I hate running.
I’m told running grows on you. I’ve heard, all of a sudden, your body starts to like the feeling more than hate it. You develop a breathing pattern instead of struggling for breath. Your legs feel strong instead of burning like they are on fire. You start wanting to run, again, and begin to plan your runs into your weekly schedule…you crave the energy it takes to run.
This seems like crazy talk. Energy?
I began to experience all of these things last summer when I tried running for the first time in my life. I was starting to get the great feeling you get from regular exercise. I see now why that feeling of extra energy is worth the effort. I would like to clarify that nothing was chasing me, I just chose to run. Then it snowed, and snowed, and snowed some more. So in the spring, I tried again. Only it didn’t “take” to me like last summer. I think I might have to actually start dedicating more time to it’s pursuit. Please don’t judge, I bet you have been there at some point in your life…
My husband and daughter had a completely different experience. They are the runners in my life. They compare distance and speed, each trying to go the farthest per week. This makes the loser more determined… and the cycle continues. As these two are both tall and thin, I wanted to replace the calories they were burning with a healthy snack that would help them feel great. I didn’t want to feed them junk since they were working so hard to be fit. As usual, with no added sodium, energy cookies were born…
Ingredients
- Oatmeal, quick-cooking, 2 3/4 cup
- Hemp hearts, 1/2 cup
- Coconut Sugar, 1 3/4 cup
- Peanut Butter, 1/2 cup
- Vanilla, 1 teaspoon
- Milk, 1/2 cup
- Butter, unsalted, 1 stick (8 tablespoons), cut into chunks
- Unsweetened Cocoa Powder, 3 Tablespoons
Why the weird ingredients?
I wanted to crank up the protein in my no bake cookies. I found raw shelled hemp seeds have 10mg of protein in 3 tablespoons. This seemed like a lovely, easy way to achieve the protein goal. As usual, no sodium, 20% iron, plus a great amount of magnesium, phosphorus, and manganese. You can also use them on yoghurt and they are really tasty. I thought these little seeds were pretty cool…
This product is also a newer one to my kitchen. I didn’t want to add a lot of sugar to their diet. The feeling of crashing after too much sugar wasn’t what I intended. Imagine my happiness when I spotted this item. A low glycemic 1:1 replacement for granulated or brown sugar? It’s made from “coconut flower blossom nectar” according to the bag. Yes, that does make me happy in a nerdy, nutrition kind of way.
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