Gift Therapy December 9, 2011

When I was six years old I broke my arm. It was ugly, and was the moment I first learned my body could be the cause of much pain. And trauma.

Probably more trauma than pain actually. Because the whole experience was traumatic. From walking the block home from my friend’s house clutching my wrist, to watching my little brother screaming as he was restrained from getting in the car with us, to every second at the hospital.

My god the hospital. Nothing but a blur of scary looking strangers moving too fast, talking too loud, and making my arm hurt more. My clearest memory is of being in the X-ray room and desperately begging and negotiating with the doctor for my mom to come in with me. Which was a huge effort for me since my major life goal at six years old was to talk to strange adults as little as possible.

So I think it was more the trauma than the pain that led to me cocooning myself on the coach for the first week or so. I don’t remember much about that period other than making a decision to never, ever, move my arm, or any other part of my body ever again. Ever.

My memory of my time on the couch is through my 6-year-old, prone eyes. I see the high back of the couch,  my cast encased arm in its blue sling, the blankets and pillows that surrounded me, and a bunch of small glass animals lined up along the back of the couch, along with random other trinkets and toys, because my dad kept coming home from work with presents for me.

Specifically he hit this line of little glass animals. They were probably marble more than actual glass, and they were all the same brown and white swirl, but they were every kind of animal you could think of, and each day he brought me a few new ones. I remember laying on the couch and seeing these little presents lined up all along the back of the couch, and wondering why I was getting so many treats when it wasn’t my birthday or Christmas. Eventually I figured out that they were meant to somehow compensate me for my pain and suffering. I think my most vivid memory from that time is of everything lined up on the back of the couch, my parents hovering in the background, because it was a few days before I was willing to move enough to touch them or play with them.

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Chris broke his collar-bone last week while playing street hockey. The thing about a broken collar-bone is that there’s just not much that can be done about it. We saw a specialist and he told us that Chris didn’t require surgery. He said that it was 50/50 whether surgery would make him heal better, and that either choice Chris made, surgery or no surgery was a valid choice. Chris opted for no surgery.

For him that means a sling, a prescription for oxycodone, and just waiting for the bones to start to knit back together, (which in people over the age of 30 can take as long as 6 weeks.) It means pretty constant pain and discomfort for him, because while the pain killers seem to take the edge off, he’s never completely comfortable.

For me that means just watching him suffer. It means trying not to notice when his lips turn white as he braces against a wave of pain, of trying not to flinch when he does this one kind of exhalation that he only does when he’s hurting and can’t get comfortable. It means not being able to really hold him or offer any help in making him comfortable. Above all else, it means feeling endlessly helpless.

I find myself constantly wanting to buy him presents. Because I apparently have the same coping skills as my dad.

And now I totally get where my dad was coming from. It’s really frustrating to see someone you love be broken and not be able to fix it.

But my dad had it easy. I was a six year old girl. He could buy me glass animals, doll house furniture, Barbies, anything pink. Plus I was prone on the couch, and so he could literally shower me in presents and at least look down and feel like he’s done something.

But I’m dealing with an almost 39 year old man, so my options are lot more limited. He’s sticking to our diet, so I can’t shower him with cupcakes and apple turnovers, and even if I could, he won’t sit still, so anything I’d pile on him would just get all over the floor and I’m not wasting frosting like that.

So far, all I’ve come up with is spicey kettle corn that I got at a farmers market last weekend. I wanted to dump it on him like confetti, to try to achieve that feeling of showering him with gifts, but he insisted on just eating it straight from the bag like a normal person.

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My only option at this point is to put all my pent-up gift giving urges into shopping for his birthday next week, and then Christmas. We decided to do stockings for each other, and so my most pressing issue at the moment is finding a stocking that is approximately 4 feet long and 2 feet wide.

Also, if anyone knows where I can get a moon bounce and a fire juggler who will do adult birthday parties cheap, let me know. Thanks.

Running on Empty December 2, 2011

  I ran out of gas yesterday morning.

That’s not a euphemism for me hitting some sort of emotional wall, or running out of energy for my life.

I literally drove my car until there was no gas left in the gas tank.

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This moment has had a certain inevitability about it since the day I got my driver’s licence.

Chris has joked (at least I think he’s joking) about buying a gas can to keep in his car so that when the day comes that I do finally run out of gas, which will obviously be 2am, he’ll be ready to bring me gas.

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I just hate getting gas. And I have a hard time believing I’ll actually ever run out of gas. But mostly I’m just lazy and hate getting gas.

Wednesday evening after work I was driving into the city and as I sat in traffic I noticed that the gas light had started blinking. I was really sure it had just started doing that, and I was also really sure I’d driven into the city and home again with a blinking gas light. So I decided I’d be fine, although vaguely considered that I should stop on the way home and get gas (stopping on the way into the city, once I was on the main interstate was not really an option).

Later that evening as I walked to my car, I realized the temperature had dropped significantly and I hadn’t brought a warm enough coat. Also I’d forgotten my hat. And my gloves.

As I cruised home at 11:45pm  with no traffic, I kept looking at that blinking light and a voice in my head said “Stop at that gas station on the way to your house and get gas.” And then this other voice said “But its soooo coollldddd! And its sooooo late, how bout I just go home and do it in the morning?” And the first voice said “but what if the car doesn’t start in the morning because you’re out of gas?” and the second voice said “Oh please, that never happens.” And the first voice said “Yeah, that’s totally true. Plus there’s that gas station right on the way to work, you won’t even have to turn down a side street like you would tonight.” “Exactly! So it obviously makes way more sense to just do it in the morning.”

And by the time I’d finished the conversation I’d passed the street with the gas station anyway, so it was really just a moot point.

The next morning I got into my car and started it up and then sat there for about a minute fussing with my phone before I remembered I was almost out of gas, so I put it in gear and headed out. I put it in neutral as I went down a hill and while I sat at stop lights, because I read somewhere once that that saves gas.

It’s exactly 3.2 miles from where my car was parked to the gas station.

As I approached the gas station, I slowed down and made the right hand turn into the shopping center parking lot where the gas station was. The parking lot becomes a slight incline there and I had to get to the top of the incline then turn left into the gas station and then pull into a pump. I was still mostly using the break until I got to the top of the slight incline and then I went to gently apply the gas to get through the left turn and my foot sank right to the floor with no response from the car.

My heart started to pound and I broke out into a cold sweat as I knew immediately what the problem was. But my body somehow knew what to do and instead of hitting the break, which is my go-to response for every single thing that happens while I’m driving, to just let the car keep moving on its own.

