Tracking Tracking Tracking

I once had a Weight Watchers leader who said, every week without fail, "If you bite it, write it," and the longer I am on this journey the more I believe in her wisdom.  

Tracking, journaling whatever you like to call it, makes all the difference in the world! *At least for me...  Have you ever tried to binge eat while measuring and writing down everything before you eat it?  Trust me, it's basically impossible.  Which means, if I'm tracking, I'm not binging.   My latest bad habit is writing down everything I plan to eat for the day first thing in the morning.  Don't get me wrong, having a plan for the day is not a bad habit.  But when I write everything down at 7am and tuck my journal away for the rest of the day, by the time I get home, and I'm sitting on the couch wanting to eat four pumpkin cookies (I mean, this is clearly a hypothetical...) my poor sad little journal is the furthest thing from my mind.  

**For the record my journal is not actually sad or poor at all... it's actually adorable, see below. 

My fantastic friend Michelle sent this journal to me for Christmas and I pretty much love everything about it!

Anyway, back to the point, my new goal for the week is to track everything and anything that goes in my mouth, the moment BEFORE it goes in my mouth.  Writing down the aftermath of a binge eating session may be cathartic but it is in no way helpful in prevention.  

In other news... the pumpkin cookie story may not have been as hypothetical as I would like, but on the bright side because of my craving for cookies and the lack of chocolate chips in my apartment, I did come up with a pretty awesome pumpkin cookie recipe.  They are light and fluffy, and would be perfect with a glaze if I only had the patience to make one.  As is, I ended up rolling them in a mixture of sugar, cinnamon and pumpkin pie spice.  YUM!

*Please forgive my loose measurements; I wasn't kidding when I said I made it up:

1 stick butter softened

A little less than 1/2 of a large can of Libby's 100% Pumpkin Puree 

1 cup brown sugar

1/2 cup white sugar

1 egg

-- Mix ingredients together until well blended, then add

Three cups of flour

1 tsp baking soda

1/2 tsp salt

and a dash of nutmeg

Blend together with the wet ingredients, dough will be very sticky.  

Now, you can just drop them by the spoonful onto a baking sheet and sprinkle the sugar/cinnamon/pumpkin pie spice mixture over them right then and there OR (and I recommend this) you can refrigerate the dough overnight (or until firm) which will allow you to roll the dough into a ball which can then be dipped in the sugar mixture for a much better sugar coating.

Bake at 350 degrees for about 10 minutes.

*As previously mentioned, feel free to throw the sugar mixture out the window and make a delicious glaze to go on top, which is my plan next time... Next time I also plan to not eat 4 in a row -- wish me luck!