After completing a workout, it is common to feel hungry. Depending upon how long and strenuous your workout was, your level of fitness and how much you ate beforehand, you may feel anything from a slight peckishness to a ravenous hunger. Cookies can look awfully tempting in such a state, especially if you feel like you "earned it." While conventionally made cookies contain little in the way of nutrients that will aid your workout recovery, homemade cookies heavy on ingredients like oats and nuts can satisfy your cookie jones in a healthy way.
Conventional Cookies
Wolfing down a handful of packaged snack cookies or a couple of just-baked chocolate chip cookies from the bakery down the street may feel like no big deal right after your workout, when your body is shrieking for you to replace the energy you just burned. But cookies and other snacks with sky-high sugar and fat content, like doughnuts, don't provide nutrients or healthy energy, according to the Drugs.com article "Healthy Snacks for Athletes." The article recommends keeping smarter snacks around for after your workout.
Nut-Based Cookies
Whip up nut-based cookies using a "raw" recipe for a cookie packed with healthy fats and the decadent taste of a conventional cookie. These will satisfy your post-workout junk food craving and your body's need for energy and nutrients at the same time. Raw cookie recipes are typically based on ground cashews or almonds and make use of dates, honey or agave nectar for sweetness. You can customize these cookies with dark chocolate, dried fruit, spices, additional nuts, and grains like oats and flaxseed to achieve your optimal flavor and nutritional balance. Depending upon the proportion of ingredients you use, you can even achieve a texture similar to cookie dough -- without the risk of salmonella.
Oat-Based Cookies
Make oat cookies using a healthy breakfast cookie recipe that will recharge your body and please your sweet tooth. Breakfast cookie recipes are intended to fuel a person up for the beginning of the day, but they can refuel you after your workout instead, because they usually contain protein-packed oats along with ingredients like peanut butter, dried fruit and crunchy bran cereal.
Alternatives
Rather than reaching for a cookie -- even a cookie made healthy -- after your workout, consider turning to a different treat. For example, crunch on a yogurt parfait with low-sugar yogurt, granola and fresh fruit. Or make a batch of apricot-almond bars with chocolate, following the recipe from the American Council on Exercise (ACE). Nosh on whole-grain toast smeared with peanut butter and sprinkled with a few dark-chocolate chips.
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