The Truth Will Set You Free

So yesterday, I was bragging about the battle Chad and I were having with our sweet tooth (teeth?), and how we had come out on top. I stopped by his desk this morning to let him know that I talked about it here on the blog, and his phone starts vibrating while we are talking. He kind of glanced at it and got a weird look on his face while chuckling to himself a little. I didn't think much about it, but apparently his conscience got the better of him. So he shows me the text message he just got from his wife. It went a little something like this: "Where the hell are all the damn cookies I bought yesterday?" Turns out Chips Ahoy or some other fat peddler makes a chocolate chip cookie where the back is covered in chocolate and then more chocolate is drizzled across the top. That really isn't fair. Chocolate covered chocolate chip cookies are like crack to a fat dude. Chad's wife had opened the package and eaten approximately 2 cookies. Apparently, that is something skinny people can do. Or so I've heard. Then, while she is at school, Chad and his 2 year old son decide to dip their hands in the cookie jar. (Actually, they were eating them straight from the package, but work with me). I'm not sure if it was 10 minutes or two hours later, but eventually, an empty cookie package ended up in the trash. Now I know that a two year old can't eat more than 2 or 3 cookies.

Pascal had Chad bring the cookie package back from lunch so we could do a little CSI work on the damage. Turns out, approximately 16 cookies were consumed to the tune of 1700 calories, more than half from fat. I believe the carb intake was in the 200-300 range. On the plus side, though, each cookie had one gram of protein. So that's good.

Now here's the thing. I'm not writing this to try and embarrass Chad. The truth is, I've been there. After laughing about it, a person starts to think about the tightrope some of us walk on a daily basis. (Insert your own fat guy/tightrope joke here). Food addiction is different than other types of addiction. If you have a smoking addiction, people try and get you to quit. You wear patches and get help, with the goal of not smoking at all. But what if instead of having a goal of not smoking at all, what if you had to smoke, but could only smoke a certain number of cigarettes a day? Basically, we are going to give you an addictive substance (and don't kid yourself, food is very addictive), that you have to consume numerous times a day, but if you over-consume, you will slowly kill yourself and look terrible in a pair of slacks doing it. It's tough. Food is comforting, food is fun, food kills time when you are bored, it picks you up when you are sad, it's non-judgemental, and it's always there when you want it. But is also the enemy. At times it consumes you. It fills up your thoughts and then it punishes you.

So what to do? It's obvious that I don't know. It's very easy to tell others how to handle their addictions, but when you are trying to fight that internal battle yourself, it's a different beast. The only way I know to fight it is to remove the temptation. And if I lived alone that might be an option. But there are 4 people in the house, and this fight is mine alone. I have a skinny family, and should they be punished just because I can't say no to Funyons at 11:30 at night? Probably not. So Chad, I feel your pain (and not just because our belts are too tight). If you figure out a way around this, patent it quick, because you would be a very rich man....