On 31 December 2020, I asked myself ‘what’s one thing, that if you did it for 365 days, would make the biggest difference in your life?’
Giving up chocolate.
Was the answer.
Hmmm that’s interesting and sure, that would make a big difference, but what else?
Blank
Nothing
Really?
Ok, I could give up chocolate. It’s just 365 days right and I can do that.
Right, let’s do it.
First job – finish all the chocolate in the house, well my chocolate the rest can stay for everyone else.
Second, don’t tell anyone because you need to focus and if you tell anyone else they’ll ask you lots of questions and all you’ll be doing is talking about chocolate so of course you’ll want to eat it and you’ll have to eat it, so don’t tell anyone.
But start up a blog, off any platform you’re currently on and start sharing your journey there – but only for you, because you’re not telling anyone.
Ok we’re ready to go.
Oh and just so you know, and everyone knows, this isn’t a New Years Resolution because we absolutely don’t do those. This is an intention for the year and we’ll figure out what to do at the end – like do I eat chocolate again or not?
Plus, let’s just clarify what chocolate is. It’s a block or bar of chocolate. It’s Cadbury Roast Almond Family Block that I could win the Olympics by eating in about 3.5 seconds. It’s Cadbury Hazelnut Family Block, it’s Cadbury Hazelnut bar, it’s Lindt Dark Chocolate, it’s Pana Organic Chocolate, it’s a freddo frog, a caramello koala – basically stand in the chocolate isle at your local supermarket and it’s everything you can see.
But what isn’t it. It’s not a choc-chip cookie, or chocolate fudge ice cream or mint chip ice cream or white chocolate and macadamia Byron Bay Cookies, a hot chocolate, a chocolate brownie…you see the holes right and the rabbit warrens I’ve been going down.
I woke up on 1 January, excited and ready to get into it. I didn’t miss it that day, even when Chris offered me chocolate that night ‘no thanks’ and I wrote my blog.
Day 2 was pretty good too, things got a bit ‘harder’ by day 3, and then by the weekend, which was day 8, I could have some ice cream and I did.
Ice cream has become my new friend and by June, six months in, I’m now looking at it as my new frontier, my new thing to let go of and this time – not replace.
It was funny, because I’d find myself down the cookie isle, which I never go down unless I have to get savoury crackers or coffee and almond milk for Chris. Or in the health food isle looking for something ‘healthy’ when let’s be honest there isn’t a lot of healthy food there and what I picked tasted like cardboard so I would throw it out.
This can be what happens when you take something out of your diet and don’t replace it with something else or don’t manage your mind when the craving comes up.
Perhaps managing the ongoing chocolate craving was enough to manage at the time, but now I’m ready to manage the new challenge – on top of the chocolate challenge.
I’m not a person who likes to put rules around food either, and I’ve definitely put a rule around chocolate because it’s not creating the health that I want. So when I was talking to Chris about this the other night I said, I just want to take ice cream out of my ‘sitting on the couch and eating ice cream’ habit. If we’re out or if we have people over for dinner and we have dessert then ice cream is in my bowl, but not just because.
Reward foods aren’t always a reward, especially if they start to own you, rather than you own them.
Cutting out chocolate now for 6 months, teaches me that I’m moving into the maintenance phase. This is the point we get to on any journey where if we’ve done something for 6 months or more we’re managing not bringing it back in, because we choose to do and feel differently about things.
Chocolate has been something I have loved for a life time, I’d think.
It was a love/hate relationship though.
As I said earlier I could go to the Olympics for the speed at which I could eat chocolate, and I wouldn’t miss a crumb but I would also wake up ‘hung over’ and sluggish, and then I’d exercise to ‘catch up’ but you can’t out-run a bad eating protocol.
So if I reflect on who I’ve become over the last 6 months of not eating chocolate, I’d have to say my chocolate mind drama is gone. You know that chatter that starts at 3pm or after dinner or maybe first thing in the morning, like any good addiction, it owns you until you cave.
I’ve also let go of things I thought were important to creating my success. My Facebook Group has gone and I’ve barely posted on social media over the last 3 months.
I’m starting to write more, and I’m being more intentional with what I write about and how I deliver it.
I’m more introspective. I sit most days for 5 minutes and just sit. I read more and I’m currently crying over Bronnie Ware’s The Top Five Regrets of the Dying – everyone must read it, everyone. It’s a short cut to life’s lessons, and even though I’ve done loads of work on myself, I’ve learnt and been reminded of so much. I’ve recently started walking for 30 minutes a day, and sometimes that’s cycling and reading at the same time.
I’m more mindful and I love turning off social media, plus email at the end of my work day – I’m still sorting out what time that is but I’m creating a practice.
So you could say, I’m becoming more me and it’s all because I believed it was possible to give us chocolate for 12 months. 6 months to go.
