Glazed crinkly warm sweetness and fresh moist dough that melts in your mouth. Iced delicacies of sugared perfection with sprinkles and dainty sweet sparkles. Richly plump delights filled to overflowing with fruit flavors that burst at the first bite. Cinnamon rolled with gooey icing that sticks to everything it touches with cloying sweetness. Daring chocolate confections that hide iced pudding under sugared dough or flaky crunchiness. Reds, cherries, blueberry filling, apple pie tarts, and icing surprises all before me: tempting and tantalizing.
All untouchable.
It was so beautiful. So delightfully available with succulent seductive aromas that guaranteed taste bud heaven. But I couldn’t touch a thing. I could only look, admire, and pass on. It was so sad but a quasi-nightmare I have been living for almost two years. I haven’t had a donut, a piece of cake, or a pastry in at least that long. Perhaps longer. I can remember the taste, the sweetness, the happiness that fresh sweet baked goods bring but it is all outside of my reach now.
It makes me want to cry.
It also makes me want to smack the living crap out of anyone that doesn’t eat a donut for years because they are on a diet. Self-inflicted torture is one thing (if slightly crazy). When you have an allergy that encompasses all commercially baked goods (wheat, rye, barley, even rice) – it’s another. I don’t have a CHOICE whether I can eat a donut or not. I want to eat a donut really, really badly. But I can’t
I remember the pain all too clearly.
Somedays I will get the bright notion to pig out on antihistamines and raid Shipley’s! Or, maybe I’ll just take a chance on just one donut … How bad can it be? Unfortunately: it can be very bad. I don’t complain and I am doing my best not to bore everyone to tears that expresses curiosity over my odd eating habits. After all, it my issue and not theirs. They will NEVER understand what it is like to be allergic to so many of the things you love to eat and they don’t really want to hear it. Not really.
It’s all too much some days.
Like yesterday. It was too much for me to take and I finally (after almost two years) broke down and cried because I couldn’t eat ANYTHING at the conference I was speaking at. I walked by tables and tables of the loveliest spread of breakfast carbo-bodaciousness. Icing! Fruit Fillings! Chocolate Eclairs and Cream Cheese Tarts! Little Sprinkles of sugary goodness everywhere! It was all so tempting and wonderful, but I still remember the pain.
I smiled politely and passed by.
Much later however, I cried (just a little bit). Give me 25 mph headwinds = fine. Give me hill climbs that make my legs scream = ok. Those 80 mile days that I can barely stand up afterwards = no problem. No tears, even in moments when I realize it just not my day on the bike and I feel like the slowest twit on the block. But: Don’t expect me not to feel sad when you lay out the finest fresh pastries in Houston in front of my nose and I cannot touch them.
I’m only human.
I love riding my bike. I have come to terms (mostly) with the fact that I will not be the fastest or the strongest. It’s more important for me to enjoy every moment of the feeling of freedom that my two-wheeled steed gives me. Usually I take my extensive food allergies in stride. It doesn’t offend me that my husband can eat anything that happens to be edible (and a few things that are questionable). At least one of us can! Most days I’m strong. Today I guess I finally had enough and I just want a damn donut.
It doesn’t help that I’m hungry all the time.
Starving in a sea of plenty because my body has decided that only things that have never been added to or altered by man shall pass through my system without repercussions. Some say that I’m lucky. They say that at least I’ll never have to worry about being fat. Ha! I can still eat all the coconut ice cream in the world – which automatically finds my hips. Ice cream doesn’t replace pastries or that warm sweet fresh donut.
I hear: “Well, at least you’re healthy.”
Yes, at least I’m healthy. It’s a pity that healthy can be so hard. A piece of advice: don’t ever say you can’t eat a donut every once in a while because you are on a diet. Stop obsessing about every little calorie unless you are planning to be picked up by a Pro Race Team this year. Get over it and enjoy your life! You never know if that choice will be taken away from you. Be blessed that you have the ability to indulge in variety. For the most part: I’m content.
But I still want a damn donut!
Meanwhile, I’ll ride my bike – see you on the road!
VELOFEM 