The best-laid plans of a failed chartered accountant never run smooth. I had expected this to rapidly become one long whinge about all of the chocolate I hadn't eaten, and all of the surprisingly embarassing things that I had actually eaten instead. Yet nearly three days into Lent I've written nothing at all.
This isn't because I've deliberately given up blogging. It isn't because I ate three Mars bars for breakfast on Ash Wednesday and am hiding in shame until I can think of something funny to say about it; I actually had a pear, a yogurt and a handful of sultanas. It isn't even because I've fallen out with the charming BT call centre somewhere in India which always cuts me off after failing to understand anything I've said, which is what usually happens when my broadband connection dies.
No. My body responded to the lack of chocolate by shutting down. Admittedly, I hadn't been feeling 100% for the past week or so - so I even made sure that I kept my sugar intake up by eating some rather odd Skittles Sours in the University of London Library on Wednesday morning (there was someone else sitting there eating something out of a lunchbox with a fork, so I'm thinking the 'no eating and drinking' thing is largely symbolic), and having two Appletizers in the pub on Wednesday evening. However, while still in the pub, my head started to hurt. Taking paracetamol seemed to do nothing for it, and when we left the pub (in theory to go and get some food) my eye-sockets started to hurt with every step I took. So I skipped dinner, and went home, figuring that an early night would undoubtedly 'fix' whatever it was that seemed to be holding my head in a vice and doing strange things to my eyeballs.
After a night during which I didn't sleep because it hurt too much - even though I couldn't even open my eyes without it hurting more - and during which I kept trying to move my head into a position which hurt less, only to find myself shaking uncontrollably every time I moved, I was a bit less sanguine about the whole thing. In fact, I was about 50% convinced I was dying, and panicking because my husband and I hadn't sorted out our wills. I even got the husband to Google symptoms of meningitis before I sent him out on a drug hunt yesterday morning (I was mostly reassured by the conclusion, and have since resisted the temptation to Google it myself to see if he actually got the right answer).
I managed about two hours out of bed yesterday, with the assistance of the type of neurofen which has codeine in it (it took about an hour and half to kick in, and only worked for about an hour or so - but at least it did sort of take the edge off things). By the end of the day I was no better than I had been at the beginning of it, and I was becoming even more convinced that I was dying - to the extent that I was even contemplating an interaction with the medical profession.
Thankfully, I fell asleep sometime around midnight, and when I woke up at about half past five this morning my temperature had gone back to normal. I still had to keep my eyes shut when it got light - although that has gradually got better in the course of the day, and I even made it as far as Waitrose in Fulham this afternoon (and got some Malted Milk biscuits, which tasted weird and sugary - but that might just be because they are). So chocolate hasn't really been a big issue yet. Hopefully I have that battle still to come.
27 February 2009
24 February 2009
The Rules
It has occurred to me, rather belatedly, that I ought to work out what giving up chocolate means, given that I'm guessing that I've already done it. The husband made pancakes with chocolate sauce for pudding this evening: the sauce was a bit odd, so I actually passed and just had lemon and ice cream with the second pancake. There is (to my knowledge) no more chocolate in the flat, and I've known him long enough to know that the husband won't have thought to buy something for me to eat just before midnight, so I've given up chocolate several hours before I meant to.
Giving up chocolate has to mean not actually eating chocolate, or anything with chocolate in it. In order to avoid silly distinctions, I'm guessing that it has to mean nothing chocolate-flavoured either.
My husband's family tend to regard 'giving up chocolate' as shorthand for giving up all sweets, biscuits, cakes and desserts, and also not eating between meals. This is clearly silly, and would almost certainly result in multiple fatalities one way or another - which I think the husband accepts, as he was trying to persuade me not to give up anything at all a couple of nights ago. So I think I'm just going to give up anything containing or tasting of chocolate, and review the position in a week or two to see whether I've actually managed to improve my eating habits or just swapped a chocolate habit for wine gums or soft mints.
The husband actually believes that you get Sundays off during Lent - but then he does church stuff, and I don't. So this is it, until Easter.
I guess the problem is that chocolate isn't really the problem. I want giving the stuff up suddenly to make me into the kind of person who has a shiny, tidy, fabulous life. I'm not sure if accepting that it won't before I have even started is realism or defeatist.
