The cupcake solution

I've been in a really bad mood for the last 10 days. There's been some variety in my mood mind you. You know, those subtle shades between sad, surly, angry, woeful, indignant and overwrought. Sigh.

I'm actually feeling a little better today. It may have been the good sleep I had last night or doing pilates three days in a row. I like to think it's the 13 cupcakes I've consumed in the last 48 hours. Yup I've now eaten a baker's dozen of cupcakes.

And you know what? I feel mostly okay with that (mostly because I think the refined sugar has started to eat through my stomach lining). I baked them, I decorated them with sprinkles and I've enjoyed them. I needed to do something nice for myself and each of those 13 cupcakes have helped me in my quest to not anger and alienate my loved ones as I ride this regrettable emotional roller coaster.

This is not a sustainable coping strategy. Continuous cupcake consumption could become a very maladaptive behaviour, but it did its job when I needed it to. I will continue to search for a way out of this mood and continue to feel okay with eating 13 cupcakes. Yep, I'll feel great with every step I take as I run off half a cake this week. So good indeed.

HRH

Eating my way out of crazy town

Among the various things I'm in therapy for, my issues with food have proven to be some of the more interesting topics of treatment. Throughout the course of my life, multiple factors have come together to make food and eating a pretty high source of anxiety. So much so, that if tomorrow they were to create a pill that you took once a day and you didn't have to worry about nutrition, I'd be first in line.

It's not that I don't find food satisfying or delicious. Nor is it that I've had no exposure to great food. Quite the contrary. Food is amazing and when done right, one of the superlative features of living. Still, it really, really stresses me out.

There are the obvious stressors like what food is good for me and what food will make me fat. These thoughts are what helped me loose all that weight back in 2005 and part of what has inspired periodic bulimia since the age of 15. Positive and negative results. Thoughts that aren't very unique to me either. They are, however, the tip of an interesting iceberg, or the chocolate sauce on an ice cream sundae of crazy. (I was going to say the chopped nuts, but I'm allergic to peanuts and didn't want to run the risk of a reaction, even if it's only in my metaphors).

The next level of anxiety producers are (nice segue) my allergy-based food restrictions. They annoy me and embarrass me. Yes, I have to be careful about peanuts. It's a dangerous allergy and I have to be constantly vigilant. I also have to be a perpetual downer and pain in the ass for people who want to feed me. I know they don't want to kill me with their food and they most likely don't mind accommodating me if they can, but I know that everyone involved would be happier if it just wasn't an issue.

There are the foods that may kill me and then there are the foods that will hinder me through headaches. Raw onions or some wines to name a few. Too much garlic and my heart races. It's food I can eat, but I'll pay for it.

So many boundaries. So many rules. And we're not even at the best part yet.

You'd think that having food allergies and body image compulsions would be restrictive enough, but I dove head-first into the crazy pool and threw in some more. Here are some of the highlights:

- Super-fast eater: Yes I grew up in a house where we all ate really fast. M eats really fast. In all situations, I am the first one done my meal. And by done my meal, I mean plate cleaned, licked dry if I'm in the right company. I think there are a couple of factors at play. Even though I've never had cause to fear for where my next meal is coming from, I eat each meal like it's my last. Also, spending so much time focused on regimented dieting, I'm usually really, really hungry by the time food is in front of me.

Next, and I think this is the kicker, by eating, it means I don't have to talk. Dinner conversation? When the food hits the table, I don't have to stress about thinking of things to say. Just eat and listen. A handy-dandy distraction for the socially anxious.

- Fear of the unknown: There are some parts of my life where I am open to new ideas and experiences. Food is not one of those things. I'm not entirely sure where my notions of what's tasty and what's not come from, but when I have them (right or wrong) they are fully cemented in my brain. More often than not, my notions have been confirmed by smelling the new food in question and, in some rare instances, by actual tasting.

I've spent some time in therapy addressing this issue in particular. As mental as the other food problems are, this one seems to cause me the most stress. Eating a food I may not like really freaks me out. What if it tastes bad? What if it's the only food there is to eat? What if I'm wasting food? What if people get upset with me for not liking it and begin to question/judge me?

You may find this comical, but even just writing those four questions set off feelings of anxiety in me.

Because I have so many rules (both rational and irrational) going out for dinner can be a very stressful situation. Friends may note that I just keep going to the same places over and over again. I know that there's food that I will like there. I will be able to eat the whole meal and I will know that it's a sure and safe thing. I will be able to enjoy going out for dinner, I will not waste food or money and I won't have to have the nerve wracking experience of trying to find something I know I will like on a new menu. I'm totally one of those people who can eat the same thing every day and not be bothered by it.

So, so many boundaries. And they're often tested by a spouse and friends who delight in gastronomical experiences. Many, many times I've encountered flavours and foods that have really enriched my life. And by encountered I mean, tried them kicking and screaming all the while.

Therapy so far seems to be all about experiments. Trying things that test my assumptions, usually proving them wrong. This alleviates anxiety. Something I've found to be true when applying my experiments to social situations. Now we're on to food.

One of my experiments is to try a new food each week. Not a big deal for some I'm sure, but for me, not an easy task. It really stresses me out and nothing seems more appealing to me than being my usual belligerent self and sticking to things that are tried and true. But I'm doing it. And no one is happier about this than M is. He's captain adventure-food and I think with progress in this arena, I'll be less of a culinary albatross around his neck.

It's been two weeks since this experiment began and I haven't as much tried totally new foods as I've tried different incarnations of things I know. Preparations I would have previously refused.

