A Goodbye to Baked Goods

I'm publicly declaring that I am going on strike from baked goods for a week. I started yesterday and it was just for the day but when I realized how hard it felt, I recognized the need to extend my strike.

I have frequently bragged that I don't love pastries (chocolate croissants to indulge my Francophile moods aside) because I grew up in a house with a constant supply of them. That's why I am one of those people who believes that banning kids from eating certain foods is not the way to go. Don't "they" get that the more you withhold something the more it is desired? Why does that logic somehow not apply to children? Based on my previous bragging, I was really shocked to assess my intake of baked goods Sunday through Tuesday. It could be argued that pastries and baked goods are not specifically one and the same but they are, at the very least, very close cousins who like to have sleepovers and make fun of their grandparents together. So when I realized I had eaten multiple apple cider donuts, a cupcake, banana bread, a muffin and a bagel within such a short span of time, some major alarms started sounding in my head.

Now I can blame it on lots of things, sure. Excuse #1: I went to a big fair on Sunday and part of the tradition is to buy apple cider donuts; they are delicious and a native food in the land of New England apple picking. Excuse #2: I haven't grocery shopped in a week and half so I have to eat whatever food is made available to me at work. The first Monday of each month is staff breakfast at work and we are gifted with both free bagels and a free hour of work time to sit, socialize and eat. That happened this week and even though I was at a doctor's appointment, I don't look a free bagel gift horse in the mouth so I asked my friend to hide one for me for when I came in later. That's called planning ahead, folks. Excuse #3: As I wrote about here, Tuesdays can be nuts at work, often referred to as Trauma Tuesdays, so when some treats were there to soothe my raw emotions, it just made sense.

Work can be the worst/best as there are always baked goods. When I went to the kitchen recently there were three bags of cookies-chocolate chip, peanut butter chip, and brownie cookies. Next to those there was a bag of mystery flavored white cookies that appeared to be home made. A little ways down in another plastic bag were some brownies. And all the leftover bagels are in the freezer, calling my name since I didn't have time to pack food for my 12 hour work day today and wouldn't have had much to draw from anyway since I haven't shopped.

So even though there are still some cider donuts in a bag in my office, I am sadly going to watch them age without enjoying them. It feels sad to even write that. But I need to prove to myself that baked goods don't control me. What can't you resist??