Giving up chocolate has to mean not actually eating chocolate, or anything with chocolate in it. In order to avoid silly distinctions, I'm guessing that it has to mean nothing chocolate-flavoured either.
My husband's family tend to regard 'giving up chocolate' as shorthand for giving up all sweets, biscuits, cakes and desserts, and also not eating between meals. This is clearly silly, and would almost certainly result in multiple fatalities one way or another - which I think the husband accepts, as he was trying to persuade me not to give up anything at all a couple of nights ago. So I think I'm just going to give up anything containing or tasting of chocolate, and review the position in a week or two to see whether I've actually managed to improve my eating habits or just swapped a chocolate habit for wine gums or soft mints.
The husband actually believes that you get Sundays off during Lent - but then he does church stuff, and I don't. So this is it, until Easter.
I guess the problem is that chocolate isn't really the problem. I want giving the stuff up suddenly to make me into the kind of person who has a shiny, tidy, fabulous life. I'm not sure if accepting that it won't before I have even started is realism or defeatist.
21 February 2009
Upping the Calorie Count
I've just eaten my last batch of pre-Lenten cookies: every time I eat something involving chocolate at the moment it's as if I'm self-administering the last rites by instalments. Has to be said that it neither makes it taste any better, nor makes me feel any better about it - and it doesn't seem to make me less inclined to eat it either.
Cookies have been one of my great comforts of the past year or so. It's partly Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's fault, as it's one of his recipes that I have been using. I have to say that he's not generally my kind of cook - if you find yourself being subjected to the consequences of weird butchery in the wilds of Chiswick, he's almost always to blame - but his cookie recipe is spot on. It makes the kind of cookies which are chewy without being more than a little bit crisp or ever so slightly spongey. I've tried it enough times to know that it works better with 'proper' dark chocolate than it does with anything more anaemic. I've even tried it enough times to know that I prefer it with Green & Black 70% to most other brands (although the Tesco finest 72ish% works OK if I'm feeling poor), and that it chops into about the right size chunks if you chop the little squares into 4, and that it chops most easily in winter weather if it has been in the cupboard near (but not next to) the hot water pipe for a day or two. If I'm using a medium rather than a large egg, I reduce the rest of the ingredients by about 10%. And it doesn't seem to matter much what kind of sugar you use.
I didn't grow up with cookies, although there was plenty of home baking around. Cookies have the attraction of being exotic. I remember very clearly the first time I ate proper home-made chocolate chip cookies: the fact that they remind me of a particular boy at a particular time certainly does nothing to put me off them.
But they also have the advantage of making up into relatively small batches. I have the same problem with cakes and biscuits as I have with chocolate: if they are there, I eat them. The cookie recipe makes about a dozen. Eating a dozen cookies is bad, but nowhere near as catastrophic as eating an entire tray of brownies or a whole, large carrot cake. I just concentrate on not thinking about the fact that making a bar of chocolate into cookies miraculously converts about 550 calories into something more like 4,000.
If I actually manage to do this (the giving up), I intend to spend Easter Sunday morning making cookies.
Cookies have been one of my great comforts of the past year or so. It's partly Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall's fault, as it's one of his recipes that I have been using. I have to say that he's not generally my kind of cook - if you find yourself being subjected to the consequences of weird butchery in the wilds of Chiswick, he's almost always to blame - but his cookie recipe is spot on. It makes the kind of cookies which are chewy without being more than a little bit crisp or ever so slightly spongey. I've tried it enough times to know that it works better with 'proper' dark chocolate than it does with anything more anaemic. I've even tried it enough times to know that I prefer it with Green & Black 70% to most other brands (although the Tesco finest 72ish% works OK if I'm feeling poor), and that it chops into about the right size chunks if you chop the little squares into 4, and that it chops most easily in winter weather if it has been in the cupboard near (but not next to) the hot water pipe for a day or two. If I'm using a medium rather than a large egg, I reduce the rest of the ingredients by about 10%. And it doesn't seem to matter much what kind of sugar you use.
I didn't grow up with cookies, although there was plenty of home baking around. Cookies have the attraction of being exotic. I remember very clearly the first time I ate proper home-made chocolate chip cookies: the fact that they remind me of a particular boy at a particular time certainly does nothing to put me off them.
