Day 13 - The End of punnishment week

The week of hell

So after seven gruelling days my punishment has come to an end, and in a way it has strengthened my willpower despite it being a massive drain on it. Last Thursday, when my punishment began, I would have thought that I would spend today doing nothing eating but biscuits and cake (chocolate free, of course) and certainly on that first night  the thought of filling my very lungs with sweet goodies got me through the shakes and the cold sweats.

But now that it's here? I could take it or leave it.

Of course I will be taking it, I've earned it after all, but I don't feel the need to  which is nice.

So instead of celebrating by raiding Krispy Kremes, I've instead decided to celebrate by starting counting my calories; I know, I'm quite the party animal.

So from tomorrow, I will be moving ahead (perhaps prematurely, but we will see) to stage 3 of my overall plan using the calorie and exercise tracking App MyFitnessPal which I've used in the past to a degree of success and is available, for free, for basically every mobile platform.

Lets see how successful it is with the added bonus of getting to bitch on a blog about how hungry I am...The joy!!

~A

Day 11 - Almost at the end of my punishment (punishment day 6)

The end nigh

Tomorrow is the last day of my punishment week, and I don't think I have ever looked forward to being able to eat a plain digestive biscuit as much as I have right now...but I am fairly confident I will be looking forward to it even more tomorrow.

Why not write this blog post tomorrow then? Because tomorrow I will be too busy dribbling in anticipation on my keyboard. 

It has been quite difficult this past week, though not nearly as difficult as the first day, and though I would like to continue on this healthier desert/snack free, diet I feel like it is putting a considerable strain on my will power which I can't afford if I'm going to avoid giving up on the whole thing in a fit of sugar-withdrawal rage.

That being said I do intend on eating less deserts/snacks but it will be nice having the power, once again, to have some to help me get through the day.

But, one thing is for sure, I am observing progress.

Slowly, but surely.

~A

Day 9 - The future (punishment day 4)

Let us see the path before we walk it

It occurs to me that this isn't something that will ever end, there is no date I have to reach where I can eat chocolate again, as far as I'm concerned this will be an ongoing mission that will continue indefinitely.

But journeys like this can, and do, seem pants-wettingly tedious and insurmountable when viewed as a whole; it makes sense to have sign posts along the way to strive for, so I know how far I've come.

This is the plan -

1. Stop wanting to eat chocolate after every meal (In progress)
2. Stop wanting to eat desert after every meal
3. Eat a calorie deficit until I am a healthy build
4. Eat an appropriate amount of daily calories to sustain that build
5. Alter meals to be balanced in all aspects, not just in terms of overall calories
6. Hand out tickets to the gun show.

Sounds simple enough, right?

Right?

~A

Day 8 - Belated update (punishment day 3)

Alive

So it has been a few days since my last update and I thought it might be worth answering the burning questions I'm sure all of you* have -

NO - I haven't spent the last 2 days locked inside a "Krispy Kremes" stuffing every available orifice and wallowing on a cloud of powdered sugar; for the record, however, this is how I'd like to exit life.

NO - I haven't had any chocolate

YES - I am still on track with my punishment, even though last night my brain convinced me that "Biscuits and tea" was an acceptable meal. Luckily, I was far too lazy to get up and make it.

The last two days have been fairly easy going as far as avoiding temptation, thanks to having more days that weren't part of my ordinary routine but i'm coming across an unhappy side effect - I'm eating more.

As I said in my last blog post the "feeling" of withdrawal in this case (and perhaps all cases) is a sense of extreme hunger and it is an extremely annoying, constant, persevering feeling that is next to impossible to ignore. So over the last few days I have found myself eating a bigger meal than I normally would have to overpower this sense of hunger pre-emptively, which isn't great but at the moment it is somewhat unavoidable whilst still retaining some semblance of sanity (or hope of resisting sweets!)

Hopefully this is just a temporary thing while my body gets over itself and stops shitting the bed every time it doesn't get what it wants, and things will be back to "normal" sooner rather than later.

Hopefully.

~A

Day 5 - The Consequences (Punishment day 1)

I'm giving her all she's got, Captain

It has been just over an hour since I last ate, and holy cock-monkeys I am already regretting this punishment deal; It's almost like I'm not meant to enjoy this.

Let me explain...

Normally, I'd have a meal and end it with a desert.

Normally, I'd have a desert that involves chocolate

Normally, That would be the end of the matter.

Having done this for more or less my entire conscious life, this habit has been engrained into me with a greater insistence than my desire to wear clean underwear or my knowledge that it isn't acceptable (but should be) to bitch-slap people who don't respond to "Hello" when greeting them. It seems, unfortunately for me, that my earlier lapse in will power has unearthed the true addiction that plagues me; Chocolate may have been a great motivator of the problem, undoubtedly, but the core problem has been "Routine" all along.

Eat a meal, eat desert

Eat a meal, eat desert

Eat a meal, eat desert

For two and a half decades. A quarter of a century. Eat a meal, eat desert.

And here I sit, now forced to break that cycle and it is genuinely incredibly uncomfortable.

Don't get me wrong, I have had to resist eating chocolate (and I've been known to eat it after the point I've stopped wanting it), but because I have been "Allowed" to replace it with a non-chocolate desert, the withdrawal has been minimal, manageable, minor. The real habit remained intact, unaltered and satisfied - Eat a meal, eat desert.

With that luxury gone, I am really, truly, feeling it.

And if there is something I wish to communicate to you, dear reader, it is this - This. Fucking. Sucks.

