Why I’ve quit chocolate for January
I’ve given up chocolate for January. But why? I’m not trying to lose weight; I don’t obsess over my food and it’s not a New Year’s resolution. It simply comes down to the reasoning of, why not?
I’ve got a lethal sweet tooth. I spend a lot of hours training so I get away with it but once I eat a square of chocolate, I have the whole bar. December was a heavy month. The lockdown rules changed pretty late, so we had enough Christmas chocolate to feed twice the amount of people. I found myself having ‘one’ too many. I’ll reiterate, this isn’t a bad thing, it’s Christmas time; everyone enjoys themselves. I was at a healthy weight, and I was riding well. So why did I decide to cut out chocolate?
I’m stubborn; I think it’s a personality trait of being an athlete. Considering I usually eat chocolate every day, I thought it’d be an interesting challenge.
I have some exceptions. My whey protein is chocolate flavoured – that’s allowed. In addition, some of my homemade bars that I make for training have chocolate chips in – it was easier not to restrict these as I need calories to fuel my training. I’ve not banned myself from eating sugar. My mum makes some mean scones and they’re allowed; it’s just anything with chocolate and you don’t realise how many things have chocolate in until you do this challenge.
I often find myself coming into the kitchen at 4pm, and instinctively reaching for the bottom of the fridge where we keep our chocolate. And I’ve inadvertently found myself making healthier choices – I’m eating more fruit than ever before.
I’m almost halfway through as I write this, and all is good so far. When 1 February rolls around, I’ll go back to eating chocolate. I just hope I’ll be a little more controlled than I was before.