But they also have the advantage of making up into relatively small batches. I have the same problem with cakes and biscuits as I have with chocolate: if they are there, I eat them. The cookie recipe makes about a dozen. Eating a dozen cookies is bad, but nowhere near as catastrophic as eating an entire tray of brownies or a whole, large carrot cake. I just concentrate on not thinking about the fact that making a bar of chocolate into cookies miraculously converts about 550 calories into something more like 4,000.
If I actually manage to do this (the giving up), I intend to spend Easter Sunday morning making cookies.
17 February 2009
He loves me?
The thought of Lent is currently a bit of a challenge. There is enough chocolate sloshing around in the flat that it's possible I will be found one morning suffocated by a tidal wave of annoyingly dark chocolate (I prefer milk). But I have absolutely no idea how I would manage to get through a day - deliberately - without it.
Admittedly, not all of the current excess is the result of Valentine's day. I had agreed with the husband that we would only exchange token presents - and that for his side of the deal he would give me a small amount of chocolate. I've learnt that it works best if I make my expectations clear (I once got an academic treatise on Medieval Heresy as a birthday present, apparently because I had enjoyed reading The Name of the Rose); although it turns out that this was actually nowhere near clear enough. I had somewhere between hoped for and expected a box of red Lindor. It turns out that was actually what the husband had intended to get, but he had planned to buy it in the supermarket on the morning of Valentine's day when he went there to get the newspapers. When they didn't have any, he panicked (it seems that he was only aware of a single shop in Fulham. I have no idea what he thought he drove past to get there). In his distressed state he saw a box of After Eight Mints - which he knows I like - but he then realised that they actually don't cost very much. Then he noticed that Green & Blacks were 3 for the price of 2, and I ended up with a box of After Eights and 3 bars of Green & Blacks as a Valentines present.
We have since had the 'small means size, not price, if we are talking about chocolate' discussion. And I've eaten most of it anyway, only for a German friend of mine to present me with four bars of orange chocolate as a very kindly meant semi-joke at lunchtime today.
The best Valentine's present I've ever had was a semi-obscene amount of chocolate. It was a big plush, red box of Godiva praline hearts; and it felt like I had finally arrived in the land of adult romance. I think I even vaguely assumed that every following Valentines day would be equally appropriately marked. The contents didn't last long, but I kept the box for several years and kept sewing thread in it. And I suspect that there is no way on earth to explain to my husband why that was OK, but 600g of Green & Blacks and After Eights really isn't.
Admittedly, not all of the current excess is the result of Valentine's day. I had agreed with the husband that we would only exchange token presents - and that for his side of the deal he would give me a small amount of chocolate. I've learnt that it works best if I make my expectations clear (I once got an academic treatise on Medieval Heresy as a birthday present, apparently because I had enjoyed reading The Name of the Rose); although it turns out that this was actually nowhere near clear enough. I had somewhere between hoped for and expected a box of red Lindor. It turns out that was actually what the husband had intended to get, but he had planned to buy it in the supermarket on the morning of Valentine's day when he went there to get the newspapers. When they didn't have any, he panicked (it seems that he was only aware of a single shop in Fulham. I have no idea what he thought he drove past to get there). In his distressed state he saw a box of After Eight Mints - which he knows I like - but he then realised that they actually don't cost very much. Then he noticed that Green & Blacks were 3 for the price of 2, and I ended up with a box of After Eights and 3 bars of Green & Blacks as a Valentines present.
We have since had the 'small means size, not price, if we are talking about chocolate' discussion. And I've eaten most of it anyway, only for a German friend of mine to present me with four bars of orange chocolate as a very kindly meant semi-joke at lunchtime today.
The best Valentine's present I've ever had was a semi-obscene amount of chocolate. It was a big plush, red box of Godiva praline hearts; and it felt like I had finally arrived in the land of adult romance. I think I even vaguely assumed that every following Valentines day would be equally appropriately marked. The contents didn't last long, but I kept the box for several years and kept sewing thread in it. And I suspect that there is no way on earth to explain to my husband why that was OK, but 600g of Green & Blacks and After Eights really isn't.
14 February 2009
Don't Try This at Home
I had intended to follow up on the last post by going and finding out what Alcoholics Anonymous actually did (beyond telling people never to touch alcohol ever again - other than presumably in the format of nail polish remover, and then only for external use - and also encouraging them to spend time on a regular basis with other former alcoholics, which has always seemed a bit odd), but life rather got in the way.