The thing I'm doing (Breaking a, realistically, small part of my daily routine and depriving myself of a luxury, not a necessity) may be trivial but it's effects are most certainly not. As I mentioned at the start, it has been over an hour since I last ate a full meal and I still feel hungry. Everyone knows hunger pains; An unignorable ache in your stomach, a great yearning in the back of your throat that almost reaches up and tries to wrestle your mind into submission. But that's only the start, that kind of pain is felt and your conscious mind agrees with this need to feed; Imagine if you were to throw resistance into the mix, like I am now? Let's also throw in the fact that there is desert in the house and within 30 seconds I could be eating any number of nice things.

I'm resisting against a powerfully evolved survival instinct that my brain knows I could satisfy easily if I gave up control and it is doing everything it can to make me do that

- My stomach feels empty (it is not empty)

- I *feel* like I haven't eaten today

- My brain is bargaining with my conscious self, telling me to simply eat a biscuit and not tell anyone, that one biscuit won't effect anything, that I won't feel right until I do.

- On top of that my brain is almost noticeably trying to subvert the "Me" part of my mind. It is a uniquely unnerving experience realising that your brain merely lets you borrow the reins occasionally, but can (and will) snatch them off you at will, whenever it chooses.

Again - This is a trivial change to my routines, but this is not nice.

Withdrawal really sucks

(and I wrote a long post because It is actually helping me control my willpower)

~A

Day 5 - LAPSE (punnishment day 1)

It was inevitable, despite being clearly evitable

OKAY so I did the thing which I wasn't supposed to do, and It's the only thing i'm trying to do but today (largely thanks to having a shitty day at work and unable to get on this blog) I had one of those new Mississippi Mud Pie McFlurry's.

And it was delicious.

But it wasn't worth it.

So, as a punishment (as this personal project is utterly meaningless without consequences for failure) I'm going back to the gold standard, parents favourite, "No pudding for you" punishment that i'm sure everyone knows and loves like a small piece of glass in the urethra. For at least 7 days.

So expect to see considerably more blog posts from me over the next week as I have more work (ramping up to the Christmas rush which will, naturally, be a steaming bag of poop), I'm injured (Yay!) and I have an interview on Wednesday which will be stressful...which will all compound my desire for something nice.

I sure hope I don't fail this time, I'm not sure what the consequences will be

~A

Day 3 - Shopping

Hell's Aisles

I don't go shopping that often, but when I do there is normally one thing that is always on my shopping list; can you guess what it is? That's right - Toilet Paper.

Also Chocolate.

So today marked the first time I'd visited a shop, with money, with a hunger in my belly and I had to walk down the very long biscuit/cake/sweet aisle without picking up my favourite things. Only now, looking back, do I realise how much there is! Barely a week ago I may have wept tears of joy at the vision of chocolatey goodness that stretched on as far as the eye could see, but today it was like swimming butterfly through the river styx; Difficult, floundering and likely an experience that would have been amusing to anyone watching.

And though I did pick up, and purchase biscuits and cake, None of them have any chocolate on them and that is very much the point.

Some day in the not-too-distant-future I will be writing a blog about giving up sweets all together, and eating fruit or some similar, depressing shit, but today my battle is with chocolate...

I am winning.

~A

Day 2, the first test

I'm afraid I can't let you do that, Adam

Day 1 went off without a problem, but I owe that mostly to the fact that I had plenty to inherently stop me eating chocolate yesterday; I had work and then spent the evening hanging out with a friend, I didn't really have the opportunity to eat chocolate.

But now day 2 has arrived and I most certainly do have the opportunity, I just ate my lunch (before a 12 hour overnight shift...yay...) and I would normally go grab a handful of kitkat's or penguin bars to satiate my need for desert...Instead here I am, writing this far-from-satisfying blog post. Is it helping? Well, I'm not eating chocolate, so for the moment it is certainly having an effect.

It was weird, however, how quickly your sub-conscious can turn from a silent observer into an evil, controlling force that is nearly impossible to naturally resist. At first I was moments away from getting out of my chair to go get my goodies, not realising that my brain had whispered sweet temptations in my ear and I was already listening happily

"Start Tomorrow" It said.

"You have a long shift ahead of you, why suffer now?" It purred, very convincingly.

Thankfully, however, I managed to tell myself to, instead, write this blog post. And though I still want some FUCKING CHOCOLATE AHHHHHHHHHHHHH It is getting in the way of me getting some, and it's reminding me not to give in.

Which is nice of it.

Now to go back to watching Star Trek (TNG, go team Piccard) before my shift starts, and Hopefully you won't hear from me again until tomorrow. Hopefully.

~A

I'd rather be eating Chocolate

So it begins.

Today marks the beginning of my 5th attempt to stop eating chocolate, and since my other attempts failed miserably (Not that I was miserable with 5 Mars Bars in my mouth) I've decided on a more novel approach to kicking the habit; I'm going to bother the internet about it.

Anyway I'm getting ahead of myself

Hi! My name is Adam and this is my blog.

The idea behind this blog is simple - whenever I have a desire to eat chocolate (Which is as often as it is relentless) I am going to write a blog post in order to distract my withdrawal-addled brain; I might write about what it feels like, or how it's affecting me, or just any random opinion I have about anything. But what needs to be remembered is that each post will be motivated by hunger and frustration which I will likely communicate through a series of angry expletives such as "Fuck" or "Cuntdanglers" aimed at whatever is nearest to me at the time.

But lets get something straight - I am not eating 20kg of chocolate a day, I do eat other foods, I am not that hambeast featured on Freaky Eaters who wretches at any food that isn't cheesy potatoes. I just have no willpower and more traditional "Just stop eating fucking chocolate" methods of not eating chocolate have not worked very well.

With all that said, my aim is to stop eating chocolate as a desert (though I'm not giving up my Nesquik cereal, fuck you) or a snack.

I probably won't post with any consistency, just whenever I need to

Lets see how it goes.

Day 1!


~A