The Sudden Food Betrayals

Things I Used to Eat Without Dying Inside

Once upon a time, I had a stomach of steel. I could inhale street tacos at midnight, chase them with wine, coffee,  or ice cream (or all three), and wake up the next morning feeling only mildly bloated and emotionally satisfied.

But now? One wrong snack and I’m out of commission like I’m auditioning for a role as 'unwell woman #3' in a Lifetime movie.

Welcome to perimenopause, where your digestive system turns into a petty little bitch with zero tolerance and even less warning.

Spicy food? Heartburn.

Peppers? Reflux.

Tomato sauce? Acid tsunami.

Mimosa? LOL. Are you trying to die?

Even the “safe” stuff starts to get weird. A sandwich gives me heart palpitations. Watermelon bloats me like I swallowed a balloon. Cheese? Don’t even look at me like that. I will eat it, and I will suffer.

What’s worse is that my metabolism is also broken. So, not only do I feel like garbage after eating the food, I now gain two pounds just thinking about it. I look at a cookie and my body goes, “Cute. Let’s wear it on the hips for the next three months.”

And don’t even suggest “clean eating” like I haven’t tried. My version of a cheat day is now fruit. A banana. With almond butter. And I still wake up at 3 a.m. with the reflux demons screaming in my throat like it’s a death metal concert.

So now I live like a woman on the run - scanning menus like they’re minefields, traveling with a purse full of antacids, and treating Taco Tuesday like a toxic ex - I know better, but I keep going back.

It’s not that I can’t eat the foods I love.

It’s that I shouldn’t.

And I do anyway.

Because I’m stubborn.

And because I’d rather suffer in stretchy pants than live in a world without chili.

RIP to my iron gut.

Long live peppermint tea.

And to the cheese that wronged me last night, we’ll meet again.

Because I never learn.