I gave up chocolate for Lent. It's more of an experiment really. I wanted to see if I could deny myself the one thing that gives me an unconditional emotional kickback for the whole '40 days'. I'm not ultra-traditional so I've never been a pracising Lentee before, but I thought to myself at midnight Tuesday, with no preparation or withdrawal whatsoever, hey, I think I'll give up my favourite thing in the whole world tomorrow. Shoot me. Shoot me now.
Do you know how HARD it is to avoid chocolate? I'm seeing it everywhere! Every checkout at the supermarket has it. The smell of it somehow manages to permeate the entire food court in my local suburban shopping centre (what are they doing? Serving up Fried Chocolate Burgers? Now there's an idea...) There are easter eggs on the shelves already! And they were giving away samples of Cadbury Creme eggs when I tried to do some innocent grocery shopping last night! I had to say no to free chocolate! Help!
I buy my meat and produce from the 'market area' of the shopping centre and both shopfronts are within eyesight of not one, but TWO specialty chocolate stores. I have to smell the awesomeness that is hot roasted nuts and sweet, sweet cocoa-ey nectar while I'm bagging up, you know, broccoli or something. And let me tell you, I was a regular at that particular nuts/chocolate store. To the point of having a 'usual' order. To the point of, one day, having my order already bagged and waiting for me when I reached the counter because the ladies had recognised me from clear across the walkway. To the point of running into one of these Purveyors of Bliss in the ladies restroom and having her express concern for my recent lack of chocolate buying! I have a feeling I'm putting this woman's children through school...
Today marks Day 3 of Sans Choc 2008 (Lent began on Wednesday). It's not like my avoidance of chocolate has actually yielded any results on the badonk-a-donk field - trust me, I'm making up for my missing intravenous cocoa injections with other sugary treats - but a gal can only concentrate on sawing off one leg at a time, you know?
And also, could somebody PLEASE explain to me why, why, WHY I did this when Valentine's Day and our wedding anniversary are both this month??? For that matter, why those Roman martyrs happened to get all, well, martyr-y in February. Why not June? Nothing much happens in June! I could eat Valentine's chocolates in June! Of course this doesn't explain Hubs and my choice to get married (the other main chocolate-eating event on my calendar at least!) in late February, but we'll gloss over that point. And also, Chaucer has a lot to answer for - he was the first to connect love with Valentine's Day in 1382, thus sealing the much-maligned fate of men the world over. There you go men, blame the comically Middle Ages-spelling Chaucer :P
But back to the point...
Chocolate or its derivitives are in just about every one of my favourite comfort foods. Where do you draw the line? Does the ban apply to just chocolate bars? Can I have chocolate pudding? What about hot chocolate? Is it okay to snort the sprinkled cocoa on my cappucino? Sob.
To compensate for the 'can I have....' questions, I've gone - shudder - cold turkey. For a gal that usually eats/drinks chocolate in one form or another every single day, three days on the clock is actually a pretty good record. I also haven't had any fizzy drinks in that long also, although that's nowhere near the addiction chocolate is. It's amazing though, how often a soft drink (soda) kind of sneaks into your everyday eating. Just about all the 'value meals' include soft drinks. I actually had a girl faintly snigger when I requested a bottle of water to go with my Big Mac - you know, kind of like that old joke - "I'll have a large Big Mac meal, two cheeseburgers, and a chocolate sundae...but make my drink a diet Coke because I'm watching my weight." No, I didn't order all that, LOL. But hey, paper-hat wearing "I know everything because I'm a teenager" serving person? Don't judge me! Not everyone who chooses water is trying to lose weight!
Three days down, 42 to go. Yeah, that's another thing about Lent - it's forty days not counting Sundays!
Cheers,
Lizzie
Do you know how HARD it is to avoid chocolate? I'm seeing it everywhere! Every checkout at the supermarket has it. The smell of it somehow manages to permeate the entire food court in my local suburban shopping centre (what are they doing? Serving up Fried Chocolate Burgers? Now there's an idea...) There are easter eggs on the shelves already! And they were giving away samples of Cadbury Creme eggs when I tried to do some innocent grocery shopping last night! I had to say no to free chocolate! Help!
I buy my meat and produce from the 'market area' of the shopping centre and both shopfronts are within eyesight of not one, but TWO specialty chocolate stores. I have to smell the awesomeness that is hot roasted nuts and sweet, sweet cocoa-ey nectar while I'm bagging up, you know, broccoli or something. And let me tell you, I was a regular at that particular nuts/chocolate store. To the point of having a 'usual' order. To the point of, one day, having my order already bagged and waiting for me when I reached the counter because the ladies had recognised me from clear across the walkway. To the point of running into one of these Purveyors of Bliss in the ladies restroom and having her express concern for my recent lack of chocolate buying! I have a feeling I'm putting this woman's children through school...
