The Cookie Chronicles

Hi everyone, it’s Karen here. If it seems strange or cruel that this week’s topic is willpower - while I am also featuring a chocolate chip cookie recipe - please let me explain. 

Willpower is often described as a form of self-control, and I frequently hear clients say things like “I have no self-control around XYZ food” (fill in the food of your choice!) While this perceived lack of control can have various causes, a prominent one seems to be a lack of permission to eat these foods. When it comes to chocolate chip cookies, for example, you may tell yourself that cookies are “bad” and should not be eaten. You build a pattern of eating that excludes cookies (even though you love cookies), and then guess what happens? You eventually get confronted with cookies and overindulge (better get ‘em now because who knows when you’ll be able to have them again, right?). Guilt ensues, there is a return to cookie restriction (because you just reinforced the belief that you can’t trust yourself around cookies), and the cycle continues. 

But what if you gave yourself permission to enjoy a good cookie when you wanted one? It probably sounds super scary, but maybe your lack of control around cookies is related to never allowing yourself to have them. A scarcity of something makes us desire it more. It becomes more coveted and can take on a special importance to us. But when something is more abundant and readily obtained, it doesn’t feel as special or tempting to have. That doesn’t mean we want eating a chocolate chip cookie to be a mundane experience – we just don’t want it to take on any undue power or significance. 

I’m featuring my favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe this week in honor of my son. He has always been interested in cooking and especially loves baking anything with chocolate chips. Through the years we have made countless batches of chocolate chip cookies together. When this trend started, I almost dreaded doing it because I always felt like “oh geez, I’m gonna eat too many cookies” (which I genuinely feel like I often did). But as time went on, I realized that this propensity to overindulge in the cookies diminished. I didn’t have the same burning desire to eat the cookies. Sure, I still enjoyed them, but they weren’t quite calling my name in the same way. And then it dawned on me – maybe my lack of cookies prior to all of this was the problem. Over time, and multiple batches of cookies, the cookies had found their rightful place alongside everything else in my diet. I no longer felt so out-of-control around them, and think I probably enjoyed them more. So ironically, baking a batch of cookies might just be the starting place to feel more in control around food!