I’ve always had a love hate thing with chocolate.  On the love side, it’s delicious, it perks me up, I crave it.  It’s helped me make difficult writing deadlines and can claim a large percentage of my having good grade when I graduated.

But too much of a good thing, especially a good thing that’s addictive, is still too much.  On the hate side are the extra pounds which tend to linger, the discomfort of knowing I’m consuming on impulse, and the withdrawal headaches if I try to cut back.

As I once again face a January with New Year’s goals that include cutting back the chocolate, I’m trying to figure out where the balancing point is.  Do I have to repeat my trick of some ten years past and cut it out of my life entirely?  Is it okay if I just limit it to writing times, or days when I’m functioning on a modicum of sleep?  What if I just take it dark, and therefore avoid all the milk and sugar calories?  Don’t I get bonus points in chocolate ’cause I don’t drink caffeinated soda–there should be a board somewhere tallying up the chocolate treats one gets for every soda skipped.

I went digging on the net to see what other people had to share, and found that most of it argued in favor of including a little chocolate in the diet.  It seems a pretty popular defendant.  This site, for example, starts off by saying that they can help you give up chocolate, then launched into all the reasons you should indulge.  Of course, it does follow it all up with some helpful advice for cutting back or quiting, but I found it amusing that they prefaced it with counter-arguments.

While googling chocolate I couldn’t resist looking into sites such as this one, the All About Chocolate page on Field Museum, and also found some incredible images, like this chocolate horse,

 

found on Theonistas Unite.

The truth is, I lack the will to give up chocolate completely.  After all, I’ve done it before, so where’s the challenge to galvanize my motivation and keep my interest?  I will probably cut the milk chocolate, especially since I’m not crazy about it anyway, and I’ll try to get my dependency back down to the occasional nibble when I’m writing.  But the new canister of Mexican Hot Cocoa I got for Christmas?  Yeah, it’s staying.  The only question is where I’ll tuck it away so the rest of the family can’t find it.

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