I sort of went out of my body and watched as the car kept rolled forward toward the pumps, and not really believing this would work, I turned the wheel left as I approached a pump and the car very, very, slowly inched forward almost to the exact place it had to be and then simply stopped moving. I kind of think it was powered those last few inches by me leaning forward over the wheel intensely chanting “please, oh please, oh please, oh please, oh please.”

I always thought my car held 13 gallons, and so when I’ve driven around with the gas light flashing and then filled it up with a little over 10 gallons, I always figured I still had a nice cushion of 2-ish gallons to go. I’ve always meant to check that book in the glove compartment to see for sure how many gallons it actually held, so I would know for sure. But…that book is really fat and boring looking and I never got around to it. Besides I was pretty confident in my reasoning that it held 13 gallons.

Wrong. My car (apparently) holds 11 gallons. (Although I still haven’t read the book. But in this case I feel like real life experience trumps book learnin’).

When I filled it up on this morning it took 10.59 gallons.

As I finished pumping and got back into the car, and the shaking stopped as my adrenaline stopped pumping, I started playing the what if game. “What if I’d sputtered out right before I made the left into the gas station? Is that more or less embarrassing than running out on the road?” “If I’d run out of gas in the shopping center parking lot, would I have been able to get a container, get gas in the car, get it to the pump, and then get to work and never have to tell Chris this had happened?”

Clearly the universe was teaching me a lesson on this morning. I take the fact that my car made it to the pump, but not before scaring the crap out of me, to be a very clear warning sign from the universe that its time to grow up and be more responsible with myself and my car.

The fact that this all happened on this particular morning just makes me more sure it was a message. Because on this morning, Chris was sitting at home with a broken collar bone, waiting to go in and see a specialist to find out when/if he was going to have surgery. So of course the one time I run out of gas is the one time I can’t be rescued. AND, it was only as a result of timing that I was driving to work and not driving Chris to the doctor when this happened because he didn’t get ahold of the doctor until I was already at work (and I turned right around and drove back to his house to pick him up, lest you think I’m a terrible girlfriend.)

In an attempt to distract Chris from his pain, I told him this story while we were driving to the doctor. And he then tells me about how, as his daughter was driving him home from the ER at 3am, he noticed he only had 1/4 tank of gas and had her pull into a gas station.

Show off.

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So here now, in front of god, my mom and the 4 other people who read this blog, I pledge to never let my tank get below 1/4 full ever again.

I feel pretty good about the likelihood that I’m going to stick to this declaration.

Even when it’s really cold out. Or I’m in a hurry.

Probably.

Thankful November 30, 2011

I’m big on tradition. I like the predictability. The familiarity. The control.

Over the years, I may have been known to…react strongly to a suggestion of changing any of our holiday traditions. And by “react strongly” I basically mean pitch a fit, and as a result, I’ve probably held my family hostage in our traditions for the past 30+ years.

But now, this year, I suddenly find myself a little less concerned with traditions and more concerned with flexibility. Possibly because I have a  motivation to be flexible.

And that motivation may or may not be named Chris.

This is my first holiday being part of a real couple. We’re talking serious milestone here.

And as always, major milestones tend to cause me some level of panic – mostly born of a fear that I’ll stumble over the milestone and tear a big hole in the fabric of our relationship somehow.

This was probably one of the scarier milestones so far, because it actually requires decisions and action and involves lots of other people. With the other ones, like our 6 month anniversary, or meeting the friends, I could navigate them by just avoiding any sudden movements or major personality changes. But the holidays are a totally different ball of pine needles.

I spent a few months obsessing thinking about options.  I knew enough about his work schedule and family demands to realize he wasn’t just going to be able to jump in the car with me on the day before Thanksgiving and head to my parents house for a long weekend. Which is what I’ve done for Thanksgiving every year since I graduated from college.

And I knew enough about us to know that I wanted to spend the holiday with him if there was any way possible.  All of a sudden traditions didn’t seem as important as finding a way to balance his holiday experiences with my own.

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I’m pretty sure that’s called growth, people.

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But, at the same time I was struggling with a special holiday edition of  the type of fear and insecurity that accompany my milestones: If I just didn’t go home Thanksgiving, is it wrong to choose my boyfriend of not even 10 months over my family? What if I regret my choice and miss my family and we have our first bad weekend ever? What if he comes with me and realizes that my family is too overwhelming and he misses his quiet vacation days? What if I suggest a change in my family’s tradition and they all flip out the way I always did when someone suggested changes?

But then, about two weeks before Thanksgiving, when we still hadn’t made any firm plans, I got an email from my mom saying “maybe this is the year you don’t come home, maybe this is the year you have a Thanksgiving with someone else.” From some mothers that would have been a trick, a passive-aggressive plea to in fact be sure to come home for Thanksgiving. But from MY mom it was permission.  Permission to break with our family tradition, permission to experiment with a new tradition, with putting someone other than my family first.

It took away some of the fears, but didn’t completely solve the problem. I still didn’t know if our relatively young relationship could handle the weight of replacing my family.

But before I could respond I got an email from Chris confirming his work and family schedule would allow us to spend Thanksgiving day with his family and then drive the 7ish hours to see my family on Friday and stay until Monday.

I knew my mom always served a second Thanksgiving on Sunday of that weekend to use up leftovers, and so I told her we’d join her for that meal, not wanting to ask her to cook twice or for everyone else to change their plans. I figured it would mean not seeing all of my siblings, but it seemed a reasonable compromise.

A few days later I heard from my mom that everyone had jumped at the idea of moving Thanksgiving to Sunday. It turns out, everyone else was ready to experiment with new traditions as well.  One brother had a private Thanksgiving day with just his wife where they spent the day eating, sleeping and drinking on their own schedule. One sister went to her husband’s family’s Thanksgiving for the first time in years, and my other sister didn’t have to feel like she was missing her family’s celebration as she spent Thanksgiving day with her husband’s family and she was now able to invite another brother and his family to join them for a traditional Italian Thanksgiving (they serve raviolli instead of turkey!)  Basically, it worked out great for everyone to have Thanksgiving on Sunday, and I couldn’t have had a better introduction to my first attempt at making new traditions.

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As Thanksgiving got closer and standard small talk with friends and co-workers became “what are you doing for the holidays”, I heard tale after tale of couples torn between two competing families. I heard stories of couples who skipped Thanksgiving all together and went on vacation, who had to manuever around complicated alternating year schedules and manipulative, guilt tripping parents who had no interest in sharing or experimenting with different traditions.

I know I’ve heard these stories in past years. In fact, I know that one of my best friends has endured guilt from her mother for the entire length of her marriage for every holiday she’s spent with her husband’s family, even after the marriage ended. So I know this is a thing. But I never really heard those stories until now.

