Joy Free

Let's play a word association game.

I say.....Baked Goods

You say........

(If you said: Julie Ann Pedersen Konchar you win!)

It is well known, my love affair with sugar/flour/lard. Things like this:

(mmmmm! breakfast. And lunch. And snacks.)

Of course a girl can't live on sweetened snack treats alone, so every day I try to eat things that are a little healthier....

Food items like this...

are fine.......

(providing they are placed atop a delicious pizza crust, or tucked into a crumbly cobbler, etc.)

And to wash down all those vegetables and fruits? A box of Chicken in a Biscuit, of course.

And that was the pattern of my life. Until January 2011. Some time after New Years, I began to realize that most meals ended in a big stomach ache. And then I began to further realize most of my meals included foods I liked to eat. Like pizza. Sandwiches. Quesadillas and bagels and anything with noodles or dumplings. I tried cutting out dairy, but that didn't seem to help. The very day I cut out wheat I knew. WHEAT. Are you kidding me?

But I love wheat! It is in all of my best things, like donuts and brownies and pie crusts and Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies!

(Oh, my precious!)

I was horrified. At least with dairy you can take a pill.......with wheat you just have to give it all up. So I did. And I lost 10lbs in a month. Just in time for my annual "Summer is coming and eventually you are going to have to show up at the neighborhood pool in a swimsuit" diet. But you know what? I kinda hate it. Sure, I am glad to be fitting into my clothes in a much more flattering way, but this is killing me. (Thank goodness that dairy really isn't the problem, because the day I quit wheat I went out and bought several [personal] containers of Dryers and a few jars of hot fudge sauce and I haven't been to bed one night since without a little help from my friends!)

The worst part of it is when I randomly remember something I loved that I can no longer have, like this:

(Sniff!) And I didn't even get to say goodbye.

Further adding to my misery is the realization that many, many foods seem like they shouldn't contain wheat but they do. Behold my favorite lunch:

It is spring rolls with a spicy peanut dipping sauce (from the sushi bar at the grocery).

It is nothing but vegetables and steamed shrimp wrapped up in rice paper. Oh but wait! The peanut sauce contains soy sauce. And as the name clearly implies, soy sauce is made from wheat. It makes me want to cry. So today Kirsten took me to Whole Foods, where I was introduced to a line of dipping sauces that are gluten free. Thanks Kirsten! Now I feel like I might just survive after all.