Sweet Sabotage

I have a small white plastic bag scrunched up in my cupboard. It’s one of the cupboards that still doesn’t have a door because I still haven’t painted them. I guess I keep hoping that maybe when my mother-in-law retires in two years she will finish the job for me.
Earlier today I mentioned to my wonderful (and enabling) husband that I wanted something sweet.

“I want some chocolate.” I believe those were my exact words. So as we were putting our dear son to sleep, snuggled under the red fuzzy blanket that Tony bought me from Bahrain, Tony decides he’s going to the store to buy me chocolate. I can’t decide what kind. He leaves anyway. I found out later (just a few minutes ago), that he really went for his nicotine fix—but no matter. I still have a bag of chocolate in my cupboard, right at eye level. It contains an assortment of delicious candy. Snickers. Twix. 3 Musketeers. M&M’s.

I’ve yet to have any. I thought I wanted it, I really did. And then it was sitting there in front of me and I couldn’t bring myself to eat it, mostly because I know that if I did I would be torturing myself all day tomorrow about it, and would probably feel so guilty that I would eat the next candy bar. Because after all, they are still on the shelf.

I get the distinct impression that people who have always been a normal weight with no eating disorders do not think like this. I do not know, I am not one of them. I imagine they don’t even struggle with bags of candy sitting in their cupboards (they probably don’t have bags of candy sitting in their cupboards, for one thing). Do they (you) struggle with wanting to snack even though you know you’re not hungry? Do you count your calories so that you can have dessert? Do you feel like every single pound is a battle?

I don’t have any way of knowing if these are normal things.

Eating becomes a personal demon as much as not eating—and round and round it goes. (See? Told you it’s a circus around here). The only thing I can imagine is that for some people food just isn’t as important to them. They eat it to live, enjoy a little and move on. And for others of us it’s not quite so simple.

I have a friend whom I have never seen eat out at a restaurant. Save one. And that one restaurant I saw her eat at was Blimpie. Which is pretty much the healthiest type of place to eat out that there is. She floors me. I want to call her up and ask her to keep a food diary so I can copy it. I may do that this week, although she is pregnant and due in February I think (congrats!) so it’s probably a little different at the moment than usual.

The thing about it is the candy bars don’t even taste good to me anymore. I’ve been eating really well (read: healthy) lately and tried a candy bar a few weeks ago and it was too sweet and I didn’t even enjoy it. So I know I would just regret eating one. I need to get the damn things out of my house.

Also, I keep meaning to tell you that on my first day of school I left to grab lunch and drove by a man who looked like he may have been in the witness protection program. He looked like he was in the mafia. Walked out of a yellow ranch style house with a little white picket fence and had a chocolate poodle with him. He was wearing a polo shirt and some slippers and looking at his flowers (is this the 1950's?). But he looked like he was from New Jersey.

Abbie, for you again.