Chololate Creep

I do love me some nice dark chocolate.  A couple of squares after lunch is divine.  Well, maybe a 2 or 3 oz. bar.  Followed by a bite or two of some mint dark chocolate squares.  And then possibly another small bar, perhaps one with orange peel in it ... yummy.

Hmmm, that couple of squares after lunch has crept up to like 5 or 6 hundred calories of chocolate.  Every Day!  My oh my.  I'm hitting the reset button by making this week chocolate free before going back to 'a little' after lunch.

As the word creep implies, I didn't plan it this way.  It just sorta happened.  I'm not gaining weight or feeling sluggish or anything - I obviously use the calories, but I really should make an effort to replace some of those chocolate ones with real food.  It's just so darn easy though.  And tasty.

Now, I'm not going to try and justify my actions with graphs and links to the potential health benefits of dark chocolate.  Sure, it's not on the same level as donuts or soda, but I was overdoing it.  And that's my little point here.  Even those of us who have most things (sleep, stress, exercise, most of our food) nailed down, doesn't mean we're perfect.  Yeah, we can 'get away' some things and still look, feel, and perform great, but, but actually, maybe that's my point here ... once you get things pretty squared away, you have more wiggle room to enjoy things without totally driving the train off the tracks.

And by wiggle room, I don't mean it's a game of finding out what can I get away with at this point.  Rather, if, I mean when, I do stray off course, I don't sweat it much.  Case in point is this little chocolate creep.  It was fun and delicious, but it's not my mission to see how much chocolate I can consume everyday before I gain weight or start to feel terrible.  I'm addicted to the stuff, but not that addicted. 

This whole thing reminds me of people with their coffee/caffeine addictions.  A lot of the Paleo people I know try to 'limit' their intake to one or two cups a day.  Perhaps instead of looking at the glass half empty and saying we need to limit our coffee and chocolate intakes, we need to look on the bright side and say, hey, I'm healthy enough that I can ENJOY a cup of Joe or bit of chocolate and know that it's not going to destroy me.  Nice.