Bound

I’ve been feeling less than fabulous body-wise lately, so I decided to finally give in and go for the paleo hazing ritual that I’d been assiduously avoiding up until now: doing a Whole 30.

The Whole 30 is basically paleo on steroids. The regular “no grains, no sugars, yada yada yada” is punched up with no dairy (cheese!), no natural sugars (honey!) and no alcohol (!). Normally I’d argue pretty strenuously with whomever was trying to take away my red wine, but a night last week with too many Manhattans took the wind right out of those sails. (Turns out that loving old man drinks does not, in fact, give you the alcohol tolerance of a grizzled vet.) You give up all of these things for a month. It’s like Lent for self-punishing people who love their bodies.

It’s been easier than I thought…your brain kind of gives you the side-eye when the chocolate rations stop, but there’s a fairly immediate jump in energy and weight loss that’s more than enough to keep the requisite willpower going. That is…for about a week. Then you start having visions. Not anything cool and hallucinogenic, more like cookies dancing just out of your sight line. These ones, specifically:

 I don’t know what it is about macarons. They’re like the exchange student of cookies; sort of sweet but aloof, and you don’t feel quite cool enough to be around them but you cannot. get. enough. I’d had them once or twice before Paris, but apparently only the crumbly awkward cousin, because the City of Lights pumps out macarons that you would not believe. Unless, of course, you’ve had them, in which case I’m sure you’ll join me in making the disgusted amazement face in their memory. (Other people do that, right? Take a bite of something amazing, and then give their dining companions the “Oh no, she DI-INT” face?).

I’d done a pretty good job of moving on with my macaron-less life once we came back to the States, until a few weeks ago in San Francisco when a box of really great ones crossed my path. And now…I’m just done for. I’d thought this health binge was the answer, when all it’s really done* is hone my laser focus on March 21st, when I can start obsessively Yelp-ing the greater LA and Orange County areas for “best macaron.”

*This is, of course, a raging lie. In a week, the Whole 30 has taken inches off my body and made me look and feel about a zillion times better. But that’s not the point of this post. The point is: pistachio or coconut? Tawk amongst yahselves.