Resisting

Today I have a hankering for chocolate. I have resisted the chocolate biscuits in the jar for almost two and a half weeks, which I think must be a record, but today I feel the call. I’m observing a rather unexpected ‘strategy’ which the cravings are using. They tell me: You’ve knocked this. You have developed the self-control to say no to a chocolate biscuit. Therefore you can also say yes. 

This is very sneaky. As I think we all have cause to know and bemoan, each time you say no to the chocolate biscuit makes it a bit easier to say no next time, and each time you say yes makes it a bit harder. I might be able to say no now, but I know that if I say yes once, that will probably make me say yes again and then I’ll be back at square one eating half a packet of biscuits *cough* in a sitting. 

So far I am resolutely resisting. For how long?? I have a theory that if I wait long enough, the industrial biscuits here at work (which have a shelf life of two years!) will not taste nice anymore and that will make it easier to resist, like the first McDonald’s I had in about three years - I was really looking forward to it, I’d missed it and resisted it, but when I bit into the burger it was disgusting, I couldn’t finish it and I’ve never craved fast food since. 

So much of the food we are sold now is so divorced from its origins - a biscuit which lasts two years can’t have much in the way of real butter, eggs or milk in it - that we’ve lost a taste for real food. Like children who grew up during rationing in World War Two, who were so accustomed to the taste of powdered egg that they preferred it to fresh eggs. 

This is really a process of educating my tastebuds and my palate to savour fresh, nutritious foods and discard the crap. The first part is complete - I really enjoy sitting down to a bowl of homemade soup or stew, or a fresh salad. You can just feel it doing your body good, you know? I just haven’t yet fully weaned myself off the processed snack foods - even though I infinitely prefer the taste of a homemade cake or scones to the industrial biscuits.

I will continue to resist the call of the chocolate biscuits. Not thinking about the chocolate biscuits would help...