an ode to chocolate (16 days and counting.....)

Oh how I love thee........I could eat you everyday and never bore of you (in fact I do).

I love you in all of your delicious forms,

crisp and cold straight from the fridge

as a topping poured over..... well, pretty much anything really

inside a crisp candy shell

with a myriad of fillings, soft, hard, goey, crunchy

as a hot drink with 3 white fluffy marshmallows floating on top

even as a chocolate spread

though you never normally make it to the bread....

And then there's Cadbury cream egg, oh cream egg, oh cream egg, you are the most perfect, most sweetest confection ever invented. Made all the more seductive by the fact that your only available three months of the year.

Oh chocolate how I love thee.

Ok so I couldn't write a poem to save myself but I seriously do LOVE chocolate and I do eat it everyday, lots of it!! Which is exactly why I must (aaargh I almost can't type the words) but I MUST give it up.

Some very good reasons why I must give up chocolate include, but are not limited to......

• I eat it everyday and that just can't be good for you.
• I have eaten all the chocolate in the house and then in an attempt to hide this fact raced to the shops to replace the eaten chocolate, and then eaten all the replacement bars as well. 
• I have often been so desperate for chocolate that I have eaten cooking chocolate.
• The words Family block have never stopped me from consuming an entire one to myself....in less than a 24 hour period. I know, that's really bad isn't it. 
• I once watched a show about people with OCD and who are addicted to things, there was a girl who was so addicted to chocolate that she sought medical help to break the habit. When they revealed how much chocolate she ate I realised I ate more than her. 

So you can see this is truly a huge undertaking and one I don't think should be entered into alone or lightly, so I have enlisted my sister into the challenge........

30 days Chocolate and Coffee free (I have heart palpitations every time I think of it).

Starting tomorrow.................

Well we're 16 days into the 30 day challenge and there's been some surprising results.......

Firstly and most shockingly giving up chocolate has been an absolute breeze, I've barely thought about it and that's even though there has been a fairly constant supply passing through the fridge (I'm not the only one around here with a sweet tooth).

I am totally amazed by this revelation and the only thing I can put it down to is that show that I watched on the chocolate addicted girl. As part of the solution for her the Dr hypnotised her and made her imagine she  had melted down a big pot of chocolate and then she had to add all these really disgusting things into it like dirt, dog hair, maybe a little snot, toenail clippings (eeewww this gets me every time) cockroaches, worms etc. Then he asked her to eat it, in her hypnotised mind of course, just the thought of it made her heave, me too.
I don't know how it worked out for her but I do know I didn't eat chocolate for about a week after just watching it. So although I haven't gone to the extreme of being hypnotised I have been imagining a grubby disgruntled worker clipping the toenails from their fungal covered feet into the chocolate vat (which I'm sure noone would ever do :)) its working a treat so far.

Secondly the ONLY thing that will ease a caffeine withdrawal headache is a perfectly brewed, hot, steaming cup of coffee. we both lasted about 4 days with the coffee. It disturbs me a little that I couldn't give it up so I am planning on tackling it again, soon.........