healthified oatmeal cookies

Good morning! I hope your weekends are off to a fantastic start. I woke this morning with a scratchy throat... and I'm really excited ticked about it. Thats what I get for smooching on two little boys with runny noses all week!

Today is day 6 of my cleanse and I'm going to be honest, I'm feeling super discouraged about it. I'm not sure what it is, but I just don't want to do it anymore. I'm not finding it difficult to eat the foods, but more that I don't feel like I should be restricting myself from certain things. I know that food doesn't equal happiness, but it definitely shouldn't equal unhappiness.

Like this morning, I woke up to make my green juice, and realized that I didn't have any broccoli and my romaine was more than on it's last leg. So, I substituted baby spinach for the broccoli and used my almost-brown romaine anyway. The juice tasted fine, but it annoyed me that I woke up feeling like I had obligations. It's the weekend, and after a 60 hour work week, all I want to do is relax. I don't want to wake up, and have to haul my tired butt to the grocery store to buy fresh produce, and then spend the rest of my day worrying about working my schedule around what I'm going to eat.

With that being said, I've decided that I'm going to continue with what I've been doing on the week days for sure, and when it comes to the weekend, I will drink my juice, still eat my veggies, and incoorporate as much vegan, gluten-free, low-sugar options as possible. But, if my day is planned around a friend's 2 year old's pool party that will consist of BBQ and beer (yes, that's my day today), I'm not going to not eat, and sit there miserably. I feel like as long as I'm eating well the majority of my time, how can I feel bad about that?

So how do I feel about this? I'm torn. Am I awesome for trying or a loser for quiting? Part of me feels guilty, but the other part of me says not to. How can I be mad at myself for giving up, cold turkey, almost everything I ate in my normal day to day life? That's an accomplishment in itself, right? So how I can I feel bad about that? I can't. And I shouldn't. But I do. Part of me says "but I made it 6 days" and the other part says "you only made it 6 days". I feel proud of myself, and I feel like a failure. Well, I can't be both, so I've decided to go with the better of the two, and cut out all of the negative about it. I still plan on drinking my juice and eating my veggies. I just want to be able to eat an occasional bowl of oatmeal made with milk, a chicken salad, and maybe even a peice of cheese. I don't want to live off of beans, hummus, and brown rice. I'm sorry, but I don't want to, and I wont. I'm going to do what makes me happy, and as long as my body and mind are happy and feel good, to me, that is all that matters.

Now, to get back to what the actual title of this post is... healthified oatmeal cookies! Last week I did a guest post on Sarah's blog about ways to turn our every day junk food into something healthy. I featured a cookie recipe that I found somewhere on the internet, but drastically modified it. Here ya go!

Healthified Oatmeal Cookies:

1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 cup rolled oats
1/4 cup raw walnut pieces
1/4 cup raw almond slivers
1/2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/2 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 cup butter, melted
1/4 cup pure maple syrup
1/4 cup skim milk
1 banana
1/2 cup dark chocolate chips

Combine and stir all ingredients together, until mixed well. Roll into ball in hand. (yes, this will be a sticky mess) and flatten on greased cookie sheet. Bake for 15 minutes at 350 degrees. Remove from oven and pan, and enjoy!

I'm off to eat that bowl of oatmeal I mentioned a few minutes ago! Unless I start to feel like a total loser again. See ya!