Excess and compulsion: Happy Holidays! + 4 ingredient vegan lemon cookie recipe

Excess and compulsion…

-Chantale Roy

December 15, 2015

Holiday season, birthdays, special occasions, day-to-day events, good or bad news, effervescence or blank page have something in common: food…

As many of my colleagues, any source of emotion can lead me to the kitchen. And I’m not the only one. This is not nothing new for anyone. I know myself pretty well and I can become predictable over time. I can anticipate any sign that leads me to reach out to something sweet, salty, or bitter and use it to neutralize anything rising in me.

Over the years, I have been able to neutralize (attempt only) the various impulses:

• joy
• sadness
• desire
• self-control
• concern
• assurance
• desire
• need
• guilt
• forgiveness
• fear
• peace
• dissatisfaction
• satisfaction
• doubt
• confidence
• etc.

Seeing the upcoming holiday season, I set the challenge to go further than this first level of identification of emotion. I notice then often a perpetual assembly line, if I do not intervene: emotion surfacing, neutralizing food, compulsion, excess weight, emotion surfacing, neutralizing food, compulsion, overweight, etc. Over the years, I learned that if I did not help, I’ll get the same results (as Groundhog Day). So it’s my choice to continue or not to give this little blow on my domino which will initiate the same effects that I know too well.

At that moment, I breathe, I do not reach out to a chosen food but to my emotion. When emotion takes the floor, I realize that another voice is heard under it. Among other things: “I’m afraid to fail and to not succeed as perfectly as I’d like.”

Every time I reach for a food, then another and another, in a festive time or not, I have the impression of ignoring what is really said in me. Fortunately, I still have a second chance to listen to me …

For Christmas this year I offer myself this free gift to open Russian dolls, listen to what is underneath my desire to overeat, under my emotion, in an echo of what is expressed deep inside. I shall hear me and answer me. As a bonus, I can also offer it to those I love.

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One can learn to control themselves or even better, to become master of oneself, when listening in itself. These cookies have only four ingredients and are so simple. Self-control can be that simple…

Gluten-Free Vegan Lemon Cookies

-Chef Chantale Roy

1 cup gluten-free pastry flour (Bob Red Mill or other)

1/2 cup coconut sugar

1/2 cup vegan butter

zest of 1 organic lemon

Mix all ingredients. Shape into a small log. Slice into small cookies . Preheat oven to 400 degrees Fahrenheit. Bake on a cookie sheet covered with parchment paper for 15 minutes. Taste, while listening …

P.S. Dip in some melted chocolate, if desired.