Week 1, Day 4

Day four went pretty well. No chocolate was consumed and I got through most of the day without sugar in general. The end of day three was not so good though. I ended up snacking late in the afternoon, which is when I usually get hungry. I ended up eating a handful of mini chocolate pieces equating to about a single chocolate bar. I felt bad and like a failure after I gave in to my temptation for the chocolate. I do feel better at the end of day four that I made it through the whole day without consuming chocolate. So, on the positive, I made some real progress today. It has taken me close to four days to get to the point where I did not consume chocolate at least for one day. We'll see how it goes tomorrow...

Week 1, Day 3

Week 1, Day 3:

At yesterday's monthly company birthday party, I walked into the lunch room to find a chocolate cake. My first thought was that I was disappointed that I wasn't going to be having any cake today, but then realized that I had remembered not to eat chocolate. I was happy about that. Later in the gathering, I was mentioning to a colleague that I was not eating chocolate any more. He pointed out that as I was taking a scoop of ice cream and eating it, that it had chocolate chips in it. My first thought was yes,, I unintentionally failed again.

Initially I thought this challenge would be easy. Remove chocolate. Sure, that should be easy,, I only eat those little chocolate mini bars once or twice a day. It will be hard, but I think I can do it. What I've quickly realized is that chocolate is in a LOT of things. Later in the day yesterday, the family ended up at a local eatery called Freddy's. When the family was looking at the list of sundaes that the restaurant offers, I realized that all but one of them had chocolate in them. Another good and bad feeling moment. Good I realized it, but sad that I realized how chocolate is everywhere.

I write this as lunch approaches again today and am feeling pretty good about my progress. Not by conscious choices, but have been almost chocolate free for three days. I haven't consciously chosen to eat chocolate, which is a huge step forward. Looking forward to finishing this day without consuming my favorite sweet :)

Week 1, Day 2

Week 1, Day 2:

Well, I didn't do as well as I thought on my first day. When my wife realized I had already started this endeavor, she said "You know you just ate chocolate ice cream?". After we debated on the merit of whether or not chocolate ice cream really included chocolate, I agreed that I had actually,,, unintentionally slipped on my first day :(

After agreeing that I had actually eaten chocolate in the ice cream form, I then quickly degraded into frustration and into the logic of "well I already ate chocolate,, ,why not continue", but stopped myself and did not actually eat any other chocolate yesterday.

It is already mid-morning on day two and I am almost to the lunch hour. New for me is that I would have already gotten into work, setup my black coffee and had the equivalent of a chocolate bar with that cup of coffee. My work has a big jar of these mini chocolates that are free for anyone to take. For a while I thought "Oh,, it's only five little pieces", but when I did the math on the weight of those pieces I was eating about a bar with that cup of coffee.

I have confidence that making it almost to lunch time I can make it to lunch.

Stand-by...

Chocoholics anonymous

Week 1; Day 1:

I have chosen my addiction to chocolate to try to give up for the next four weeks for a psychology course I am taking. I don't know when the addiction started. What I do know is that over the past four or five years, since my children were out of diapers and old enough to start to take more care of themselves, I've had more time to get my physical health back under control. When my wife got pregnant I did what most parents do and put all my time and energy into the kids and forgot about my own health for a few years. As I've worked to get my health back in line, I dropped about fifty to sixty pounds and recently completed my first full marathon. In that process I have cleaned up my diet as well and have cut out almost all junk food,,, with the exception of chocolate. It's the one food vice I still have left. I have a few other vices that I have which are coffee in the morning and I do like to have the occasional cocktail with friends on the weekends. I have found some early research that dark chocolate is better for you, so I do try to eat that when possible. But chocolate is the vice I would like to try to give up for the class project and also as a personal experiment.

I am a believer that people substitute one bad addiction for a healthier option. Case in point, I don't eat nearly as much as I did when the kids were younger, but I run daily at least three miles and I get cranky when I don't run. Yes, I substituted a substance (food) addiction for a process (running) addiction. This experiment will be fun to watch as I remove one addiction,, can I truly remove it or will I replace it with something else?