Vices - #resound11 - Day 2

I'm going to attempt to participate in a project this month hosted by @Jaemie, called #resound11. Each day there will be a prompt to reflect on 2011 and anticipate 2012. Feel free to check out the project here.

Prompt #2: Did you slip back into any old habits that you wish you hadn't? Did you gain any new habits that you wish you would have walked away from? Did you discover the evils of Nutella? 'Fess up ... we won't tell.

Let's face it, I have a food addiction. I love cooking and baking. I enjoy celebrating with food. I eat when I'm bored. I eat when I'm upset or stressed.

Up until recently, I've been able to control this addiction for the last year and a half. It took me awhile to get the hang of it, but I managed my addiction enough to lose over 80 lbs in the last 18 months.

However, there is one food that controls me more than any other food. It's hard to release it's control over me, and when I'm under it's control I am hopeless.

Sugar.

I will eat sweets until I get sick. I never used to get sick. So I would just eat a dozen chocolate chip cookies without thinking. I'd finish off a pint of Ben and Jerry's in less than 30 minutes. Now if I did that, I'm pretty sure I'd be sick.

For the last 8-10 weeks, I've been skating on thin ice with sugar and sweets. Let's use tonight as an example.

After work, I decided I wanted to make something sweet. Something with chocolate. Now, I don't keep sweets in the house for the reason that I would eat the whole package in just a few days so in scouring the cabinets I find a fudge recipe on the back of the baking cocoa package. Perfect!

I remember why I've never made any sort of candy or fudge from scratch.

For the life of me I could not get the mixture to heat to the right temperature. I let it boil for a good 20 minutes, at least, and I gave up right around 210 degrees. I know, I know - I'm impatient. But I was tasting along the way and the mixture started to taste burnt, so I thought maybe just the thermometer was broken.

Now I have a 9 x 9 pan of hot fudge syrup.

Even though it turned out nothing like fudge, I still ate about a pound of the result - a hot fudge syrup of sorts. By the tablespoonful. By dips and licks with my finger. With a spoonful of peanut butter (twice). By freezing it in a cupcake liner with a dollop of peanut butter.

I basically ate hot fudge syrup straight from the jar (pan). This is what a sugar addiction (vice) does to a person.

When I started really loosing a lot of weight I was more conscious about my white refined sugar intake. No, I wasn't perfect. I had an occasional cupcake. But I ate plain greek yogurt instead of the flavored kind. I substituted fruit for baked goods. I didn't bring pie or bread pudding home from Thanksgiving dinner.

Lately though, I've started to slide back into my old habits. The worst part is I don't want to do much about it right now. I have two holiday cookie swaps coming up and I'm planning to fully participate. But at some point, if I want to lose these last few pounds I'm going to have to break my sugar addiction again.

I'll let you know when that happens, because you probably won't want to be around me when I go through detox.