I needed chocolate.
I generally don’t keep chocolate in my house because I know when I’m having one of those need chocolate moments I will eat the chocolate, and without question too much of it. I will lose control. I hate the feeling of losing control. I don’t want to eat the chocolate because I don’t want to lose control and that’s why I don’t keep it in my house. We can talk about real authentic dark chocolate another time, but I didn’t have any of that either.
I was desperate. Desperate times call for desperate measures. I went rummaging through my teenage son’s desk. He usually has some sort of chocolate bar in there. And there it was a Reese peanut butter cup – without a doubt my favourite. The combination of chocolate and peanut butter, in my opinion, is divine. Although, this was white chocolate – not as divine, but still very tempting. He bought it in Florida. I don’t think we have white chocolate peanut butter cups in Canada. Regardless, I’m sure it would still have done the trick for my chocolate craving.
But then I stopped. If I ate this without asking him, he would notice it was gone. It was the last one he had. Would that be considered stealing if I took him from his desk? What would I tell him when he noticed it was gone? I realized that I couldn’t just take it. He wasn’t home, so I couldn’t ask him if I could have it. He for sure would have given it to me, but it would have come with a bunch of questions and comments like, “I thought you don’t want to eat chocolate”, or “You always tell us that processed sugar, along with salt and poor quality fat (all cleverly placed in a Reese peanut butter cup) are not good for us, so why are you eating it?”, or “Are you going to tell your clients that you had this?”.
So you’re probably wondering if I ate the peanut butter cup, right? I’m going to leave you hanging. You’ll have to check out part 2 of this blog series.
My point in sharing this little story with you is to illustrate how critically important it is that our environment is set up for us to succeed. In anything we choose to do. You want to get dinner on the table when it’s dinner time, then you need to have the kitchen utensils and food to do that. You want to get a good night’s sleep, then you need to make sure your bedroom is dark, the temperature is right, etc. You want to cut sugar out of diet – whether it’s for your health or weight loss or both – then you want to keep sugary treats, like chocolate out of your house. You must, must, must, set up your environment so that you have the best chance for success.
Many of us have foods that trigger us to lose control. For me chocolate is at the top of my list. This is why I try not to have chocolate in my house. What are your trigger foods? Stay tuned through this series of blog posts and we will continue to talk about how to set up your environment for success by getting rid of your trigger foods and strategies for dealing with those trigger food cravings.
On April 15, Freedom Wellness will be launching Freedom Weight Loss. Check out the details here.