I have a confession to make. Every time that I hear about someone going on a diet and whining about it being soooo hard, and cheating constantly and then eventually giving up, I judge them. I totally judge them, and I feel justified in this because let’s face it, I have spent almost my entire life on a diet. An extreme diet. Yet I don’t complain, I don’t whine, in fact my friends tend to make a bigger deal about it then I do. So if I can handle an extreme diet all day, every day FOR THE REST OF MY LIFE, then I feel that people can stick to a weight loss diet for a couple of weeks without complaining or cheating. I would now like to take the time to apologize to every woman I have ever Judgey McJudgersoned in my head.
Because of medical conditions, and food intolerances I have had food restrictions since I was eight. The big blow came at 24 when I found out that I have Celiac disease, which meant goodbye for good to all gluten. Since then, my list of foods to avoid has stayed mostly the same. Occasionally something new gets added when I try a new food for the first time, but for the most part it has now become second nature. That is until about two months ago, when I found out that I have a pretty severe sulfite intolerance. The severity will probably lesson as it gets out of my system, but it’s around to stay. This diagnosis was met with very much the same reaction as my diagnosis to Celiac disease – Fuck!!!
Yet one more thing that wipes out a HUGE chunk of foods that I can no longer eat. Not to mention wine. No more wine for me. No more hard cider. Really no more alcohol at all with the exception of gluten free vodka. But I can’t mix it with fruit juice because, with the exception of freshly pressed, most fruit juice has sulfites. Joyous! After a couple of days of serious moping, I put on my big girl panties and set about figuring out what I had left to eat. After about a week of cutting out sulfites I felt immensely better. Whenever I would accidentally eat some, there’s always a pretty significant trial and error period with these things, I would feel it immediately. The reaction would hit me fast and hard and wipe me out for at least an hour. Needless to say, the fallout should be plenty to discourage any intentional cheating.
Despite this, over the weekend I cheated, and quite frankly I’m planning on cheating again this evening. Not hugely, but I did put wine and garlic into the red sauce I made for tonight’s lasagna, and both of those definitely fall onto the no-no list. But, I’m sorry, while you can make red sauce without wine, you can’t without garlic. It just doesn’t taste right! So, if I have immediate repercussions from cheating and yet I can’t stop myself, how in the hell is somebody who has no repercussions supposed to stay perfectly on course with their diet? Really I’m starting to believe that diets were made to be broken. That’s my story and I’m sticking to it. And for those who are now concerned, I promise that the only Chianti I will have tonight will be in the lasagna, and not in a glass . . . at least that’s the intention . . .