Today marks Day 3 of Sans Choc 2008 (Lent began on Wednesday). It's not like my avoidance of chocolate has actually yielded any results on the badonk-a-donk field - trust me, I'm making up for my missing intravenous cocoa injections with other sugary treats - but a gal can only concentrate on sawing off one leg at a time, you know?
And also, could somebody PLEASE explain to me why, why, WHY I did this when Valentine's Day and our wedding anniversary are both this month??? For that matter, why those Roman martyrs happened to get all, well, martyr-y in February. Why not June? Nothing much happens in June! I could eat Valentine's chocolates in June! Of course this doesn't explain Hubs and my choice to get married (the other main chocolate-eating event on my calendar at least!) in late February, but we'll gloss over that point. And also, Chaucer has a lot to answer for - he was the first to connect love with Valentine's Day in 1382, thus sealing the much-maligned fate of men the world over. There you go men, blame the comically Middle Ages-spelling Chaucer :P
But back to the point...
Chocolate or its derivitives are in just about every one of my favourite comfort foods. Where do you draw the line? Does the ban apply to just chocolate bars? Can I have chocolate pudding? What about hot chocolate? Is it okay to snort the sprinkled cocoa on my cappucino? Sob.
To compensate for the 'can I have....' questions, I've gone - shudder - cold turkey. For a gal that usually eats/drinks chocolate in one form or another every single day, three days on the clock is actually a pretty good record. I also haven't had any fizzy drinks in that long also, although that's nowhere near the addiction chocolate is. It's amazing though, how often a soft drink (soda) kind of sneaks into your everyday eating. Just about all the 'value meals' include soft drinks. I actually had a girl faintly snigger when I requested a bottle of water to go with my Big Mac - you know, kind of like that old joke - "I'll have a large Big Mac meal, two cheeseburgers, and a chocolate sundae...but make my drink a diet Coke because I'm watching my weight." No, I didn't order all that, LOL. But hey, paper-hat wearing "I know everything because I'm a teenager" serving person? Don't judge me! Not everyone who chooses water is trying to lose weight!
Three days down, 42 to go. Yeah, that's another thing about Lent - it's forty days not counting Sundays!
Cheers,
Lizzie
5 comments:
Oh, you brave woman! :o) It will be interesting to see how you feel after not eating chocolate. Chocolate in itself is actually not so bad with us, but it is usually paired with sugar and other stuff. This may put you on your knees praying more this month!
You are far crazier...err I mean braver than I could ever be :P Do keep us posted on what life is like "chocolate free." :o)
Ooo..that would be hard.
I had to give up anything with nuts when I became allergic, and that really cut into my chocolate consumption.
Now that we think Jake is allergic to milk, that has been really hard trying to stay away from cheese and creamy pasta sauces.
You can do it! Just put the Easter/Valentine's chocolate in the freezer so you can enjoy it after Lent.
Now coffee...giving up that would be real torture for me...lolol
Oh and Ps...when we do eat fast food (which is rare) we always get water with it, lolol.
Pop just isn't something we often drink and yes, I get those weird looks too..lolol. I was just thinking that we used to make Jake get milk instead and now his options are just juice or water...ack!
I completely expect to have myself a little Chocfest 08 come Easter, LOL (Lent finishes Good Friday, right? RIGHT? PLEASE TELL ME I'M RIGHT!!!!)
I thought about giving up something 'lukewarm', like a couple of hours of TV a week (giving up TV entirely would kill me) but it's all about discipline right? And the bigger of the two evils for me is definitely chocolate, with its wondrous ability to spackle itself to my rear end.
I did cave on the soft drink though. That one was never 'the' focus of lent, just a convenient by-product, so I'm cool with that. Incidentally it was a cheeseburger value meal that did it :) I took about four sips to help the food go down and then poured the rest down the sink (this is what usually happens). I drink far more water and low-cal cordial (liquid Koolaid? LOL) than soft drinks but I think it would be a different story altogether if I was one of those folk who drink litres of Coke a day - I know a gal who regularly orders Coke with her breakfast meals....EEK!
Last night was tough though. Bought the kids a small portion of chocolate in a 5-pk. We have three kids. There are two leftover which are mocking me from the fridge as I type. Normally Hubs and I would eat them (to minimise giving the kids too much chocolate you understand - we're so noble like that :P) but now we're one short to give each kid another in a day or two so there'll be fights! Gonna have to force feed them to Hubs when he gets home, methinks...
Cheers,
Lizzie ♥
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