And now I know that what I have to be thankful for this year, beyond all of the obvious things, is that I have a family that cheerfully got behind moving Thanksgiving from Thursday to Sunday, and that I have a boyfriend who was willing to spend two days in the car to let me spend time with my family.

I know that part of my family’s flexibility comes from the fact that I’m the last person in this big old family to need a change. Until now I’ve been static as all around me things have changed: marriages have ended and started; people have moved houses and states; babies have been born and teenagers have appeared fully formed.

I was always the least flexible because I had the least motivation to want change. In some families that would be the kind of thing that comes back to bite you. But not in my family. And for that, I am grateful.

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Of course, we still have Christmas to figure out. To me that’s a bigger holiday than Thanksgiving, so its still a new milestone.  I think its something to do with the presents. So it may turn out that my family has exhausted its flexibility reserves and any attempt to change our Christmas traditions will be met with rigidity.

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Or maybe this blog post will be enough positive reinforcement to grease the wheels for Christmas. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see…

Buddha’s Diet November 23, 2011

I’m a slave to protein.

That’s what this whole diet has basically boiled down to: Protein, and my endless need for it.

It’s the master of my schedule, the ruler of my moods, and the deity to which I regularly bow.

Because that’s pretty much all I can eat. And when you only eat protein, it burns up fast. See the nice thing about complex carbs like the one I typical ate – with lots of whole grain and fiber** –  is that they are slow burning. Slowly burning into sugar, yes. But slow burning nonetheless. This is an attribute of carbs I took for granted when they were a part of my life.

But when protein is king, I can go from not hungry, to starving in less than 3 seconds. Every choice I make in my day somehow relates to, or is influenced by an opportunity to intake protein.

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I don’t want to sound like I’m complaining, because really, over all, this diet is the best thing that’s happened to me, health wise, in years.

Pounds and inches have been lost. (More inches than pounds actually, which seems impossible, but is apparently true and according to the doctor, not uncommon. But smaller is smaller, so I’m not complaining).

But more than anything, a lifestyle has emerged.

A lifestyle of mindfulness. Mindfulness about when I’m going to eat, what I’m going to eat, and of course, how much protein will be in the meal. I have to make daily decisions about whether and how much GF and sugar-free protein bars or apples, or cheese sticks, or nuts, I need to put in my purse.

Fast food is a thing of the past, we can’t eat anything out of a box, and very few restaurants offer us more than one or two options on the menu (although the few that do, like Mongolian BBQ, we patronize often.)

On Friday afternoon Chris and I start thinking through our weekend and what our schedule will be like, and before we can settle in for the evening, we have to make sure we at least have enough eggs, fruit and breakfast meat to make breakfast Saturday morning.

At breakfast we talk through our day in detail, thinking about where we’re going, what our food access will be, if we’ll need to bring food or come home to eat. If we’ll come home to eat, what will we eat, will we have time to cook or do we need something quicker.

Crock-pots are an invention of the gods.

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After a few weeks that all becomes second nature, especially to detail oriented planners like me and Chris.

But then there’s another level of mindfulness, having to do with correcting habitual eating and cravings.

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I realized that I used food as rewards- a diet sabotaging habit if ever there was one.

Several times a day I’d think, “I’ve made it through a hard day, I should get myself a cupcake,” or “I’ve had a great day! I should stop at Starbucks for a frap,” or “I just did the bare minimum amount of work I need to do to stay employed. Time for some M&M’s!” At first I just focused on not robotically steering into the Starbucks or bakery parking lot.

Then one day it hit me: “Why do I need a reward for every goddamn thing that happens in my life? Am I 4 years old? Should I get M&M’s for making a pee-pee in the potty?”

First I thought “Well, it wouldn’t hurt,” but then I thought “NO. This is no way for an adult to live!”Because, as an adult, I’m responsible for my life. I’m responsible for all of my choices and my actions. I shouldn’t need a reward to get through a day in a life that I created.

“But,” I asked myself, “what about when things go wrong, and you’re too sad to do anything but eat a cupcake one crumb at a time?”

That pulled me up short because, I mean, seriously, WHAT ABOUT THE CUPCAKES?

Well here’s the thing about the cupcakes:

They served as a pseudo solution for situations I didn’t want to resolve for real. Relationship trouble? Lets not look at the ways in which I’ve participated in letting him make me feel bad, that’s icky, I’ll just eat a cupcake instead. Pain from physical therapy after my car accident? Eh, getting perspective about healing time and the human body is hard, I think I’ll mope and eat a cupcake instead.

The sugar and the feeling of getting what I want would make me feel briefly better, but quickly disappear leaving me feeling lonely and sad again. A terrible cycle that has now ended.

I’m not saying I’ll never have another cupcake, but it will be when my sugar intake for the day has been low, when its GF, and when its only because I want a cupcake, not because I’m using it to hide behind. Because being mindful also means having choices. I can choose to have a peanut butter cup, or a slice of GF apple pie at Thanksgiving because I can make choices about other things I eat – skip the potatoes, go easy on the citrus fruit and pick carrots over corn so my sugar intake is as low as possible when I eat the pie.  I can pretty much do whatever I want as long as I’m always mindful of the big picture. Which makes me hate this diet a lot less.

Next, I realized that I mostly crave sugar and carbs when I’m dehydrated or just plain hungry. The body wants a quick fix, so it wants carbs and sugar. So I had to learn to ask myself what I was actually in need of – water? protein? just something in my mouth to chew?

What I didn’t expect to happen was that I eventually trained my body to crave what it actually wanted. When I’m dehydrated I crave water, when I need protein I crave cheese or meat, when I just want something to chew images of apples and carrots come to mind.

Swear to Protein, I’m telling the truth.

But it’s really easy to undo. One little slip – like eating rich chocolate desserts every night because you’re stuck in a hotel in the middle of the desert and you’ve only been able to eat like 20% of every meal and you’re sick of your protein bars and it’s not fair and a little bit of sugar isn’t going to hurt, and damnit why does everything have to be so effing hard all the time – and you kind of have to start the retraining all over again. But it is easier the second time around.

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I was explaining these details of this diet to my dad a few weeks ago, and he said “So its like a Buddha diet. It’s all about mindfulness.” Which is the first time I thought to put it into that context. Of course, if we wanted to be very literal, Buddha’s diet would be vegetarian, but I like to think he’s cool with my using his name this way. Mostly because Buddha is pretty much cool with everything.  But as soon as I re-contextualized this diet from a pain in the ass list of restrictions, to a lifestyle of mindfulness, everything got a lot easier.

For example, I’ve finally accepted that there were no short cuts anymore, that my idea of indulgent eating is adding kidney beans to my salad, and that I will spend an inappropriate amount of my life thinking about eggs.

