McDonalds hamburger with a FRESH bun. Deep dish pizza. Hot dog with chili and mustard. Greasy fried chicken, with crispy crispy crust. Bologna on fresh white bread. Stack of pancakes from IHOP. Burrito with fresh homemade flour tortilla. Corn dogs. Schlotzsky sandwich These foods, these wheat laden foods I have jumped off the gluten free wagon for.  I admit it. Some were necessities, such as the Deep Dish Pizza, I was in Chicago, Giordono’s pizza is one of those things you must have in a lifetime, it is a universal bucket list item. Others, like bologna sandwich, I just plain craved the flavor, missed it had the opportunity in someone else’s home and indulged.  And I paid.

It is a conscious choice, wheat no wheat. And the majority of time, I have chosen correctly, especially now. But not always have I chosen no wheat.  I would like to blame Keith my husband, he does fall off the wagon at times too, and likes company. Misery does love company. But I have a choice, and when he cheats and eats, it is just an easy excuse for me to go ahead and indulge also.  Other times it is lack of will power, or just wanting something bad enough, I will convince myself that if I just eat this ‘evil’ and drink lots of water, eat an acidopholis, eat really healthy for a few days, drink lots of water, maybe eat some prunes,then I will be ok.

Then a couple of days later I will get a migraine because I have eaten something processed with nitrates, eating the wheat,  and a few days more my feet will break out with itchy water blisters.  I will then think of that Quarter Pounder, that had the somewhat stale bun, that I just had to have.  I will realize, again, it will take months for the effects of those two stale gluten-full buns to disappear. I will vow, again, to never let wheat pass into my body.

My need to vow is getting much better.

Being gluten free, cookin gluten free IS easy.  I have not problems making just about everything I come across, breads, fried and battered foods, baked goods, they are good too!I feel so well if I don’t eat wheat.  It is those few things that have a distinct taste, like Crystals burgers, McDonalds, Burger King, What a Burger. These are  all burger joints, but each has a burger I could distinguish just by smell.  It is that distinct food flavor, something that can not be duplicated, that I crave, and  I fall for. The something that makes a twinkie a twinkie.

As I said I am getting much better at just saying no, but it is still hard.  I kind of wish something would happen the minute I ate wheat. Something like my right big toe would turn green and swell up 5 times larger than normal.  I need to feel the instant misery from wheat.I need to relate that hamburger bun to blistery feet, to my reactions to other foods, to my headaches, when I eat it , not a week later, then maybe it would not be so hard to refuse wheat.

I know I am not the only one that has this problem. All in my family do the same thing. The parents with their kids. A friend in church will succumb to his cookie cravings, and say as cramming cookies in like the cookie monster ” Mmm, cookie cookie cookie. These will kill me next week, I need more cookie, to make it worth my pain.”

I have read that this is really pretty dangerous for us to ‘play’ with wheat intake.  Something about our immune system (which is screwy anyway) getting to the point of not ‘shutting off’ and it would just stay in a constant state of fighting gluten even if it is not there. Eventually our bodies will quit recovering from our jumps from the wagon.  The danger is really as risky as running a red light in rush hour, and I treat it like a yellow on a Sunday morning.