On I Caught Him and the Horror of it All:

Although I am quite normal in a lot of things, and the scariest thing about me is my black lip stick and finger nail polish. I am in fact a fairly nice person. I try to spread kindness and share the love wherever I go. I smile and remember my manners. But I am not immune to troubles.

I am a carboholic. Once refined flour or sugar passes my lips all bets are off as to just how much food I can consume in a day. A switch is thrown in my head and I can’t stop eating. It’s not a good thing and a horror to look at.

I fell off the wagon yesterday and right into a binge of sugary sweetness. There is the added downside of uncontrolled hot flashes added to the mix. And it was all the Gingerbread Man’s fault.

‘Run, run as fast as you can. You can’t catch me, I’m the Gingerbread Man.’ He sat there taunting me. He knew my weakness and sang his little song over and over again in my head. He did this for days. How much can a woman take? I just had to bite his little head off to stop him from smiling up at me.

In the end I was reduced to, after raiding the refrigerator and eating a whole box of cookies, sitting on the floor in the pantry wrapped around a box of chocolate cake mix, eating it dry and adding sips of juice from the bottle to get it down. Horror! Undeniable, out of control horror.

I checked the ingredients and this man cookie was made without eggs. He was not made in a place that also processes nuts. He was said to be, at least for me, allergy free. But he did have those dreaded refined carbs not only made into his spicy soft form but he was dressed in refined sugary sweetness too.

Now I can have gingerbread if I make it from scratch myself and replace the ingredients that give me trouble. Honey for the sugar, substitute the eggs, whole wheat flour for refined, if I dress him in dried fruit like raisins. It is do-able if I only take the time to do it. But I didn’t. Instead I ate the store bought Gingerbread Man and I’m paying the price.

There will be weeks of exercise and calorie shaving in my future. And all because I took up the challenge of a gingerbread man.

Next time I’m running the other way.