And in exchange I have a clear mind, high energy levels, stabilized moods, a smaller waistline, and better functioning organs.

Seems a fair trade.

Except when I walk past a Starbucks and see a picture of their holiday drinks and wonder how many more times I can walk past before I run inside, order 12, and then sit in my car behind a dumpster pounding one after the other until I pass out in a pool of melted whip cream, chocolate curls and my dignity.

Those days suck. But mostly its, you know, the other way.

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**this is an after post edit for clarity. I realized that by just saying “carbs” as I did originally it was misleading and just plaing wrong. But I’d been eating complex carbs, and whole grain/fiber filled carbs instead of simple carbs like white rice, white pasta etc, for so long that I didn’t think about what I was saying.

The View From The Other Side November 10, 2011

Before there was my current, wonderful boyfriend Chris, there was another Chris.  But any similarities between them ends at their name.

Old Chris (or OC, as he will be referred to hereafter) occupied two long, emotionally super charged, on again/off again years.

At times I thought I loved him (before I knew what that really felt like); At times I thought I hated him; Now I don’t think much at all about him.

After the first or second go-round with OC my friends started to lose patience with my involvement with him, maybe because they were seeing things more clearly than I was, (as friends often do), maybe because they had no stomach for the drama, or maybe they were just unable or unwilling to watch me crash into the emotional brick wall that they believed I was driving straight toward.

At the time, I told myself that I couldn’t possibly expect my friends to understand, they all had easy, stable, normal relationships. What did they know of the all-consuming, blockbuster chic-flic level of intensity and passion that comes from a relationship with a passionate, emotive, complicated man. It’s completely addictive and all-consuming. But I had it all completely. under. control.

When they would express their fear that he was going to hurt me, I would react with irritation and indignation, patiently explaining why they were wrong, why this time was different, why I was equal to the task of having a relationship with this challenging man.

And they would always say, “I’m just afraid you’re going to get hurt”.

I rarely responded to those statements, but in my head I was always thinking, “So what?! So what if I get hurt? What do they think will happen? Do they think I’m going to hurt myself? Hurt him? Run away in a broken-hearted crime spree across the country?” I was confident in my basic mental stability, confident that the fallout would only be more tears, more heart ache, more scars on my psyche, and really, what was a few more going to change anyway?

If there was one thing I knew I could handle it was getting over romantic disappointments.

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But now, a year and change after the last tear was shed, I’ve realized something significant.

On the one hand I was right. I did handle the ensuing disappointments, let downs and emotional implosions without any major self-destructive behavior. No harm, no fowl, right?

Yeah…not so much.

See, the thing is, in my circle of friends, I was always the one with the drama, with the unstable relationships, with the intense emotional experiences, and my friends were all stable and calm and reliable. So I had no understanding of what the view was like from their side.

Of course they knew I wasn’t going to start drinking, or selling my body for drugs to numb the pain, or even lock myself in my room with Enya on repeat. They knew I’d adjust quickly enough to whatever heartbreak happened, shed the requisite tears and move on.

But even though they knew I’d survive the hurt, they still wanted to stop me from hurting.

Because that’s what happens when you love someone. You want to protect them from all pain, all hurt, all unpleasantness, even if it’s a journey they need to take, or a lesson they need to learn, or simply too far outside your control.

Now I know that when you love someone, and they are hurting, your heart will chip at the edges and your tears will run in solidarity to theirs.

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I’m kind of a protector type, so when I see someone I love hurting, my mind goes to the cause, and looks for ways to eliminate it.

My plans usually involve some combination of my car, a baseball bat, face paint, silly string, pepper spray, twist ties, Hershey Kisses and peanuts. (The Hershey Kisses and peanuts are for me. I always assume torture to be an exhausting activity.)

The problem is that I’m crap with details and a terrible liar (especially when I’m not sorry for what I’ve done), so chances are that any attempt to “eliminate a problem” would land me in prison.

I would not do well in prison.

So then what’s left? Just the talking. All there is to do is to try to show them the big picture that you see, to try to get them to change their perspective, to let go of their belief structure that’s keeping them on this road leading to that brick wall. As my friends did every time they told me they were worried I was going to get hurt.

Even though you know it probably won’t do any good.

I totally get that now.

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I once read a quote that said “Being a mother is like letting your heart walk around outside your body.”

Even though I’m not a mother,  it was a sentiment, and an image, that has stuck with me.

But now I realize, it’s not just with children that you send your heart out to roam freely in the world. It happens anytime you allow yourself  to love someone- friend, family, romantic partner, even animals (I assume. I’ve never been much for pets. I certainly would never sob for hours when I thought my kitten had gotten out and was lost in the woods waiting to be dinner for a hawk, when she was really just sleeping in a cupboard in the living room.)

Since I’ve always been the one causing all the trouble, I’m new to the view from this side, and I’m trying to figure out what kind of person I want to be over here.

There are a lot of choices. Some people turn away when they realize you’re speeding right into that wall, so they don’t have to see the crash and  witness the pain. Some people give up early and then show back up with “I told you so’s”. Some people get so wrapped up in the drama they offer to put gas in the car before hopping in.

For now, for me, I think that if I can’t remove the brick wall, then I’m just going to have to strap myself into the passenger seat so that I can be there for whatever comes.

At least until I learn how to properly dispose of a body.

I’ll Never Be Accused of Being A Foodie October 31, 2011

Today is the end of the formal 30 day sugar fast that was the kickoff to my new “eating lifestyle”.

Yay! Except that I’m so over (most) of my sugar cravings, and have adapted to my options so well over the past few weeks, I don’t really want to eat outside my diet.

Did. NOT. See that coming.

I’d planned to do a deep blog about all of the things I’ve learned over the past 30 days in terms of food, my body, my brain, Chris’s body, society, and American culture as a whole. I may also have some revelations about the state of the global economy and how to stop the polar ice caps from melting.

BUT.

Work and life is really busy this week, and I’m not going to have the time to write such a deep, informative, and dare I say it, life changing blog post for a while.

So since food is kind of the center of my life right now, I decided I’d just throw a blog together about what I’m eating.

For me and Chris the keys to success on this diet, is planning and creativity. I live in fear of getting totally sick of something, like say sliced deli ham, because if I take deli ham off my list, that’s like removing 25% of my options. Or something. I don’t know, I’m not a mathematician, but I do know it would be ugly.

Breakfast

Breakfasts are the most challenging meal of my day. At work I either eat some combination of hard boiled eggs, microwave sausage, fruit, or protein drinks.

