I’m allergic to chocolate. Enough said.

Long story: I bought some Valentine’s M&Ms on clearance, and one night ate some. The next night I ate more. The next day (Wednesday) I felt ill, and was indeed sick, but I’ll spare you the details. Let’s just say, the good news is I lost a few pounds. Nobody in my family got sick until Saturday night, and that might have been something they ate (the oven-fried potatoes I made were a little heavy on the oil, and that just might not have set right with them). My older son never got it, but my younger son did, so I got to experience the wonderful sensation of fresh vomit on my shirt. Several times. I did lots of laundry.

Since I’m allergic to red dye #40 (it makes my nose itch if I touch it), I thought it was logical that I might have become allergic to it if I ate it, so I blamed the food coloring of the red and pink M&Ms. I gave my stomach a few days, and ate some Hershey’s kisses (also Valentine’s clearance candy), and my stomach kinda hurt afterwards. I thought maybe my stomach just wasn’t completely settled from my recent illness. A few days later, I ate a few, and my stomach hurt again. The next day, I went to my mom’s, and she had fresh chocolate chip cookies. I ate one, plus the rest of the cookie batter. And my stomach hurt.

See, I’m like Daffy Duck: “I don’t like pain–it hurts me!” But I still want chocolate. Every time I look at it, I start salivating and my stomach starts hurting. But I’ve eaten chocolate cake and it didn’t bother my stomach. It might be that something made with cocoa is fine, but whatever is in processed chocolate (milk, semi-sweet or dark) upsets my stomach.

So, the good news is that not being able to eat chocolate should make it easier to say no and eat less and gain weight. The bad news is, I still want it, and I’m even more tempted to eat other bad things to make up for no chocolate.