I hope you are all having a lovely Friday and that you have weekend plans that are making you excited. Or that the lack of plans you have are also making you excited to have a relaxing weekend.
I am currently mowing down on a piece of my delicious Granookie Bars (Granola + Cookie = Granookie) and I thought I would share with you the method behind the deliciosity.
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| Gah chipping nail polish. The reason I paint my nails but once a year… |
I also wanted to give you a little background on how I view sweets. This topic has been on my mind for some time and I haven’t quite discussed it quite to the extent I’ve wanted to.
I currently have an hour long car ride on Fridays to the university I am attending and decided I needed something interesting to listen to on the way. Don’t get me wrong, I adore listening to the radio and taking time to sing my heart out to a variety of KLove tunes, but for an hour straight…my lungs get tired.
I got a CD set for Christmas that’s based off of the book Intuitive Eating. (I’ve yet to read the book, although I got that for Christmas as well, so for all I know it’s a word-for-word rendition of the book.)
The beginning of the first CD discusses why dieting is bad. I agree whole-heartedly that going on a diet is never the way to lose weight. But look at the society we live in! So many many programs and diets and philosophies to follow that promise to change our lives if we just jump on that bandwagon. It’s so difficult for us to not fall privy to the lies and the immediate gratification that dieting brings.
The truth is, diets eventually fail, because one of the keys to a diet is restriction of some kind. And the thing about restrictions are that if we do restrict ourselves from something…we are going to want that thing even more. We will want it so badly that we will eventually cave in to the craving–to the extreme–and then feel terribly guilty and disappointed afterwards. Can you relate to this? Even I can to some extent..and I generally pride myself in the way I listen to my body and let myself eat the things I am hungry for.
There was a day last week that I felt I had eaten terribly all day and I was complaining to the BF about it. He then shot back my own words that I’ve said many a times to him and other people, “It’s okay, just do better tomorrow.”
The thing is…there should be no guilt in the food that we are eating as long as we are listening to our bodies. It’s a tough thing to teach, however and I may talk more about this in a later post. (By the way, if you ever have any questions for me or want me to write more on a specific subject..don’t hesitate to ask! I love to help educate people and help people feel better about food and their bodies! You can comment on any post or e-mail me at: semihealthnut AT yahoo DOT com.)
Back to the word restriction. I do not restrict sweets.
I probably have dessert with both lunch and dinner every single day. I do, however, try to eat them with my meals as the protein in the meal helps prevent the sweet treat from spiking my blood sugar (which is no good because of the inevitable crash an hour later).
I love to bake and I love cookies.
One of the hardest things I ever did was to stop eating sweets for Lent a couple of years back.
Did I lose weight? Yes. Did I keep it off? Heck no! Since I could not go on with the rest of my life not eating sweets, the weight came back once I started up again. Seriously, why would I want to go on living like that??! (Overly-dramatic or just honest?)
Since I do not restrict sweets, and I like to bake, I also like developing semi-healthy versions of treats. (Or healthified versions.) There is actually a lovely gal Katie who has an entire blog devoted to healthier sweets called Chocolate Covered Katie. She is a tiny thing and definitely does not restrict sweet intakes (duh her blog is all about sweets that she makes and eats), so it’s not like I’m the only one who can be “skinny” while eating yummy treats.
So here is my semi-healthy sweet for the week:
Granookie Bars (Granola + Cookie = Granookie) {print recipe}
Ingredients:
- Oatmeal cookie mix (I used Betty Crocker)
- Sub half of the butter with applesauce
- 1/4 cup granola + 1/8 cup
- 1/4 cup dark chocolate chips
How To:
- Mix wet ingredients (eggs, water, butter, applesauce) together. Add cookie mix.
- Add 1/4 cup granola and mix together.
- Put dough in fridge for at least an hour.
- Spread dough in a brownie pan, leaving a little room on the sides (or even a round cake pan)
- Sprinkle the rest of the granola on top as well as the chocolate chips.
- Bake at 350 degrees 20 minutes. The middle will be a little doughey (which I like) but if that is not your preference, keep it in 5 minutes longer.
I really like the chewy and sweet texture of these bars. The applesauce makes it a little fluffier and sweeter. The granola makes it more filling, and the chocolate chips…well they just make everything better!
I am off to get started on some Nutrition homework. My online class work is due tomorrow and I have yet to start! Where does the week go?
I hope you all have a lovely, yummy weekend!
Topics for discussion:
Do you partake in any food restrictions?
What is your view on sweet intake?
Do you bake strictly from scratch or do you use mixes?
