This post isn’t about this labyrinth, but this photo seems like a good analogy for my path lately. First of all, this wheatless thing. I have been so diligent in not eating it, and have been a little disappointed in the continued achiness of my hips and neck. It’s possible that the bloating has abated some, but I haven’t slimmed down all of a sudden, which would have been really nice. So this week I had occasion to eat some birthday cake. Quite a lot of birthday cake, actually. I dove in and enjoyed it, over a three day period. (My birthday was not as fun as that three day cake binge would suggest, although I was treated to a really nice dinner with my daughters and son in law on the evening of the actual day. Spending the day with lots of really noisy twelve-year-olds kind of diminished the specialness of it, but that’s a different post.) Said binge ended last night with some lovely artisan pizza and a decadent chocolate event, drowning in vanilla ice cream and whipped cream, which I shared with friends at a local restaurant. I came home and topped it of with another bit of sugary stuff and went to bed at 9:00, exhausted by the first week of school. And evidently by all the birthday cake.
At 11:30 PM I woke up, sure it was almost morning. I was drenched in a monster of a hot flash, was bloated, stomach-achey, headachey and yeah. I felt awful, really. Like I couldn’t last much longer. I lay there regretting every bite of pizza, cake and that other wonderful chocolate stuff, thinking maybe there’s something to this wheat thing after all. Aching hips are nothing compared to all that misery, and they don’t wake me up from a sound sleep in which I was dreaming of committing a crime. That’s right, I was dreaming of committing a carefully constructed crime, the nature and purpose of which I have forgotten. Almost. So I got up and took a shower and came down to research symptoms of food intolerance on the internet. Google kept sending me to this food intolerance site that wants me to pay $79.95 to learn how to keep a food journal to discover what foods I am intolerant of. I just wanted a list of symptoms. On further clicking, I found a site that said it is very dangerous to quit eating gluten because once you do you can never go back. OMG. That is me!! You mean I’ve taken myself over the gluten edge in only one short month? Who knew it would happen so quickly? At any rate, I’m back on the wagon. This time I think I’ll pay attention to the sugar as well. I was supposed to all along, but I thought I could get by if I ate a little. My headache tells me that may not be the case. Brother. Everyone who is addicted to it knows there is no such thing as eating only a little sugar. Maybe I should have just gone to the gym in the first place and not even looked into all this food stuff. At least I’d have a little better muscle tone by now.
Reduction Physics 
This does not sound good my friend, but I love the way you tell a story; too bad it isn’t someone else’s.
I’m feeling that there’s some way to moderation down your path.
Bonnie
I love your writing and that very cool maze photo!
As I was reading about all that food, I thought, “oh my God, that would kill me.” Sounds like it almost did YOU in. Oh my. I hope you have gotten over this and will eat very sensibly now. You will feel so much better. I know I do.
Yes, I normally eat very simply. This birthday I just let it get away from me. Too many twelve year olds led to the wrong kind of self care! The funny thing is, the quantities I ate were not large. Just the wrong combination I guess. I’m back on track now.
I remember a time when I could eat anything that didn’t eat me first and do just fine. Our systems sure do change. I’m sorry to hear you can’t have soy. I would be so sad as I am lactose intolerant and LOVE milk. There are some pretty good soy substitutes out there that I can handle. However, i have to be very careful about eating out and eating other people’s food. I never eat banquet food at hotels. Life is too short to feel so miserable.