It’s a new year! Yes I’ve already made one post in January but I do love the symbolism of the new year as a chance to start fresh, throw out the old and bring in the new. I’ve been trying to make a lot of changes with how I handle myself and my relationships but of course I am also trying to change my eating habits. I have finally accepted that I will have to be hard on myself if I want to lose weight. No more saying, “Oh, just this one time won’t hurt” or “It’s not that fattening.” Interestingly, I’ve noticed a change that seemed to happen all on its own and it actually surprised me. For the past few days, my mind has not been consumed with thoughts of chocolate. In fact, I often made it to the end of the night and realized that I hadn’t gorged myself on a ton of chocolate. That may be normal for some people but it’s not for me. It was so refreshing to realize that I no longer felt dependent on it, that I no longer had that fear of going without. And I think I know the root of it.
First off, don’t get me wrong, I still ate a bit of chocolate. But usually it was just a few bites at the end of the night when I felt a bit hungry. It wasn’t the usual ravenous act of me scarfing down an entire chocolate bar (or two) and then realizing I had eaten too much. Anyway, a few months ago I had asked some online friends for help over the fact that I felt like a chocolate addict. I discussed the fear I had, always worrying that I might have to go without, the cravings I would get for different types of chocolate and the fact that I couldn’t seem to go a day without eating it. And most of all, I had (because of past experience) always worried that any chocolate I had would just disappear, even though I now live on my own. One woman told me to buy a chocolate bar and put it in the cupboard, leave it for a week, and then open the cupboard back up to find it sitting there. It might sound silly but after growing up with a dad and brother who would constantly eat things that I was trying to save for later, it was actually very profound.
So I’ve got a chocolate orange from Christmas that has been sitting in my cupboard. It’s still there. I haven’t even bothered to touch it. It’s almost as though now that I have the comfort of knowing it’s there, I no longer feel the need to eat my way through dozens of chocolate bars or chocolate cookies. I’m still going to try to eat less and less chocolate but it’s nice that I’m finally losing that frantic clawing need to eat it in the first place.