On the weekends, we try to be more creative, because the idea that we could get sick of eggs keeps us both up at night. And yet… all of our breakfasts still include eggs…so there appear to be some kinks in our plan…

Moving on. You all remember the post about our Flower Power Eggs, right? Well, since then we’ve gone with more of a “throw a bunch of veggie’s into a pan with some eggs and meat and cook it up” approach.

Scrambled eggs with some tomatoes and cheese thrown in, some bacon and fruit on the side.

This was supposed to be a fritata, but then we realized we had way more filler than eggs, so we just scrambled it all together and called it a day. Sausage, tomato, broccoli and cheese.

Lunch

Lunch is a bigger issue when I’m at work than on the weekends, because typically on a weekend we don’t eat breakfast until around noon, so “lunch” is more a snack sometime before dinner. But at work, lunch is my personal challenge.

At first I made these big elaborate salads that required I spend at least 20 minutes chopping things up.

Then I started coming up with faster lunch options. This is Amy's Organic, gluten free Chunky Tomato Bisque, and a salad of: tiny shrimp, romain lettuce, feta cheese and a touch of vinegrette dressing. Not the most flavorful lunch I've ever had, but it got the job done.

I had a few bites of a flourless chocolate torte this morning (co-worker birthday) and the sugar nearly made my head explode, so I wanted a really basic lunch. Plain shrimp, frozen sugar snap peas thawed in microwave, then tossed in the toaster oven on 450 with sea salt for 2 minutes each side. Again, not the most exciting meal, but it hit the spot. And took me less than 10 minutes to make. Win.

I also made a couple of salads last week with either pear or apple on romain lettuce, with fetta cheese, walnuts, and vinegrette dressing, but forgot to take pictures because I was starving. But they were delicious.

Snacks

I like to think that snacks bring out my true creativity. Of course we have the standard apple/organge/banana/carrots/celery, with almonds, cheese or a peanut butter substitute like Sun Butter (made from sunflowers).

But then there’s the deli meat.

Chris started me into the habit of buying deli meat and then just eating it straight from the bag. But after a few occasions of standing in the kitchen at work self conciously shoving slices of ham or roast beef into my mouth, hoping no one would walk in and comment on my unorthadox eating habits, I got an idea.

I took a slice of cheese, and pilled two slices of roast beef on it, and then wrapped the cheese around the meat to eat it like a taco. I don't know why, but somehow I felt less self-conscious eating this way. Sometimes I put a second slice of cheese on top and pretend its a sandwich. Don't judge me.

The first couple of weeks of the diet/sugar fast were challenging because I was used to having granola bars or protein bars as easy portable snacks. But none of the bars I used to eat fit into my new diet. So I went on the hunt and eventually found a couple of options. This was one of them:

This sat in my drawer for more than two weeks before I was brave enough to try it. I think the "live" part scared me. But it was actually kinda good. And nothing bit back, so there's that.

But this my favorite power bar option at the moment. They are the perfect pre- workout snack:

It says its sugar free, but it does have sugar alcohols, which means...something. I don't really get it yet except that they are better/different than actual sugar...somehow...

This weekend we went out to run a quick errand and ended up at the outlets. About an hour into the outlet experience we realized we hadn’t packed a snack or lunch because we weren’t expecting to be gone so long. And one of the major challenges to this diet is that fast food is a thing of the past, and even places like Panera Bread offer few options because I don’t trust their salad dressings to be gluten free. But we wandered into the food court anyway, thinking at worst we could split some fries to hold us over until we got home. But we were actually surprised to find some diet friendly options. (I started to type “pleasantly surprised” but that would be a lie, because we were a little disappointing when we realized we couldn’t justify french fries). And then for another installment of “what the fuck happened to us?” we sat in the middle of the food court surrounded by pizza, burgers and fries, and ate apples slices,  cheddar cheese squares, melon squares and grapes, and tried to pretend we were enjoying it.

But you know what?

We would rather have had ANYTHING ELSE IN THAT FOOD COURT.

Seriously, if I could have eaten a slice of pizza or a burger and not felt like death for the next 24 hours, I would have. And I’m pretty sure that goes double for Chris.

But this is our life now, so the only thing to do is look on the bright side. Which for me is that I did not have to spend $200 on new clothes to go to this work conference next week because I’ve lost enough weight in the last month to fit back into my old, pre-gluten-allergy-making-my-body-go-insane clothes.

So at least there’s that.

OH, AND, today at the grocery store I found carrots cut into disc shapes! I don’t know why, but I find this extremely exciting.

Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go eat an apple with some Sun Butter for my snack.

Try not to be too jealous.

Flower Power My A** October 24, 2011

There isn’t a lot of room for creativity with this diet. Especially not in terms of the variety of foods we eat.

So we’ve started looking for ways to be creative with the way we prepare and serve those same few foods. Over and Over.

Eggs are big in our lives. They’re a big part of our weekend breakfasts, and hardboiled, often serve as breakfast/snacks during the week.

We’re in danger of getting sick of eggs, which would be a disaster. I’m not exaggerating. Our carefully constructed lifestyle of grain fee/low sugar eating would crumble the first Saturday morning we woke up and couldn’t face the eggs.

So Chris has put himself in the role of “Creative Director” for our meals. All of our meals, but specifically our weekend breakfasts.

I think he’s trying to distract himself (and me) from nostalgia of weekends were we just rolled out of bed and went to the bagel place.

This week he decided we should try a ”recipe” he found on-line called Flower Power Eggs. He picked it because it looked like a quick and easy way to get out protein and veggies in – the goal for every meal.

I put recipe in quotes because really it was a self-explanatory picture and a little text about how fun and easy it is.

Ok, we didn’t actually read the text about how fun and easy it was. We felt like we got it all from the picture:

The finished product we saw on the internet.

Its sliced peppers and sunny side up eggs. Easy, peasy. Right?

I sliced up the green pepper while Chris got the skillet ready, and then I was put in charge of cracking the eggs into the peppers.

The egg whites spilled over the sides of the peppers, but for all we know that happened to the blogger too, since she conveniently leaves out a cooking picture.

And then…the finished product:

Our final product

NAILED IT.

And don’t worry, I know the egg “flowers” look lonely on that big plate, but we also had bacon and the rest of the peppers for our breakfast, see:

PS. While Chris is ready to cut Flower Power from the breakfast roster, I’m planning a rematch at some point. I will not be bested by an egg and a pepper.

Another Date Fail, By Me October 18, 2011

Remember way back when I first started dating Chris, and I wrote that blog post about my first attempt at planning a date night, and I took us to the wrong theater?

Well my date planning skills haven’t gotten much better since then.

Back in April, barely 3 months after we started dating, a Living Social deal came up for a wine tasting and food pairing course at a vineyard I hadn’t heard of yet.