In fact, life very kindly got me drunk. I very rarely get drunk these days, but several of my former bosses had kindly organised a leaving dinner for me -presumably in order to make their consciences glow more easily at having allowed someone else in the pointlessly labyrinthine management structure to fire me in the first place - and by the time it ended I was having to concentrate quite hard to work out which way was vertical, and how to stop words running into one another. It is arguable that I wasn't quite drunk enough, as when a fabulously polymath American, who is nearing retirement age, tried to teach me how to do the proper Wizard of Oz skip (on the Strand, near Charing Cross, at about 10.30 on Monday evening) I actually managed to decline. But I was still a very long way from anything even remotely resembling sober.
The following day, I didn't feel great. I actually hadn't been feeling great the day before either, but had put that down to nerves. The following day I put it down to the amount I had drunk, and forced myself to carry on and have another (non-alcoholic) blow-out meal with a friend in the evening. The day after that I felt queasy at the thought of anything other than water, and ended up spending the afternoon in bed after coming out in a weird rash on the way back from having my hair cut.
I also ate no chocolate, at all, all day.
Sadly, this was a one-off. On Thursday I began my Valentine's day preparations by eating the Bourneville which I didn't need for the millionaire's shortbread which the husband had asked for (it sounds worse once you know that the excess was 75g - a bar and a half and a bit in non-fatty terms). But I did it. I went a whole day without chocolate. I just have no idea what exact combination of circumstance I need to reproduce in order to make sure it happens again - and would rather not feel sick or come out in spots in the process.
In fact, life very kindly got me drunk. I very rarely get drunk these days, but several of my former bosses had kindly organised a leaving dinner for me -presumably in order to make their consciences glow more easily at having allowed someone else in the pointlessly labyrinthine management structure to fire me in the first place - and by the time it ended I was having to concentrate quite hard to work out which way was vertical, and how to stop words running into one another. It is arguable that I wasn't quite drunk enough, as when a fabulously polymath American, who is nearing retirement age, tried to teach me how to do the proper Wizard of Oz skip (on the Strand, near Charing Cross, at about 10.30 on Monday evening) I actually managed to decline. But I was still a very long way from anything even remotely resembling sober.
The following day, I didn't feel great. I actually hadn't been feeling great the day before either, but had put that down to nerves. The following day I put it down to the amount I had drunk, and forced myself to carry on and have another (non-alcoholic) blow-out meal with a friend in the evening. The day after that I felt queasy at the thought of anything other than water, and ended up spending the afternoon in bed after coming out in a weird rash on the way back from having my hair cut.
I also ate no chocolate, at all, all day.
Sadly, this was a one-off. On Thursday I began my Valentine's day preparations by eating the Bourneville which I didn't need for the millionaire's shortbread which the husband had asked for (it sounds worse once you know that the excess was 75g - a bar and a half and a bit in non-fatty terms). But I did it. I went a whole day without chocolate. I just have no idea what exact combination of circumstance I need to reproduce in order to make sure it happens again - and would rather not feel sick or come out in spots in the process.
8 February 2009
Resisting Temptation
I spent yesterday evening trying not to eat a KitKat.
I'm actually not a great fan of KitKats, or of Rolos come to that, but they are the current temptation just because they were both £1 for a pack of 5 in our local Tesco last Friday (20p for a packet of Rolos actually feels about right to me, although that probably just proves that my sense of proportion was fixed in around about 1983). In an ideal world, I would be resisting Godiva praline hearts, Lindor truffles and Montezuma's milk chocolate with mint and vanilla; but they were not sitting in the Disney sweet jar in the kitchen which one of my brothers gave me for my birthday about fifteen years ago. The KitKat was, along with a couple of packets of Rolos and three more KitKats.
I'd already had a KitKat early yesterday afternoon. I'd also had a packet of Rolos on my way to the tube station shortly after nine in the morning (I'll scoot quickly over the taboo nature of chocolate for breakfast for the moment, although I may return to it when I can't think of anything else to write about). Normally I would regard three chocolate 'items' in a day as bad but not unacceptable, but yesterday I decided I would limit myself to two. The result was a very miserable, listless evening, where I didn't settle to anything at all, drank alcohol (dessert wine, as that way I got a sugar fix), ate toast, and eventually gave up and went to bed.
