Giving up chocolate. Day One.

I have decided to try and give up chocolate.  Not forever, but just to see...  According to my allergist I am allergic to chocolate.  I believe it was a 2+ on a 4 (with pluses, don't ask me what that's about) point scale.  Chocolate and strawberries.  The only side effects from the chocolate that I have ever noticed was that drinking a mug of hot chocolate makes me nauseous.  It's still good so I still do it every now and again, but generally the stomach ache that follows is enough to deter me for several weeks or more afterwards
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  So...as many of you know I have been suffering from various levels of excema for the past five years.  This sprang out of nowhere and has yet to be "cured."  I have been told I need to identify the trigger(s) and stay away from it(them) and then I won't have this problem.  Unfortunately I am allergic to everything on God's green earth so discovering said triggers is near to impossible.  Now on to my chocolate dilemma.  Yesterday, after eating 4 brownies, I was lying in bed arguing with my insides about where they needed to be at the moment (namely, in side) when I thought maybe chocolate is the culprit.  Now bear with me...I have noticed a very substantial increase in my chocolate intake in the past 4.5 years.  Granted this was after my excema started, but it can't be helping it right?  Ever since I was in the hospital with Isabelle and a friend of mine brought me the best chocolate chip cookies in the world, I have craved chocolate like nobody's business.  I have made cookies, cakes, cupcakes, brownies, sundaes...I buy granola bars with chocolate chips, fiber bars with chocolate drizzel, even the Special K chocolate cereal.  There have been times when I have felt the need for chocolate and just inhaling the scent has calmed me considerably.  So, what I'm trying to say is; for someone who is supposedly allergic to it I seem to be consuming an awful lot....and I am constantly breaking out in itchy patches...  So I have decided to conduct an experiment.   Two weeks without chocolate and we'll see what happens.  Maybe nothing.  Maybe I'll lose a few pounds.  Maybe my skin will clear up.  Maybe I'll plan a field trip to Hershey, Pennsylvania and initiate a hostile takeover.  We'll see. 

Day One:
   Didn't go so well.  It all started when my two year old came into my room carrying the box of chocolate covered Eclairs left over from our party Saturday (yes partygoers, I bought them and forgot to bring them out.  Sorry.)   He wanted one.  I was half...well 3/4 of the way asleep and willfully opened the box for him (you know being the kind, observant and health conscious mother that I am).  He took one and went on his way.  I looked at the box.  Briefly considered my vow of the night before and then just as quickly dismissed it as I took one out and ate it right there in bed.  I then thoughtfully took the box back into the kitchen so as not to tempt myself further....and upon placing it in the fridge snagged the 1/4 eclair on the shelf that Isabelle had 'saved' (no I'm not a jerk, she didn't like it).   After getting more sleep I quickly disavowed any knowledge of the mornings eclairs and decided to start the day anew....

     Last night we made brownies for our new neighbors.  We planned to bring them over a plateful to show that we were nice and that they were welcome, yadda, yadda, yadda.  Anyway, they weren't home.  So the plate was sitting on top of our refridgerator covered in plastic wrap waiting to go.  On the counter were some of the hard corner pieces I didn't want to include in the gift plate.  I ignored them.  I ignored them for two hours.  Then I ate one corner.  That was it, just one corner.   Later, (but not much later, let's be honest) they were sitting on top of the microwave and I had to warm something up...I think...or maybe I was getting something out of the cupboard, but  I looked and looked at them and I thought:  "I should give those to the kids so that I won't eat them....James would like it...Isabelle won't eat it....James didn't eat his last night either....I don't need them...well if I eat them now, they won't be there to tempt me later."  So I unwrapped them and ate them while I hid around the corner so the kids wouldn't see.  Sigh.  So one eclair and two brownies later....

Fast forward to late afternoon.  Isabelle is in school, James is sleeping, Henry is playing on the floor and I'm thinking about the brownies on the fridge.  I'm thinking that I should run over to the neighbors and drop them off.  A quick glance out the window shows a car in the driveway.  But that doesn't mean they're home...I"m pretty sure they have two or three cars....  Besides, if they were home, she'd want to talk and I couldn't leave my kids alone in the house that long could I?  No of course not!  I take down the plate and look at it.  I imagine that if I rearrange them a little bit, no one would know if I ate just one.  So I did.  It was delicious. 

   Night time.  We've had dinner, I've worked my butt off at the gym (or not considering the sweets I've eaten already today), the older two are in bed.  It's just Patrick, Henry and I.  I really want something sweet...I say something to the effect of;  "you know, maybe we should just make the neighbors a new batch of brownies.  I don't want to give them old stale ones."  Patrick readily agrees, even going so far as to say that he was thinking something similar himself (in his case I'm sure he was being quite serious with no underlying motives at all.  He's just that way).  Now this sounds innocent enough, but I happen to know for a fact at this point that the brownies are not going stale, they are in reality getting chewier and richer with each passing moment they spend on the fridge.  But the decision has been made; they must be eaten.  I quickly eat one before we get any further into the conversation.  Patrick mentions; "I thought you were giving up chocolate." To which I reply, "shove it Patrick, and pass the plate!"  Just kidding.  I calmly say, "yeah well..." and mumble something as I fade into the distance.  Patrick looks at me funny as people don't actually fade into the distance whilst standing there talking to you.  Anyway, I eat two before we've even sat down.  I grab another in the pretext of giving some to Henry.  I do share, but most of it is for me.  I eat one more as we watch our show (Torchwood...give it a try!) before my stomach starts to catch up with me.  "Kiera," it says.  "What are you doing?  Don't you remember our little issue with chocolate?"  To which I reply, "but I can easily eat 7 or more of  my  brownies!  It's just this box mix that's screwing us up!  Here let me prove it!" and I shove another one in.  But my stomach's arguments finally win out and I stop eating brownies. 
  
About fifteen minutes later my stomach really makes it's complaints known and now I sit here wondering what in the world is wrong with me that I can eat so much crap knowing it disagrees with me.  Not only the allergy thing, but that I have also been going to the gym religiously since February trying to lose weight and not succeeding to the degree I think I should probably because of this very thing.  Again I thought; well if I eat them all...or enough that Patrick can take the rest to work anyway, then they won't be here for me to want.  This would only work however if I didn't know how to cook.  But I do.  So most often the pattern at this point would be for two days from now (or even tomorrow if the mood strikes), we will be sitting down to watch our show and one of us will say; "I want something yummy..." and out will pop the mixing bowls and pans and another batch of [brownies][cookies][cake][s'mores bars (which are DELICIOUS btw)], etc... will appear.  As of tonight though the remaining four brownies and three eclairs are going to work with Patrick.  So I should be able to start with a clean slate tomorrow.  I thought maybe if I chronicled my journey on here it would help.  Unfortunately, I am now set back a day before I even begin.  So tomorrow will be Day Two (One).  Stay tuned.