Which basically means it wasn’t called Boons Farm.

It was a really good deal, and I jumped on it, thinking it would make a nice date for me and Chris at some point.

Which sounds like a simple thing, but for me, at that time, was kind of a big thing. It meant that, at barely three months into this
relationship, I was willing to put down my hard earned money on a “future activity”. And not just any activity, but an activity that a majority of men would begrudgingly endure at best.

I was betting that Chris, despite not being a big wine enthusiast, was the kind of guy who was up to try new things, to learn new things, and at a minimum, graciously choose to enjoy something that I wanted to do.

But I’d been wrong before, which is what made it a leap of faith for me.

As I clicked the big “Buy Now” button I had images of us walking hand in hand through rolling hills of grape vines, sitting at a quaint
table for two on either a sun drenched patio, or rustically decorated tasting room, sipping wine the color of spun gold, while we mmmed, and ooohhed, and uh huh’d our way through a lesson about food and wine pairings, learning things we’d probably never remember from a gentile and mannered vintner.

So you know, a pretty low stakes venture.

.

About two weeks ago, I realized that the Living Social deal was about to expire so we decided we’d go this past Sunday, the last day the deal was valid.

I looked up the website of the vineyard several times, and sent Chris the link at least once, and by all accounts it looked and sounded lovely. It had the normal pictures of rolling hills and climbing grape vines, it was barely an hour away, and generally seemed not all that different from the handful of other vineyards I’d visited on various outings with girlfriends over the years.

So, Sunday morning, thinking it might be busy on the last day of the deal, we got up kinda early (before 10am) ate a light breakfast and headed out west toward wine country. It was a beautiful day for a drive and in about 40 minutes we were at the exit. We saw signs for three vineyards, none of them being the vineyard we were going to.I was ignoring this fact, until Chris pointed that that seemed odd.

“They’ve only been open about six months,” I said, still confident in Living Social and in the vineyard’s website. However, as we veered
off the main road and turned in the opposite direction of all the other vineyard signs I started to get a little nervous.

The GPS kept guiding us further and further into the backwoods of Virginia, and I tried to distract us by saying things like “Well it sure
is beautiful!” and “Its a real adventure!” in a super cheerful voice.

When Chris announced “We’ve run out of paved road and we’re now on gravel,” I faltered a little, and finally voiced the thought that
had been plaguing me for the last 3 or 4 miles: “I hope they haven’t closed down already.” Chris didn’t really comment, I think because he was so focused on navigating this bumpy, gravely road that twisted and turned through the woods.

Then suddenly we were back on paved road, and we came around a corner and saw a huge red, white and blue OPEN flag.

“Well that’s a good sign,” I said, my eyes scanning the landscape for a vineyard as we came out of the woods into a clearing.

“3600. This is it.” Chris said as he slowed in front of a small house near the road side.

“No, it can’t…” I started to say, and then I saw the canvas sign hanging over the dark sloping porch. It looked like the type of
house we’d drive by and say “that would be cute with a lot of work.”

I swear to god, I suddenly heard dueling banjos playing and saw toothless yokels offering “wine” out of mason jars.

“I’M NOT GOING IN THERE!” I cried out before I could think about it, and Chris immediately pressed the accelerator as he started
laughing.

Once the building was behind us, I wondered if I’d over reacted. “Well, maybe its not that bad on the inside, maybe we should still
go…”

“Honey, they have port-a-potties,” Chris pointed out as we did a U-turn and were again facing the ramshackle building and barren field
full of saplings that they had the nerve to call a vineyard.

“Oh my god, you’re right. Let’s go find one of those other vineyards we passed on our way out here.”

But first we stopped to take some pictures:

Its that little white building...Notice the lack of any grape vines...

I made Chris stop when we were in front of it so I could try to get a picture of that totally uninviting front porch, but we didn’t want to stay too long for fear of some greasy haired, suspender wearing guy running out and saying “Come on in y’all!” So this was the best I could do:

Notice how everything is bright and sunny, except the front porch...

As we made our way back down the gravel road and across the railroad tracks, I thought of what this Living Social coupon had meant when I’d bought it, and I had a sudden fear that this was a bad omen for the future of our relationship. But before I could get worked up about it (because I can get worked up about just about anything, no matter how ridiculous. Its like a special talent I have.) I turned my attention to salvaging the day.

Once we found our way back to the main road, we found our way to Three Fox Vineyard within a few minutes. It was one of the vineyard signs we’d turned away from on our way to the junkyard vineyard.

As we pulled into the driveway I immediately knew this was going to be much better.

This is also a picture of a small white building in the distance, and yet this has a completely different feel to it...

We walked up the path to a beautiful patio with benches and small tables, overlooking sweeping lawns dotted with benches, picnic tables and hammocks.

We walked around back and saw an outdoor tasting tent set up, more tables and chairs in the sun, a shaded patio with more tables and entrance to the building.

We both had to pee though, so our first mission was to find the bathrooms. We followed sign around the side of the building and found this:

apparently it was my destiny to use a port-a-pottie today...

BUT, they were, without question the nicest port-a-potties I’ve ever used.

They were clearly trying to disguise the fact that they were using portable bathroom facilities...

I totally give them points for their effort and intention. There were two oder control devices in there, and a sink that worked with a foot pedal. So I forgave them the lack of indoor plumbing and even used it twice, in violation of my general “only in an absolute fucking emergency and maybe not even then ” policy regarding port-a-potties.

Having availed ourselves of the facilities, we ventured inside and were immediately invited to a tasting, where we sampled several very good wines – I didn’t even hate all of the reds, and I pretty much always hate the reds.

And Chris and I hmmmed, and ahh ha’d a the tasting notes, even though we didn’t really understand or care about most of them.

After we’d sampled 6 or 7 wines Chris suggested we take a walk around the grounds to which I enthusiastically replied “I’m drunk!” as I stumbled into him and tried to sloppily kiss him in the middle of the tasting room.

“How are you drunk, that wasn’t even a full glass!”

Sometimes its like he doesn’t even know me at all…

After reminding him of my doctor confirmed missing liver enzyme that makes me a really cheap date, I suggested that buying some sausage and cheese and sitting the sun for a little while before our walk might be wise. Especially considering I could barely walk.

As we were waiting to pay for our snacks, my wine soaked brain remembered that this was supposed to be a day that I planned and that I paid for, for a change.

“Can I payeee for thish stufffff?” I asked

He looked at me like I’d grown a second head. I sighed heavily and tried to explain my request, but he rolled his eyes, kissed my forehead and turned his attention to looking for someone to ring us up.