I eventually ate the KitKat at about eleven this morning, followed by another packet of Rolos after lunch. I'm now back to battling myself over another packet of Rolos. At one level I regard chocolate addiction as a bit of a joke, but I'm not finding even cutting down very funny.
Do Alcoholics Anonymous do chocolate?
I'm actually not a great fan of KitKats, or of Rolos come to that, but they are the current temptation just because they were both £1 for a pack of 5 in our local Tesco last Friday (20p for a packet of Rolos actually feels about right to me, although that probably just proves that my sense of proportion was fixed in around about 1983). In an ideal world, I would be resisting Godiva praline hearts, Lindor truffles and Montezuma's milk chocolate with mint and vanilla; but they were not sitting in the Disney sweet jar in the kitchen which one of my brothers gave me for my birthday about fifteen years ago. The KitKat was, along with a couple of packets of Rolos and three more KitKats.
I'd already had a KitKat early yesterday afternoon. I'd also had a packet of Rolos on my way to the tube station shortly after nine in the morning (I'll scoot quickly over the taboo nature of chocolate for breakfast for the moment, although I may return to it when I can't think of anything else to write about). Normally I would regard three chocolate 'items' in a day as bad but not unacceptable, but yesterday I decided I would limit myself to two. The result was a very miserable, listless evening, where I didn't settle to anything at all, drank alcohol (dessert wine, as that way I got a sugar fix), ate toast, and eventually gave up and went to bed.
I eventually ate the KitKat at about eleven this morning, followed by another packet of Rolos after lunch. I'm now back to battling myself over another packet of Rolos. At one level I regard chocolate addiction as a bit of a joke, but I'm not finding even cutting down very funny.
Do Alcoholics Anonymous do chocolate?
6 February 2009
The Chocolate Blog
My name is Fiona* and I am a chocolate addict.
Yesterday I ate 3 bars of Galaxy. They were only normal-sized bars, so it’s not the worst day I’ve ever had, but my lack of self-control is gnawing away at my conscience – especially as I had another one for breakfast this morning. Normally I would aim for more variety in my diet, but I’m missing the chocolate machine which used to prop me up in the days when I used to have a job. For reasons I can’t quite explain, a bag of peanut M&M’s, a bar of Dairy Milk and a Galaxy Caramel never felt quite as bad as three of the same thing. Now it’s a question of what’s on special offer at the supermarket. That means buying several days supply at the same time – which means multi-pack monotony, and doesn’t work at all because I tend to eat it all almost immediately.
It is also doing very bad things for my waistline. I actually don’t really have a waistline any more, just a wobbly bit which my jeans cut into.
So I decided to do something about it. Not actually stop eating it, you understand: if I did that, I’d probably just eat something else instead. I’m toying with the idea of trying to give chocolate up for Lent, but Lent is probably too soon (anybody know where January went?), and too long. So I decided to try writing about it for a bit, to see if that would help shame me into action. Admittedly, in order for that to work I need to find ways of actually getting people to read this, but that can be tomorrow’s problem.
*Actually, it isn’t; but I might want to be rude about my husband.
Yesterday I ate 3 bars of Galaxy. They were only normal-sized bars, so it’s not the worst day I’ve ever had, but my lack of self-control is gnawing away at my conscience – especially as I had another one for breakfast this morning. Normally I would aim for more variety in my diet, but I’m missing the chocolate machine which used to prop me up in the days when I used to have a job. For reasons I can’t quite explain, a bag of peanut M&M’s, a bar of Dairy Milk and a Galaxy Caramel never felt quite as bad as three of the same thing. Now it’s a question of what’s on special offer at the supermarket. That means buying several days supply at the same time – which means multi-pack monotony, and doesn’t work at all because I tend to eat it all almost immediately.
It is also doing very bad things for my waistline. I actually don’t really have a waistline any more, just a wobbly bit which my jeans cut into.
So I decided to do something about it. Not actually stop eating it, you understand: if I did that, I’d probably just eat something else instead. I’m toying with the idea of trying to give chocolate up for Lent, but Lent is probably too soon (anybody know where January went?), and too long. So I decided to try writing about it for a bit, to see if that would help shame me into action. Admittedly, in order for that to work I need to find ways of actually getting people to read this, but that can be tomorrow’s problem.
*Actually, it isn’t; but I might want to be rude about my husband.
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