A year ago today I gave up eating chocolate.
This was a bit deal for me. I ate a lot of chocolate, and as I've said before it (amongst other things) was having a profound effect on my waist-line and my health. I had been gorging over Christmas on both chocolate and booze and woke up on the morning of the 27th determined to give both up (at least for a while).
I lasted until the end of February on the booze (didn't even drink on New Year's Eve, which shows how sickened I had become with myself), but the chocolate thing has continued on. (I ate a tiny piece of white chocolate in a pudding at a wedding and ate a toffee that unexpectedly had a chocolate centre, but that's the extent of it and I was surprised at how little I enjoyed either occasion)
I have given up chocolate before, and once did so for more than a year (the first time I ate it after that, it was literally like taking drugs. I was on the ceiling), but every time before I have craved it so badly, and then finally succumbed - the minute a chocolate has passed my lips I have stuffed myself again, even worse than before. I think this time I have really kicked it. Visiting a newsagents is no longer a risk. In fact I've got to the point where I can even look at the chocolate bars and not be interested. Even better (considering what I used to be like) I can see a new chocolate bar and not feel I "have to" try it, just to see what it's like. At a recent party I was able to have a big tub of Maltesers right beside me, I was able to put my face close to them and smell them, and I wasn't even tempted. In fact I thought they smelt a bit nasty!
I know chocolate is hardly heroin, but I am still quite proud of managing to kick it. I feel that I could now eat chocolate in moderation, that breaking the ban wouldn't result in the usual binging (as the couple of occasions that chocolate has passed my lips have shown), but I don't even want to eat it any more.
As a child chocolate is a reward and a consolation. I had continued to use it as such (and found spurious reasons for celebration or depression) and I think the fact that I no longer do that is a great success. Think I'll have a Toblerone to reward myself.