I reminded myself again to never try to plan a date that’s any more complicated than suggesting our favorite restaurant for dinner.

Once outside in the sun, I started to really relax for the first time that day. There was hardly a cloud in the sky, and the temperature was perfect. We ate the sausage and cheese and people watched and entertained ourselves by inventing back stories for everyone as the vineyard steadily filled up.

this is taken for my mom who had called just as we were pulling into the vineyard and asked "isn't it early to be drinking wine?"

After we’d eaten, and I’d sobered up, we strolled leisurely around the grounds hand in hand, pausing for the occasional picture.

Now this is what a vineyard is supposed to look like!

We stopped to pick some grapes left over from the harvest.

So despite how the day started, it ended up being exactly what I’d envisioned. Mostly because Chris, above all else, is the type of guy who doesn’t hold me responsible for mistaking a bunch of stock photos on a website for reality.

Its not a "Mer and Chris" outing if it doesn't include a self-portrait

One Week Down and No One Has Died. Yet. October 10, 2011

I’ve been on my 4 week sugar fast for one week as of today.

It has been a long and interesting week.

There were very real withdrawals from the sugar, although it wasn’t nearly as bad as it could have been, since I took High Fructose Corn Syrup out of my diet about a year ago, and had transitioned breads and pastas out of my diet over the past month. So now I had to cut out all refined sugar, flavored coffee, rice, and restrict my intake of certain fruits and vegetables.

I only had about two days of classic sugar withdrawal symptoms – headache, irritability, increased thirst, intense cravings etc. The rest of the week was sort of a series of minor withdrawal symptoms and revelations about my body and my relationship to food.

Last week was made much easier though by the solidarity of my friends  – the co-worker to ate an omelett “muffin” instead of birthday cake with me at a staff meeting, and the friend who cooked me a delicious carb free, and sugar free meal, introducing me to new food and new preparation methods.  The first week would have been much harder without them.

The first thing I noticed was that with the removal of all carbs from my diet, I’m rapidly burning through everything I eat.  As in,  within two hours of my last meal I’m seriously wondering if I’ve ever eaten food in my life.  That seems to be getting better as I enter my second week, but my body definitely didn’t know what to do without the slow burning carbs that were obviously a bigger centerpiece of my diet than I’d realized.

But the fact that feeling hungry at all is still a novelty has helped me deal with the need to daily prepare enough food to feed a small African village.  Between the build up of gluten toxins and my inability to digest food, I hadn’t felt an honest hunger pain in months. So that’s pretty cool.

Chris and I can’t stop talking about how differently we experience meals without carbs and starches. Like, after eating Mongolian BBQ without a starch, and Chipotle without the rice, we both felt like we tasted the other food in the dish much more clearly, enjoyed the meal more and didn’t feel ready to explode after we were done…

But at least I recognize the fact that this sounds like a fascinating topic of conversation to no one other than us.

We’re both seeing rapid changes to our physical shapes. His started about two weeks ago, mine is really just becoming obvious this week, but there is some serious slimming of our mid-sections and when I look down at myself my body looks familiar to me for the first time in many months.

So at this point I can say that cutting out carbs has been routinely positively reinforced, which has made it easier. But I’ve also really come to understand how, as a culture, we consume a shocking amount of grain products, from bread and breading, to tortilla chips and rice to pasta, and as a result, it’s really challenging to eat out and even grocery shop to some extent. I’m realizing I have to reeducate myself about food, nutrition, and cram information about things like glycemic index and carb conversion rates into my brain.

What was much harder for me last week than cutting out carbs was cutting out the actual sugar – chocolate, flavored coffee, random other types of candy that seemed suddenly to be EVERYWHERE I looked. By the end of the week, I was craving the crappiest, lowest grade of candy out there. Things I would previously have dismissed as not worth my time to unwrap, I was now ready to commit acts of larceny and violence to acquire. I’m talking about crap like Cow Tails and Circus Peanuts.

mmmmm, circus peanuts… OMG, seriously?? WHO AM I?

Clearly, we still have some withdrawals to get through.

Maybe in part because I cheated a little bit this weekend…

We went to the Renaissance Festival, which is really just an opportunity to people watch and eat deliciously disgusting foods that  are really bad for you. Except there were very few things we could eat.

Our lunch was steak on a stick and curly fries. (I know, potatoes are carbs, but within the confines and rules of this crazy new diet I’m supposed to follow, potatoes are considered “an occasional item”).

And the rest of the day we’d wandered around reading the signs for all the other food drooling and saying “Can’t have that. Can’t have that.” (Its more fun than it sounds. Seriously.)

And then Chris said “Frozen Bananas. Hey – you want that?”

And without thinking I said “YES!” thinking how a frozen banana would be the most perfect treat possible at that moment.

When we got closer we realized all of the frozen bananas were dipped in chocolate.

I stood crestfallen, both annoyed at myself for not having realizing that of course the bananas would be covered in chocolate, because what person in their right mind would want to eat a plain frozen banana, and because chocolate covered frozen bananas might be my most favorite festival food ever. Even over funnel cake.

Chris watched me pout for a few seconds before saying “Go ahead, get one.”

“Well… I don’t want to cheat less than a week into my fast…” I said with almost no conviction.

“Go ahead, it’s mostly banana anyway. Don’t deny yourself something you want this badly.”

Which was really all the encouragement I needed.

And I have to say, that first bite was something close to a religious experience.

The second bite was almost as good.

Around the third or fourth bite though, I started to get a little bit of a headache. “Probably from the freezing part, not the chocolate part,” I told Chris when he noticed I’d slowed my pace of consumption. I took another bite, but then, with no small amount of horror, realized I didn’t really want it anymore.

And that’s when it happened.

Something that, even an hour prior, I would never have believed myself capable of doing. I pulled all the chocolate off and just ate the banana. And loved it.

.

I’m telling you. It’s like I don’t even recognize myself anymore.

.

Some of the other things I’ve realized/noticed/been contemplating this week:

• I’ve used sweets (chocolate, cupcakes, flavored coffee with whip cream) as a reward system for myself for most of my life. I’m shocked the number of times a day I find myself thinking “I’ve eaten really well today, I should treat myself to a frapiccino” or “finish this project and then you can have one of those chocolate chip cookies in the kitchen”, or “I’ve had a hard day, I should get myself that kit-kat bar.”

First, I’m 35 years old.  Should I really be moving myself through my life via a sugar based reward system? Probably not.

Second, if I shift the paradigm from behavior/reward, will I increase my intrinsic motivation and enjoy life more? I have no idea. But I think I’m going to find out.

