But I Like Cookies

So, it's no secret that I like to bake. Correspondingly, I like to eat what I bake. I'm not big on cake or cupcakes, and I think I could do better with my pie crusts, but cookies, brownies, sweet breads, muffins, and fresh bread are some of my favorite things.

Of course, I'm trying to reduce my intake of refined carbs and sugar. This limits my baking, and I have been looking into interesting alternative recipes over the past few weeks and having both successes and failures. Then this month I decided to go seriously low carb, just to cleanse my system a bit and jump start a little weight loss.

I've done a bit of blogging on the recipes over at Jerbecca. I was feeling pretty good and enjoying the recipes I was making and not missing the pasta or the tortillas or anything. And then I fell off the wagon a bit. Cheats are fine, I said. A little bit won't hurt I said. Hmm.

First, I decided to make cookies for Jer's office. He and his team have been working insanely long hours and he had to work on the weekend, so I baked three different kinds of cookies and sent them along in a huge 6 qt tub. But before I sent them I had to, ahem, "test" them. Up first: the white chocolate macadamia butter. Then, the oatmeal scotchies. Then finally the double chocolate chewy brownie cookies that are my signature specialty and perhaps the best cookies ever.

Well, after tasting all the cookies, I found myself with a bit of a stomachache. It reminded me of when I was little-anytime I ate too much candy I would feel sick (this happens to all kids, right? How come parents still give us sugar?) I figured it was because I hadn't eaten anything else-I was just spoiling my dinner, as they say.

But then, this week at work I snitched a big cookie from a meeting. I was running around helping my regional manager and hadn't had a chance to eat my healthy afternoon snack, and cheated with a chocolate chunk cookie from the catering company. It wasn't even that good: a little dry, and lacking the flavor profile of the baked goods that come out of my oven. And then, predictably, I ended up with an upset stomach and feeling slightly gross all afternoon.

So there I was, feeling great for a couple weeks, and all it took was a cookie full of white flour and sugar and who knows what else to steal my health away. Sigh. I guess my body is telling me soomething about my diet of baked goods: if you eat it, it won't be worth it.

I don't know how to balance it all out yet. I can't quite give up my love of baking, and yet I want to be healthy and fit. I know from my research that soaking and sprouting grains will help, and I haven't seen any stomach upset from my soaked grain muffins, so that might be the key. Somehow I need to figure out how to make those double chocolate cookies healthy, because they are just too good to give up.

This post was submitted to Fight Back Fridays