I have loved sweets my entire life - chocolate, cookies, brownies, candy, ice cream, I was always up for dessert. I'd eat anything, provided I wasn't allergic: chocolate lava cake, tiramisu, fruit tarts, cookie dough sundaes, peppermint lattes, salted caramel truffles, and so much more. I've enjoyed ice cream for breakfast, and no, not just when I was having an especially bad day. On top of that, I love to bake, so for most of my adult life, I've had a recipe at the ready and (all too often) the spoils somewhere in my house. Even when I baked for friends, or to take to work, or whatever, I always still kept a little bit for myself. As I type this, there's both banana bread and cookie cake in my freezer.
My thoughts have always aligned with the infamous joke about sex and pizza: Even when dessert was bad, it's still pretty good.
As if to spite me (lol, like the universe cares that much), a global pandemic set in a year ago, and suddenly I had no one to share my baked goods with - no office, let alone office-mates to feed and/or bribe with lemon raspberry cake, blondies, cranberry cinnamon cookies. Did I let this stop my baking habit? Of course not, except that now Bishop and I were the primary audience. As I'm sure you can guess, this quickly spiraled out of control into a delicious disaster.
 |
| No chocolate in my house was safe. |
In general, I have been very fortunate in the pandemic: My job in IT allows me to work 100% from home as well as keeps me gainfully employed. Most of my immediate family was either the same, like my brothers, or retired, like my in-laws and my mother. My dad had Covid, but it was thankfully mild. Now, as vaccines roll out, working in IT has somehow added me to the priority list and Bishop and I are already one dose in, with the second scheduled soon. On top of that, my job throughout the last year has been relatively low-stress, allowing me to exercise regularly, cook more often, and generally stay sane. I haven't gained a pound over quarantine; in fact, I've developed more muscle mass and walked more steps in the last year than probably the previous two combined.
This is all, of course, while I've been stuffing my face with sweets.
 |
| pictured: me March 2020-Feb 2021 |
I did eventually recognize that while, sure, I hadn't gained weight and of course I was enjoying myself, I was not in a healthy place. No meal was truly good for me if I chased it with a piece of cookie cake the size of my fist, no matter how many veggies were originally involved.
I'd encountered it before, one of many diets that friends have tried or that popped up on one of the endless cooking subreddits I browse. I'd considered it before too, but the
insanely restrictive rules seemed truly impossible when faced with my former office's glorious, never-empty pantry of cereal, yogurt, and coffee -- all things I am powerless to resist but require sugar to be fun.
The pandemic, however, solved that problem - no temptation to eat a bunch of junk if it's not nearby, no restaurant difficulties to navigate if I haven't been in a restaurant in a year, no happy hours, birthday parties, or anything else to feel awkward (or wish for cake) at if all of those things simply do. not. exist. That, coupled with an ice cream cake for Bishop's birthday that a) was the size of a large pizza, and b) did not last a week in our home, which is just the two of us, and something had to change.
So for the past month, Whole30 has been my life - I 'm on Day 27, 3 days and 9 meals (but who's counting) to go. Some days have been like this:
but overall, it's been survivable. Black coffee, more eggs and brussel sprouts than I can count, and by the second week, all I really wanted in life was a grilled cheese, but it's almost done. I want to review it, to explain the inanities about American food it revealed, to rant about how dumb I find some of the rules, to excuse my mistakes, and to truly reflect on the benefits - because there have been lots, more than I expected even if they are wildly different from what I thought they'd be.
I can't yet, because I'm not done.
But also because I can't stop thinking about ice cream and chocolate easter bunnies, white chocolate raspberry crepes and cinnamon rolls, a real cup of coffee with cream and the blueberry lemon loaf I definitely should have baked before this misadventure started.