Third, the whole “hard day = candy” is particularly interesting because often the cause of my discontent was dehydration,  sleep deprivation, or not having eaten enough that day. None of which will really be solved with sweets. But when sugar isn’t an available prop, I’m forced to actually get in touch with my body to identify the correct solution to whats ailing me. I find this a little bit annoying because it takes way more effort than just buying a candy bar in the check-out lane.

• My childhood desire to always blend in comes out when I’m eating out. Intellectually, I know I should reveal my food allergy to protect myself from misguided ordering, or avail myself of unpublicized gluten-free menus (why a restaurant wouldn’t advertise their gluten-free menu, I have no idea… I’m looking at you Coastal Flats.) But so far I can’t make myself do it, unless directly asked. It’s like when I was in second grade and should have asked my teacher to help me unbutton my new pants with the impossible button so I could pee, but instead just sat through the test crossing my legs, bouncing, and praying so hard I wouldn’t have an accident that I failed my first test ever.

• But maybe more than anything I’ve learned that every challenge is easier to conquer when you have a partner. As I’ve mentioned, Chris is following this diet with me, just to support me. It’s clearly above and beyond the standard boyfriend job description, but that’s kinda how he rolls. And yet I’ve been having a surprisingly hard time just letting him do this. I keep giving him permission to cheat on the diet because I feel bad that he’s depriving himself because of me…which I keep thinking means I’M depriving him. I mean, its one thing for me to suffer with these restrictions, I have the motivation of my immediate and long-term health at stake. He’s doing it just because. Well, he’s also got washboard abs emerging before our eyes, so it’s not like he isn’t getting anything out of it, but still, its no small sacrifice he’s making.  But as I enter this second week of my our sugar fast I’ve decided that I’m going to stop feeling guilty. Instead I’m just going to accept the support, and focus on seeing this as the shared adventure he sees it as, because the truth is, it’s going to be way easier that way.

Especially considering my other plan is to force feed him cupcake frosting and peanut butter cups and then try to get a contact high from kissing him.

And I just feel like that’s a dark place our relationship isn’t ready to go. Yet.

All Good Things Must Come To An End. Evidently. October 3, 2011

I guess on some level I always knew it was too good to be true.

If I’m honest with myself, I’d have to admit, that I expected to have this bomb dropped on me at several different junctures over the past few months.

And yet.

.

And yet,  it was still a shock when it actually happened. My brain worked overtime to reinterpret the words I was hearing as my stomach churned with anxiety and grief.

Even long after I’d left that little room, previously a place of calm and good feelings, the words looped endlessly through my brain:

“You need to cut all the sugar out of your diet.”

Take a minute if you must to absorb the gravity of that statement. I mean, it took me several days, so I understand.

.

Now, I imagine you’ve probably got a million questions running through your head.

Such as:

“But why??? You’re young and have always seemed to have an impressive ability to metabolize sugar.”

“Who told you this and where the F* do they get off?”

“What about the cupcakes?! My god, the CUPCAKES!”

.

And these are all very valid questions. Ones I’ve been wrestling with for several days now.

I’ll start at the beginning.

Remember in my last post I talked about how I’ve been…”off” for a while, but had a huge improvement after going gluten free? Well, in the course of investigating my gluten allergy, the doctor also took a vampire’s worth of blood and ran almost every test listed on the little lab sheet.

And what we learned is that my body is all kinds of buggered up.

My thyroid and pancreas have gotten lazy, digestive enzymes have gone missing from my stomach and white blood cells have run amok.

Most of these things are pretty easily correctable with minor interventions (like digestive enzymes and pro-biotics in pill form).

But that lazy pancreas… Now if that sonofabitch doesn’t decide to get with the program all kinds of bad things await me in the future.

So the solution to that problem is to eliminate sugar from my diet.

ALL SUGAR. As in, no bread or pasta (not even gluten free), definitely no candy or refined sugar, I even have to limit amounts of “good” things like certain fruits.

I had just gotten used to eating gluten free; had just found the best brands of gluten free pancake mix and recipes for gluten free brownies.

I’d even found a cupcake store that sold gluten free fudge cupcakes with cookies ‘n’cream icing! Which I will now never have again.

Sometimes life just doesn’t make sense.

The doctor tried to reassure me by saying “You adapted so well to the gluten free diet, I have no doubt you’ll adapt to this new diet just as well.”

I decided not to point out the fact that sugar may qualify as the longest running relationship in my life outside of my parents, and as such, isn’t as easy to cut out as wheat.

Sugar was who I turned to when I was sad.

Sugar was who I celebrated with.

Sugar could get me moving and improve my attitude when nothing else could.

.

In short, Sugar solved everything.

Can carrots do that? Or Grapes?

NO, they cannot.

Has a hard-boiled egg ever turned a frown upside down?

No. No it has not.

And the worst irony of all? Sugar is my salve for breakups. But where do I turn for comfort after a break up with Sugar? Hmm? Seriously, I’m asking, because I have no idea.

.

But on the other hand.

It’s not like it was the healthiest of relationships. I mean what with it being all one-sided and co-dependant-y.

Like any dysfunctional relationship, it took time, energy, and attention away from other parts of my life.

And now I’ve got digestive enzymes to replenish, and white blood cells to chase away, and a thyroid to wake up.  I don’t have time to sit around savoring frosting or making gluten free french toast!

And I always suspected that my incredible ability to metabolize sugar was going to end one day. I just didn’t think it would happen so soon.

.

So Sugar and I are going to take a break. A four-week break, to be specific. Starting today.

And at the end of those four weeks, we’ll reevaluate. And who knows…maybe we’ll be able to strike up some sort of friendship.

Like…maybe instead of getting together every single day, it’ll just be once or twice on a weekend, at a wedding, or if I have a really bad day…

.

I know what you’re thinking. You think I’m grasping at straws. Telling myself stories so the break up doesn’t hurt as much. And maybe you’re right. But you know what? I’m 18 hours into this break and already white knuckling it through every goddamn minute – and when did minutes get so long anyway? Huh? So if I want to tell myself lies, I’ll thank you to allow me to keep my illusions.

.

Sorry. Withdrawals are a bitch…

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But it’s not all bad news. Chris, in his apparent campaign to be crowned “Best Boyfriend Ever”, has decided to join me in this new adventure in clean eating. I tell him it’s not necessary, but at the same time,I’m pretty sure that if he were to sit down across from me with rice complementing his plain chicken breast and steamed vegetables, I might just be tempted to reach into his throat and pull that rice out so I could have some…

.

So he’s probably really just protecting himself. And rightly so.

.

Its probably going to be a long and interesting four weeks…

And I’m going to blog about it whenever I can, mostly because if my hands are busy typing, they aren’t reaching for those dman cookies in the kitchen of my office.

Wish me luck.