Skinny-fat for Breakfast

I am going to admit to you guys, this is the fifth day in a row that I have had cake for breakfast. To the average outsider, you’d probably consider this cause for alarming concern. Whether with concern for my blood sugar levels or my potential binge-eating disorder, it’s probably not something that the everyday human is (or should be) making a habit of. But, before you schedule the intervention, just hear me out. Still on the subject of this “everyday human,” if you knew the tempting possibilities I am faced with everyday, you’d be hesitant to judge so swiftly.

It started on Tuesday. When I got to work, a gloriously sugar-frosted smell enveloped the studio. One of my blessed-with-baking-skills vendors was fingers deep in a inventory photo shoot consisting of chocolate chip cookie dough cheesecake on a graham cracker crust, a mile-high lemon meringue cheesecake and a 17-layer (take that with a grain of salt) what she called, “Key Largo” cake. I saw key lime, cream cheese, strawberry sand whip cream, so I could care less what she called it. I hadn’t had breakfast, I needed another cup of coffee and since two for three of these goodies were infused with fruit, I felt completely okay with substituting a slice for my most important meal of the day.

But then Wednesday came along with cake samples from the same baker’s lady who did my wedding cake. (If you were there, you know what I am talking about and I am not worried about you completely joining the justification jurors on this one.) I treated myself to a Vanilla square… and then another Vanilla square… and then a strawberry square. And honestly, as I am recounting this, I can’t actually remember if I stopped there or continued to finger graze. Because the very next day, more samples clouded my practical vision and entered my (seriously tolerable) digestive system in the form of caramel cake, cookies and cream and amaretto. Again, I don’t remember where I stopped.

Before I keep going, I want to reiterate that the guilt happens for about a split second, but never carries over to the next testing situation. I have no regrets… help.

Friday. Friday is never a day to recover from dietary indulgences. The week is over. You let yourself go  out to lunch. You tell yourself, “it’s the weekend,” and any sort of willpower is pocketed for the sake of living life for the moment… and having no regrets. I had the treat of Mom coming to the studio. I needed to shower her with Mother’s Day gifts and I had ordered her a phenomenal cake to take with her on her out-of-town-even-though-my-one-daughter-who-didnt-leave-lives-in-town weekend trip. Before you “tsk,” know that I never did more than intensely inhale the aroma of toasted butter pecan atop rich buttercream icing. But we did go to lunch. They did forget to put in our order. They did make it up to us with two sugar-coated apologies. I did eat it in 30 seconds flat.

This brings us to today. My stomach feels queasy, absolutely. My head feels a little off, no doubt. I didn’t eat breakfast but I knew I had a shake in the fridge at work. Perfect. A healthy, calorie-slim shake followed by a cup of coffee to get me through lunch. That’s what I think. (And remember there is only one character in this story). When I get to work, I remember with a quick inhale that I haven’t eaten the rest of the samples from Tuesday. They’re still in the freezer–hooray! (hooray?)

Without giving it two seconds of rational, what’s-best-for-your-health thought, I plop that cookie dough cheesecake on a plate to thaw and count down the seconds until it’s back to edible consistency. I worry for a slight minute about whether I should put it in the microwave to speed up the thaw, because what if it didn’t thaw out in the next ten minutes, which apparently is all my tricky braincells can process for holding off on another breakfast of champions. Luckily (gosh, so lucky, right?), when I hit the kitchen again to light up the nuke-machine, it’s way ahead of me. Beckoning with fresh, creamy, spotted-with-chocolate chip cheesecake, I don’t think twice–actually, I am pretty confident that I don’t even think–about not letting go of that fork until the plate is sufficiently empty.

It was so good. So. Good. I could have eaten more if the piece had been bigger. And although i wasn’t going to mention this, I even went back to the fridge to see if maybe, just maybe, another sample was left. There wasn’t. (This time the luck goes to my blood sugar, for sure). I now have a headache and the growing sensation that I may not be able to keep my eyes open for the duration of my shift. I also may not be able to keep it down. But even as I write, describing the icky feelings growing deep within my belly, I have no regrets. It was that good and I am that dedicated to equal rights for all food… or something. I am chugging a water (just in case Mike has decided to check out my blog today and worries about my immune system crashing) and I am pondering a vow to myself and those who worry to avoid sugar for the rest of the weekend. But as soon as I mention that, I promise you my mind races to the jar of candy sitting on the counter at home and forcing me to ask myself, “but what if i want just one sweet-tart?”

A friend once called me “skinny fat” because he saw me take down McDonald’s like Alexander Ocvechkin (which until recently, I swear was ironically pronounced over-checking). I know this can’t be true because I equally cycle through my size 2’s to my size 6’s. This is me. Sugar runs in my veins and (other than Mike-muah!), it’s where I find the simple, undeniable pleasures of life–the little things, if you will, even if they’re LITTLE piece of a fat-daddy cake.