Chocolate

19.04.2014

It's Easter Saturday, and at my local Parkrun (Hillyfields Parkrun) one of the Race Directors has marked the chocolate season with some mini egg nests, while the other is handing round a tin of foil wrapped mini Creme Eggs, Caramel Eggs, Lindor eggs. I take an egg and put it in my pocket to enjoy as my traditional Easter Sunday pre-breakfast chocolate fix. A very special treat.
Later on I melt down chocolate to create a hand-made Easter Egg for my huband. I fill it with coconut and cocoa truffles and tie it with ribbon. It's made with love, yet all the time I'm being a chocolatier I'm tasting and dipping and snapping off pieces of chocolate to pop into my mouth. When I am preparing food I eat all the time. It seems I am hungry all the time. Has this lack of control become worse since I've become a serious runner? Am I comfort eating. Is my perimenopausal state to blame for this mindless eating? It's not just chocolate. Sometimes I stand at the counter spooning peanut butter or tahini into my maw from the jar.  It's not proper hunger, it's a nasty habit. I think I have to break it, because it makes me unhappy. I go to bed feeling ashamed by all the brainless snacking I've done during the day. All the extra fuel does not make me faster.
Normal people, including my running buddy who completes the Parkrun a minute or so ahead of me and whose running is improving month on month, eat a chocolate when they are offered it, instead of saving it for later when they think they've deserved it. I'm willing to bet they don't have the sneaky attitude to food that I have developed over the last few years, stealing it from  the cupboards when they are alone in the kitchen, then beating themselves up about it. Normal people eat well, they run well, they don't fret. It is time to address my diet to make sure it fuels good running and keeps me happy. Food, whether it's Cadbury's mini eggs or so-called superfood salads, is supposed to be relished, it should not engender guilt and self loathing.