I believe that certain parts of me were never meant to be changed. Though nowadays my body is trying to tell me differently. What’s up with those kilo gains? And why on earth have they decided to keep hanging on?!
Could it be because of the craving I have for chocolate those couple of times during the week… or maybe it’s 4 times… or maybe every evening?!… Nah, that can’t be it.
Anyway, for some odd reason that way of living seems to generate some extra weight which doesn’t want to let go. Could that be because of the 500+(!!!) calories a chocolate bar carries with it? Yeah, I’m afraid so.
So does this mean that I have to completely cut it out of my life, because to be honest, I don’t think that’s even possible. Is it an addiction or do I just love the taste of it? I can’t see myself living a life without that sweet lovely treat.
What to do then?
Well I have gone from realizing what the problem is to knowing that I don’t want to be without it. What’s left to do, you ask? Limit the intake. Yeah, it’s that simple. But despite it’s simplicity in words it takes a whole other turn when it comes to action!
To limit the intake I would need to… well… limit the intake! Eat less chocolate and preferably skip a day or two as well. It all sounds so easy but unfortunately isn’t. At least not for me. And this applies to other things as well beside chocolate cravings. Everything from soft drinks to Baileys, candy cravings to croissants. Some things are worse than others. But I have now gotten to the step where I need to take serious action to change my habit, so that must mean that it’s a bad habit. I have never really heard about people who has problems with eating too much cucumber or avocados. Aahh.. if only vegetables had that sweet sweet flavor…. hmm, back to reality…
I have spend hours looking for healthy substitutes for my chocolate needs. It has resulted in me trying out various snack recipes such as dried fruit moshed with pieces of nuts, healthy muffins (made with oatmeal and bananas) etc. Nothing really worked. I did like most of it but the time it takes to prepare such a batch makes it impossible for me. I would need to make sure to have it on stock so when the craving sets in, I have my rescuer ready at hand. Unfortunately ever since I got Multiple Sclerosis, my energy isn’t what it used to be. All the work required to make this happen would probably kill my daily amount of energy which would then force me to crawl into bed afterwards. And that just isn’t worth it.
My plan of action
After all this talking back and forth with myself, looking up recipes and talking with my sister (soon to be a dietitian), I have decided to try to take small steps, one at a time. First I want to remove the guilt I feel when I eat chocolate. I want to be able to enjoy it full out, plus I find that life is too short to feel guilty over such a thing. Secondly I want to try to divert my craving with either a healthy smoothie (oats, nuts, milk, banana and frozen strawberries blended) or a bowl of Greek yogurt with added nuts, grapes and a couple of teaspoons of agave syrup on top. That’s two things I have made before and requires minimum effort. And this is the step I am currently at.
If all goes well my third and final step will be to lessen the chocolate consumption to once a week. There will of course be times where someone has a birthday or an anniversary or similar, there I will still want to enjoy what lovely treats that event has to offer. I then want to make sure to keep it at a lower level than normal.
My plan isn’t perfect and there are probably other issues which needs to be worked on as well. But this is at least a good beginning!