Chocolate Partay!

I recently set a huge goal for myself to accomplish something I've wanted to do for a long time. And because I reached my goal (more on that later), I had a chocolate party with some friends.

If you don't know about my relationship with chocolate, you may not realize what a huge deal that is. I quit eating chocolate in June 2008, for several reasons. First, I wanted to help a friend who wanted needed to quit smoking. I told her I'd quit chocolate and she laughed, "ha ha ha, like that's possible." The second reason needs a little more explanation. I have always been a huge chocolate lover; I've never had the feeling that chocolate is unhealthy the way candy is, because it doesn't leave your mouth with that sticky, unclean feeling. And thus I ate a lot of chocolate. It became my substitute for meals. And I became a Nutella junky. I would put it on my heater til it was nice and smooth and warm and then I'd eat it with a spoon, straight from the jar. When I ate Nutella from a jar that had fallen onto the cobblestones and shattered pieces of glass into the Nutella (the glass felt like sand when I chewed it, and no, I did not cut my tongue or anything else), it seemed like my extreme use of chocolate needed to end until I could learn to control myself a little better. For me, the Word of Wisdom included my chocolate addiction.

Thus, the last year and a half has seen me using a cold-turkey approach. It's definitely easier to say "no" than to say "a little bit." I always ended up saying " a little bit more" until the chocolate's all gone. But I knew the entire time that 1. I wasn't learning any kind of self-control and 2. I still loved chocolate (I smelled Nutella whenever I saw someone's jar). It seemed like the time would have to come when I would need to learn how to live with chocolate.

So, after reaching my goal (again, more on that later), I got together with a few friends. I brought along all the chocolate I've collected over the last 1.5 years. And they told me to dig in.





But I refused to start until they helped me establish some chocolate rules. Here they are. I think I'm pretty satisfied with them:

Schokolade Regeln
1. Darf nicht Schokolade essen statt normalem Essen. Nur nach dem normalen Essen.
2. Kein eigenes Geld für Schokolade ausgeben (als Geschenk oder Nachtisch schon).
3. Belohnungsregeln: wenn, dann Schokolade
3.1. Sport/Rad fahren (statt Straßenbahn)
3.2. Tagebuch upgedatet
3.3 Zimmer aufgeräumt
4. Kein Supersize me (keine zweite/weitere Portion annehmen)

A.K.A.:

Chocolate Rules
1. I'm not allowed to eat chocolate instead of normal food. I can only eat chocolate after having had normal food.
2. No spending my own money on chocolate (I have to receive it as a gift or as dessert somewhere).
3. Reward rules: if, then . . .
3.1 exercise/ride my bike instead of the tram
3.2 updated journal
3.3 clean room
4 No Supersizing. (I'm not allowed to accept second portions.)

Then Mike, who has tried to convince me to start eating chocolate again for a long, long time, interviewed me and filmed me eating Nutella. Yum!





I actually didn't eat as much as I thought I would and so far I've stuck to the rules. I'm not going to tell people that I eat chocolate again, though. It seems like everyone else is better at limiting my chocolate intake than I am, so them not knowing just helps me (so keep it on the down low, beloved blog readers). And you knowing about my rules helps too.



Are you proud of me?