Heroic struggle for absolute victory.
Not 20 minutes after I posted yesterday's entry, I found myself standing in the pantry, ravishing the chocolate. Repeatedly.
I had trouble falling asleep last night, and even greater trouble waking up this morning. I spent most of the day avoiding the chocolate's allure, but after dinner, I thought I'd take a little nip, just a taste of the dark chocolate, and ended up eating until my belly aches.
Mark Sisson says dark chocolate is OK; he even lists it first among sensible vices. But I cannot be trusted to be in the vicinity of chocolate. I need a restraining order.
Willpower never used to be a problem for me. I could keep a large box of scrumptious dark chocolate truffles in the house and limit myself to just one per day. Sometimes I even forgot about them! I recently read an article that suggested that willpower is a finite resource. We have only so much of it available each day, and once we use it up, that's it. I don't quite believe it is that simple, but I do agree that stress and daily demands tend to wear down even the best of intentions.
I had hoped to nail down my new diet this month, and turn my focus to other aspects in February, but I can see that I'm not ready to "coast" on this diet yet. I lost eight pounds in the first three weeks of the diet. Since I discovered the chocolate (two days ago), I've gained two back. This isn't really a big deal, but it illustrates how a small setback (the baby pound cakes) easily turns into a delicious downward spiral into sugar addiction.
So, rubbing my aching belly, I mustered tremendous fortitude and threw out the chocolate. Gasp! Knowing the depravity I am capable of when in the desperate throes of sugar craving, I knew it wasn't safe just to gingerly place the chocolate in the trash can. No, I mixed it in with the cat litter and marched it down the hallway to the trash chute. It was the only way I could save myself.