I have a confession to make — one that I have not told a single soul — not even my husband.
I’m a chocolate thief.
There, I said it. I steal chocolate. Every day. Well, at least 5 times a week. I steal chocolate and then I eat it.
I’m a chocoholic nymphomaniac kleptomaniac.
Let me back up a bit…
My gym is located approximately two blocks from my kitchen where my cooking staff prepares delicious and healthy dinners for me and the hubby. It’s Whole Foods, Chickies. But for me, since I don’t cook, I regard their self-serve hot-bar as my kitchen and their cooking staff as my own.
Every day after my workout, I head over to my Whole Foods kitchen and pick up dinner for that evening.
This is my routine: I walk in at the produce section, grab a cart, and begin. I pick up my organic berries, spinach and arugula and assorted salad stuff (I can cook salad). I then go to the flower section and pick up some fresh flowers for my home. And then —
I don’t know if your Whole Foods is designed like mine, but across from the flower section, conveniently placed in the center of the nut section where I go regularly to replenish my nut supply, is the self-serve candy section.
Question and side note:
Why in the world would there be a self-serve candy section in a Whole Foods store? Since when is candy a whole food? Do sugar barons still exist? Are they wielding their power and bribing the whole foods people so they can sell their sugar drugs?
In order for me to get to my kitchen, I have to walk past the sugar drugs.
I don’t think about it (not consciously anyway), I grab a baggie, I scoop 2 to 4 pieces of dark chocolate-covered cherries and/or dark chocolate-covered almonds and dump them into the baggie. Sometimes, only on occasion, I add one or two dark chocolate covered pretzels too. Or a gummy worm.
Innocent so far, right?
Not so fast…
On my way to my cooking staff, as I walk through the aisles picking up other things I need, I open the baggie (that I never sealed) and I eat the chocolate. All of it. And the gummy worm. In the store. Before I get to the checkout lines. I don’t pay for the chocolate. I eat the chocolate without paying for the chocolate.
I commit the theft and eat the evidence.
But there’s more — and this is important — although you’re probably wondering, What the hell does this have to do with me?
At the end of the day, when I’m mentally evaluating my day’s food choices, and feeling well-pleased with my healthy intake (I didn’t eat those fries, or I didn’t have that glass of wine), I don’t count the chocolate that I ate-stole.
Never.
Like it didn’t happen.
I sneak it in, like the thief that I am, never tallying the true calories. I do the same thing the next day — and the day after that. It’s a gift, really, to have the ability to ignore what doesn’t suit you. It offers the illusion that you can have your cake (or chocolate) and eat it too.
But ya can’t.
All the while, the sugar is slowly doing the damage that sugar does — wreaking havoc on my skin, adding pounds (especially around the middle) and causing dependence. And let me tell you, I have been beating myself about why I have been unable to lose the extra five or so pounds I have slowly put on, blaming it on (hold your horses now) my age. I complain and complain, mostly to myself, but also to my husband, who is unaware that I’m a chocoholic nymphomaniac kleptomaniac.
Until now, I guess.
So (this is where you come in) maybe you too are unaware of sneaking calories. You may not be stealing like I am — in fact, I’m pretty certain you’re not. But you may be subconsciously popping no-no’s into your mouth like they were Tic Tacs: a cookie here, a candy there, a few french fries you picked off someone else’s plate, a handful of M&M’s from the candy bowl at your doctor’s office, etc.
Those little un-accounted-for treats are counting themselves and possibly adding weight to your middles, especially if those treats are sugary, and extra especially if your middles are middle-aged.
So just be aware of what you’re secretly consuming, be conscious of the food details, and see if that makes a difference. It did for me.
It took a 10-day no carb, no sugar challenge (if you follow me on Instagram @sochickie then you know this) to make me aware of what I was doing. I am now sugar-clean and clear-headed — a reformed chocolate thief with a smaller middle-aged middle.
And if you work for Whole Foods, know anyone on the board, or are affiliated in any other way, I beg you, don’t turn me in. I have stopped the theft and promise to never do it again. Girl Scout’s Honor. (I was never a Girl Scout.)
xoxo