happens to be flavored with. Just pure and simple, water and the labeled ingredient that gives it flavor, no sugar, no sweeteners, and no preservatives.

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In order to make it easier for people to ask their questions about the Belly Fat Cure program, I’ve created a new page on this site for people to post their questions. It’s accessible in two ways off the main page of Ryan’s Incredible World, first, the brand new “Belly Fat Cure Ask Ryan” graphic which appears in the sidebar will take you there, and there also is a text link in the “Pages” section of the sidebar.

I figured this option might be a better way to ask me your Belly Fat Cure questions and get the answers all in one place as opposed to reading through all the various Belly Fat Cure blog entries I have throughout the site. If you’ve got questions about the program, I want to help you get answers to your questions.

The important thing to keep in mind is that I am not Jorge Cruise, so your questions will not go to Jorge Cruise, nor will my answers be officially sanctioned by Jorge Cruise. I just am someone who’s been successful with the program and would like to help others with their questions for the program. I have more details about my success on the Belly Fat Cure program and further disclaimers on the “Ask Ryan” page.

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Now that 2009 has come to a close and 2010 has begun, I can safely say that it’s a year that has been very challenging and although I am not the least bit sad to see 2009 go, it certainly was not without some really incredible experiences for me that I would like to highlight before wipe the slate clean and start fresh with 2010.

This list was especially difficult to narrow down since 2009 was the year I kicked my blogging into high gear. I had started Ryan’s Incredible World in 2007 didn’t actually start blogging until 2008 and I would maybe make no more than five entries a month. So picking my highlights of 2008 was relatively easy since there wasn’t so many blog entries to go through to pick out the defining moments.

I had joined a couple of 30-Day blogging challenges which requires 30 blog entries in 30 days and it essentially got me into the habit of making almost daily blog entries. Now it’s pretty safe to say that each month sees about 25 new blog entries. The constant blogging has actually helped bring a bigger audience to my blog, so if your first time reading any of my writing has been in 2009, then no doubt something I wrote in 2009 caught your eye and is why you’re here reading this entry now. I am grateful for the many folks who’ve read my blog and left me comments, it’s been a pleasure to hear your feedback throughout the year. In any case, I looked through every post of 2009 to select what I feel were the 10 Most Incredible Things about 2009 that happened for me. You’ll note I combined a few complimentary things to narrow it down to 10.

I do hope you enjoy my reflection on 2009 and continue to join me on my quest to find the most incredible things of 2010. Without further ado, in no particular order.

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Now that the Belly Fat Cure Book is out and available, Jorge Cruise is going to be getting out there to meet folks and one of the ways to do that is by book signing events. At the moment, only the first two are scheduled, and for lucky Costco members, both events are at Costco stores.

For Costco members in the New York area, Jorge will be at the Costco in Westbury, New York on Saturday, January 9th, 2010 at Noon. And for Costco members in the San Diego area, Jorge will be at the Costco off Morena Blvd. on January 30th, 2010 at Noon. Come bring your books or buy one there. Jorge want as many people as possible to come down and get their books signed, he wants to meet you, take photos with you and more.

I know two signings doesn’t cover a whole lot of the US and I’m sure more dates will get added in other places. In fact, Jorge is soliciting suggestions from his blog readers on where he should go to do future book signings. You can send in your destination suggestions by clicking here and leaving a comment on Jorge’s Blog.

More specific details on the book signings including the address and phone numbers of the two Costco locations are as follows: (more…)

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Not only is today the day you can now buy Jorge Cruise’s Belly Fat Cure book in stores, I received a call from his office yesterday to ask if I would be available to come in today for a follow up video interview to the sugar experiment video. Fortunately I was free today so I agreed to stop by the office.

When I stop in, I like to bring some of my treats from my latest recipes so I unfortunately didn’t have any on hand as I left the last of my last batches at my parent’s house over Christmas. I made sure to leave work a little bit early so I could race down to the health food stores to pick up the supplies I needed to whip up a batch of Nanaimo Bars. Normally it’s best to make them a day ahead so they have time to properly chill in the refrigerator, but I didn’t have a chance to go to the store yesterday and so a few short hours in the freezer was going to have to make up for overnight in the refrigerator…hopefully.

I got all my ingredients ready, raced through the production of the Nanaimo Bars as quickly as possible and got them in the freezer while I got ready. They had asked me to bring a couple of solid colored shirts with no logos on them, which is a small problem for me, as the bulk of my non-work related wardrobe consists of printed t-shirts. If it’s got a funny saying or a logo I love to wear it. Plain stuff is just too boring to me, so I had to make a special trip to the store.

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