Eating Healthier: Take 1

I tried. I really tried. But I'm not doing something right. I have been perusing the internet for healthy recipes that might kick-start my weight loss adventure and veer my sugar-addicted butt towards the path that grows vegetables instead of leading me down the pretty path of buttercream roses. Since I had a baby nine and a half months ago, I can't seem to rid my midsection of excess insulation. Plus, I haven't been feeling my best and I can't help but think that the heartless people who abandon sugar on my doorstop are partly to blame. I mean, who ever heard of abandoning sugar? I guess the sticky sweet stuff always knows it has a home in me. However, it isn't much fun being the only treat-loving person in the house. A few months ago, the man affectionately known as Mr. T performed a 180 with his eating habits and has lightened his load by 30 pounds. Yay for hubs, boo for me!

So, in an effort to curtail my hubby from purchasing jeans with a smaller waist size than the zip code my rear end currently inhabits, I was googling healthy pumpkin recipes. I figured if a recipe has pumpkin in it, it has to be good, right? You can pretty much pair anything with pumpkin and my taste buds break out in a ballet that resembles a New York City version of the Nutcracker. After searching several sites, I found a picture that caught my eye. It definitely looked like a winner. What is this culinary masterpiece, you may ask? Only a healthy, vegan, pumpkin muffin recipe. And don't let the word vegan scare you. That's just code for gut-cleansing healthy. So, in typical Erika fashion, I got excited, especially by that delectable-looking photo. I am a visual girl, in case you didn't know. I immediately pinned the recipe to Pinterest 'cause we all know if something is pinned to Pinterest, it has to be awesome. Never mind that I am the one who pinned it. I just think those are the rules.

First things first, I read the recipe a couple times and made a mental note. Then I went to the store. I bought the ingredients. I measured. I mixed. I baked. The kitchen filled with the warm scent of baking pumpkin. I got even more excited. And then the timer went off...

My first clue that something wasn't quite right should have been the disappointment I felt when I opened the oven door. The crumb topping I made somehow slid off the muffin tops and adhered itself like glue to my pan. I immediately knew that was going to be a job for Dawn. She is much better than I am at scraping off crap even if she has to nurture the goo in a pool of water for three days. I moved the muffins to a casserole dish to let Dawn start working her magic.

In my naïveté, I couldn't wait for the little buggars to cool because I was so darn excited to eat something healthy! I unwrapped the first muffin and it crumbled into pieces. Not to worry, though. That's why God invented forks. I took my first bite. H-O-T! After waiting for my taste buds to recover, I noticed the interesting texture of the muffins. The sunflower seeds gave a crunchy contrast to the soft pumpkin flavoring. I can't say I was super impressed, probably because I was reconciling my taste buds' definition of healthy with my mind's definition of healthy. I finished the muffin and grabbed another although this time I called for reinforcements. I smothered a few globs of bestlife buttery spread across the top and nuked it for a few seconds. After the butter had melted, I tried it again. Still hot. But this time it actually didn't taste so bad. Before, it was dry and lifeless without the butter but now I could enjoy the pumpkin. So, I guess vegan really stands for bland, but the former interpretation stands true also. It turns out that this recipe is so healthy that it didn't only get me moving on the treadmill, it made my insides run for the border. Word to the wise: If you try to remove the sugar category from your personal food guide pyramid, incorporate new menu items slowly so your G.I. tract doesn't revolt and try to defect to another body. Next time, I am going to keep healthy in the title but try something a little less vegan perhaps. A healthy serving of pumpkin pie sounds like a good place to start, doesn't it?