So during our recent vacation, I had a seared duck breast, a watermelon salad with feta cheese and balsamic vinegar (three flavours I enjoy independently, but would not ever eat together) and, the biggest deal of all, a burger just the way it was. I only eat burgers with ketchup on them. That's it. This burger had pancetta bacon, smoked cheddar cheese, a deflamed onion and heirloom tomatoes. I had the burger with all the stuff on it and it was really, really good.

Maybe I'll be able to stop pinning my hopes on the food pill after all.

HRH

Dietary shame

As I sit here, looking at the last remaining Toostie Roll Midgee, having inhaled most of the bag in the last 30 minutes, I can finally see that my dietary choices in the last two weeks have been atrocious.

I don't know how it happened, but summer got busy. Like I look at my calendar and just shake my head. I suppose I could have found some time to actually go out and buy proper food, but there wouldn't have been time to eat it before it went bad.

So I've been making due and in the process doing things like having a bag of chips and a diet ginger ale for lunch or Cheerios for dinner. Most of the time I'm not going over my dietary limits and I'm exercising a great deal so I'm not too worried about weight gain, but I'm failing like a dyslexic in a spelling bee when it comes to nutrition.

Things got so silly that last week, while I was out running errands at lunch, I ate McDonald's. I work in a very intimate and open concept office, so I made sure to eat my McNuggets and fries outside so as not to bring the smell into the office. I don't know what they put into the food, but it triggers something in my reptilian brain and I am overcome with an all consuming need to binge on McDonald's. And I know it's not just me, so I had to spare my colleagues. I ate my lunch standing in front of the hospital like a smoker banished to the sidewalk.

When I got back to the office, for a laugh, I looked up the nutritional information for what I'd eaten, thanked the powers that be that the particular McDonald's I'd patronized didn't have milkshake, there by preventing me from doubling the calories and carbs of just the food (I'm not even kidding about this). And then I felt sick.

Thankfully after this weekend, things become a touch more regular and I'll have the time to put together meals.

HRH

It's the cow time of year

It's spring time and everyone is talking about their barbecues. Rightly so, for they are one of the culinary marvels of the world with the charred flavours bringing us back to our evolutionary roots when the fire changed everything. I'm pretty sure that when Prometheus gave fire to mortals, he did it to share the wonders of barbecue with humanity.

Barbecue season is especially sweet for me because it makes it that much easier for me to eat beef. Throughout the winter I make beef stew and chili at least once a week. Barbecue season usually kicks my consumption up to three or four times in a week and things are good. Oh so very good.

I try to eat as much beef as I can. I know that's a very strange thing to say in this vegan-organic-green era as most people are reducing their red meat consumption and apparently being insufferably better people for it. Me, I'm always looking for more.

It's not just because cow is the yummiest of all the animals that I eat it so much. It's a BIG reason, but not the only one. Cow the best way I've found to deal with being anemic. Before you start with the "just take a supplement" argument, I must let you know that I take 100mg of elemental iron a day and I am just barely passing my serum iron and ferritin tests. Just to put that in context, pregnant women are recommended 30mg daily to prevent the development of iron-deficiency anemia. The average person, 18mg. My dietican wants to bump me up to 200mg a day and I challenge anyone to take that much iron without heaving. I just do not absorb iron well.

Doctor after doctor, scientist after scientist have told me the same thing, that the most effective for me to absorb iron is through eating red meat. And that suits me just fine. Beef is a much tastier package for iron than pills are. Plus, I'm a proud carnivore and my personal health situation makes it that much more fun to thumb my nose at vegans. I realize I'm coming down on them quite a lot. I've Just been through a serious attack of the preachy vegans and I'm a tad touchy about it all.

So it's beef season then. Cows be warned, I'm out for iron and I'm hungry.

HRH

Tim Hortons and the invisible dog

Has anyone else noticed that at the beginning of the ad for the Tim Hortons Butter Caramel Iced Capp Supreme that in the first shot, the woman in the yellow sports bra and blue tights is walking an invisible dog?

The next shot, poorly, tries to suggest that she is water skiing (all the while sipping her Tim Hortons Butter Caramel Iced Capp Supreme) but in fact the new shot reveals she is just pulled by her golden retriever through the park. Apparently this dog can change its invisibility status at will.

You see in the first shot when she walks past the poster for the Tim Hortons Butter Caramel Iced Capp Supreme there is no dog in the shot. She even appears to be pulling on an invisible leash. But still no dog. At least not then.

If you can see dog in the first shot, let me know. I find it quite troubling every time the ad comes on.

HRH

A contagious addiction

It seems that I am not the only person with a new-found obsession with wasabi peas. The building I work in has two locations that sell this highly-addictive snack and in the last 24 hours there has been a run on them.

I decided to get a pack of them after lunch today. The lady at the sushi stand smiled at me as I bought a pack and said in heavily accented English "I have the same problem as you. I can't stop eating them." I responded back "At least they've got lots of fibre," knowing full well that no amount of fibre was going to offset the calorie and sodium damage I was doing. Still I was having a bit of a day, so a salt overdose was in order.

As I was walking away from the sushi stand, a younger man said to me "You didn't buy the last package, did you?" He had a look in his eyes that told me if I told him yes, I was going to be rolled for them right then and there. Public be damned. Luckily for me, there was still another package sitting beside the cash, so I said "No." and quickly made my way back to my office, holding my wasabi peas close.

When I got back to my desk, a colleague came by a reported that the other wasabi pea selling location was completely sold out. Worse yet, they weren't going to be getting more until later in the week! It could be cold turkey time for me.

Today's sing-a-long song: "Addicted to Love" by Robert Palmer

HRH

I have found my people

See!!! It's not just me. And there are people out there who hate it even more than I do!!!!

I Hate Cilantro!

HRH