The night I ate half a pan of “healthy brownies”. All by myself.

Last night was one of those nights. 

I told you all about one of those nights that I had a month or so ago.  It was one of those nights when I inexplicably go into BINGE MODE.

Can’t get enough food in my face.  I want allll the foods.  In my mouth.  NOW.

I’m sure there’s a logical explanation as to why I get hit with these nights periodically.  Either a lack of something in my diet during the day that makes me hungry and causes me to crave.  Or something psychological – boredom, anxiety, sadness, anger…

I usually don’t get too scientific when these “I need to eat everything NOW” moods hit, though.  I just scrounge around and stuff my face and feel badly about it afterwards.

Here’s the good news:  Because I gave up sugar and artificial sweeteners for Lent, it put a lot of things out of question for the binge.  Also, because my cupboards are pretty empty of anything junk-related, there wasn’t much bad food for me to even try to dig out.  So it was a tad bit of healthier binge than the last time.

However, it did result in me eating the leftover pizza in the fridge from the weekend (it was a rising crust PC frozen pizza, no sugar in the first three ingredients listed, as per my laws).  All three pieces of it.  Dipped in Renee’s Light Caesar Dressing.  (?!?!?!?!)  And when I still wasn’t satisfied after that(even though I was full), I found inspiration on my Facebook newsfeed.

The recipe du jour that 19 of my friends had shared was “37 Calorie Brownies”.  Now, because I gave up sweets for Lent, I initially thought these were a no-no, but after a scan of the ingredients list, I saw nothing that violated my self-imposed laws:

3/4 cup nonfat Greek yogurt (I used Danon Oikos 0%)
1/4 cup skim milk
1/2 cup Cocoa powder
1/2 cup Old fashioned rolled oats
1/2 cup Truvia (or any natural/stevia based sweetener that pours like sugar – I used my Stevia In The Raw)
1 egg
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 pinch salt

And whaddya know, all these ingredients?  In my fridge and cupboard. BAM.  We be making brownies, y’all.

It literally took five minutes to whip these up and pop ‘em in the oven.  15 minutes after that, they were out of the oven.  Now, the instructions clearly stated to let them cool completely before cutting into 9 large squares, but I was in BINGE MODE, so there was no waiting for cooling down time.  I hacked into them immediately.

And they were not very yummy.

But did that stop me from eating half the pan?  Of course it didn’t.  BINGE MODE, remember?

Guys, I don’t know if I did something wrong, because on the recipe post that I linked to above, everyone was raving about these things.  I thought it might be because I used plain Greek yogurt instead of vanilla flavoured, but I’m not sure the vanilla flavour could’ve saved them.  They were bitter, and there was no true enjoyment in scarfing them down.

But scarf I did.  Along with grapes and blueberries.

That’s just what happens when I’m in BINGE MODE.

And I wasn’t even done after that.  I was still dying for something more.  Finally, I poured myself a little dish of Sunmaid California Raisins, added a sprinkle of walnut pieces, and made myself a cup of tea.  That finally did the trick.

Anyways.  There’s some comfort in knowing that the last time I did this, I woofed into Potato Thins and dip, Rice Cakes, and every little bit of chocolate and candy I could find.

At least this time, it was semi-healthy.

OK, I don’t think I can call 3 pieces of pizza dipped in Caesar dressing healthy, but it got better after that part.

I mean, at 37 cals per brownie, I think I could’ve eaten the WHOLE pan for less cals than I’d find in a chocolate bar or even a small bag of chips.

Yeah.  I can justify ANYTHING if I try hard enough. ;)