I did my first session with my health coach, Katelyn, today! I was feeling anxious and nervous before our meeting because I had no idea what to expect or what we would be doing. But after our session, I was feeling good. I was feeling motivated and committed to doing this!
We talked about a lot of things but I think my big takeaways from our first real meeting today were: adding more healthy fats to my diet, having a balance of healthy fat and protein for snacking, and learning that nothing is “off-limits”.
I told her how I really, really wanted ice cream all weekend long. But I denied myself and I didn’t have ice cream. I remember being at the store (stuck in allergy hell and not feeling very good) and staring at pints of ice cream.
[bad reenactment of me thinking about ice cream]
They didn’t have my favorite flavor (which is chocolate peanut butter) but they had a backup that I really like (vanilla swiss almond) but I couldn’t bring myself to buy it. I think it was the feeling of guilt, like, “oh, I shouldn’t eat that. It’s not good for me”. But Katelyn suggested a good/better/different way of looking at it. She said to think of like being a 5 year old. You have to follow the “rules” first (my word, not hers) before you can have the reward. In my case, I have my health(ier), balanced meal first. Then assess how I’m feeling and if I still want that ice cream after having my meal, THEN I CAN HAVE IT.
[insert happy dance]
Katelyn really wants me to focus on ADDING more to my meals rather than taking things away and restricting things which is already giving me a little lightbulb in my head. Nothing is bad. It’s just food. And I’m re-learning how to navigate my relationship with food so I can have less guilt and just enjoy everything more without obsessing about it and worrying about if something is good or bad for me.
Chickpea Edible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
One of the recipes that Katelyn gave me was for this edible cookie dough with chickpeas. I have to admit I’m a little skeptical about this recipe – like say what? Chickpeas?? – but hey, I really like hummus so maybe it’ll be like a dessert hummus? Dessert is my biggest weakness so I wanted to have a sweet treat for the week!
[I took a break while writing this to try and make the recipe, eat my healthy dinner, and then decide if I should have my edible cookie dough (spoiler alert: I ate some).]
I’m surprised that it really, really looks like cookie dough and I’m flabbergasted. I did some extra steps that were not in the recipe that Katelyn gave me to make the texture as awesome as possible – I wanted to like this – AND I DID.
Check out the recipe below!
[I really need this oven mitt in my life.]
[Now here’s the recipe.]
Edible Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough
[thanks to Katelyn Parsons for the recipe, which I expanded on]
INGREDIENTS
1 can 15 oz can of low sodium garbanzo beans
1 ½ teaspoons baking soda
1/2 cup natural peanut butter (no added sugar)
1/4 cup maple syrup
1 tsp vanilla extract
1/2 cup semisweet chocolate chips
2 tablespoons water (optional)
STEPS TO COOKIE DOUGH-NESS
- Wash and drain the garbanzo beans in a colander. Put them into a microwave safe bowl and toss the beans with 1 ½ teaspoons of baking soda. Place the garbanzo beans into the microwave for two minutes, until the garbanzo beans are hot.
- Rinse the garbanzo beans under cold water, shaking them vigorously with your hands to remove the skins from the garbanzo beans. I ended up doing this one by one because it was hard to separate the beans from the skins. This will create a smoother texture for your edible dough. Discard skins.
- Add the garbanzo beans, peanut butter (can also use sunflower butter, almond butter, etc.), maple syrup, and vanilla extract to a blender and blend until smooth. My mixture got a little stuck in the process, so I added 2 tablespoons of water to help it along.
- Remove mix from the blender and add in chocolate chips. Dark chocolate is good here! I used semi sweet because that is what I had on hand. Store in a jar (I used mason jars) or roll into balls.
STEP BY STEP BELOW, if you want some photos.
The extra step I did was to remove the skins on the garbanzo beans. Removing the skins will result in a creamier, smoother cookie dough. At least, that’s what I think since I didn’t try it with the skins on.
The baking soda is supposed to make the skins come off much easier and they pretty much just slid right off.
BE GONE, SKINS!
HOLY COW. Look at this. It looks like just cookie dough, man.
Now I was fully skeptical on this. I mean, the only sweet garbanzo beans I’ve tried are the ones that are soaked in a sweet syrup that my mom adds to her lumpia. Now that I think about it though, that’s a delicious lumpia addition and why was I skeptical about this at all? It was really delicious! I had about 4 spoonfuls after I ate dinner.
(This was my dinner, by the way. Katelyn told me to add healthy fats to my meals to make them more satisfying. This is bell pepper, tomatoes, cucumbers, asparagus, and avocado “salad” with a little olive oil, salt, and pepper with a side of pan fried polenta.)
I’m full. I feel good. I feel satisfied. My tummy isn’t yelling at me. I don’t want to eat anything else for the evening. This feels like a good start to my journey!
I saw this mural in North Park over the weekend and had Jake snap a photo of me in front of it.
I just want to remind you that you – yes, you – are radiant, too.
