Chocolate. I even love the word.

[Waterbabe_Helena]

I am 47 and weigh 330 pounds at 5ft 5.

I love chocolate and I want it every day. This has been the sole cause of my inabilty to keep to Atkins.

You can keep your bread, rice, pasta and alcohol; I have no problem with a total ban, but chocolate - I feel in ecstacy when I eat it. I only like certain brands and have a large bar every single day.

Every day for the past 4 years I have woken up and taken a vow that I will never eat chocolate again, or that I won't eat chocolate for this one day (the one-day-at-a-time routine).

I've tried Atkins-friendly substitutes and even bought Carbolite bars and hated them - I had to buy my favourite chocolate afterwards to take the taste away!

Since I began trying to keep to Atkins 4 years ago I have gained about 3 stone - 42 pounds. I'm so huge I can hardly get up from a chair etc but no amount of pain and discomfort and inconvenience in life has made me give up my beloved chocolate.

I went off Atkins and did low-calorie so that I could have a tiny bar a day within my calorie allowance, but the tiny bar crept up to a medium and before I knew it I was back on a large bar a day.

I don't know what has made me crawl my useless way back onto this board; I suppose I just wanted to see how much weight everyone has lost since I last logged on, and while here I noticed this addiction forum.

I have done tapping technique (Paul McKenna) and have had hypnosis, all to no avail.

Is there any hope for me?

[Richt]

There is hope, but unfortunately, you have to break that cycle. If you can manage to do a 2 week clean induction, the rest will be easy.

You have to want to do it, but it is possible.

[pipee_pl]

i am another chocolate lover, i just read dr. phils book about food and it helped i think, i had a two week clean induction and have just finished a third- it is a one day at a time sort of thing.
you need to find something else to do when you get that craving for chocolate. go for a walk, do something physical- clean the kitchen- do something to take your mind off the craving then it will lessen and day by day you will gain control over your problem. it is like a drug- you need to obstain in order to conquer- there is not going to be a half way for you with chocolate, sorry!
like an addict or alcolholic the only way you can conquer your addiction is with total obstainance.

[Brook]

I can hear your frustration, and you're in good carb-o-holic company around here. We all have our addictions and poison of choice. Like you, mine is chocolate as well.

You are not powerless in this.
You are making a choice every time you put something in your mouth.

I have to tell you, being able to run and play with my children is so much more satisfying than scarfing down a bag of almond M&M's ever was. Being able to walk into any store anywhere and buy something from the "normal size" racks is far more satisfying than a hot fudge sundae ever thought of being.

Pipee is absolutely correct. You do not conquer an addiction by feeding it or looking for a substitution for it. Alcoholics do not conquer their addiction by having a drink when the craving hits them. This is the same thing. Starve the addiction, grit your teeth and JUST DO IT. It doesn't take nearly as long as you might think to get a grip on it.

But you are making choices with this. You have to do it. You have to want it. You have to make it happen.

There is a distinct difference between "want" and "need". You don't need chocolate, but you certainly need to be healthy, happy, and feel good about yourself.

"Don't trade what you want most for what you want at the moment." - I love that quote.

There's more than hope for you - there's choice driven success.

You CAN do it!

~Brook

[2big4mysize]

yep what they said

AND did you know chocolate does contain over 40 pharmalogical chems you need a RX for? it even reacts in the brain in the same places pot does so it is very addictive. But like any addition you can when the cost of the substance to you be it bigger size worse health or whatever outweighs the pleasure you get from consuming it you will give it up simple as that.

So now how bad do you want to quit? make you a list of every reason you can think of to lose weight eating Atkins without a big chocolate bar a day. then think of all the reasons you need that chocolate bar. write them all down and assign each a value from 1-100 you can use the number morte then once. now total your lists and see which you really want more Atkins or choclate bars. if it is the atkins then you are ready to start induction knowing you are about to detox and just like a junkie jonesing for a fix so too will your body have mental and physical symptoms in the next couple of days. Hang in there and in 2-3 days the physical sign of your addictions will be over and from then on it is just a matter of reprogramming your pleasure perceveid from the chocolate to something else legal like exercise or getting smaller.

Happy low carbing.

[Waterbabe_Helena]

I wish I had as much faith in myself as all you wonderful people who have taken the trouble and time to post replies. Thank you for the coping strategies and suggestions. In my four-year fight I have already tried some of these but will have another "go".

I suppose it is because I have tried and failed so many times (how many times - something like a thousand or more) that it is like a rut I have got into. Each time I tell myself "no more chocolate" it lasts for a few hours, occasionally as long as a day (last Friday I went a whole day!) but although I tell myself "This is IT - I am doing it!" I always know, somewhere in the back of my mind or the pit of my stomach, that I have failed so many times before, that it is only a matter of time before I slip again.

This trying-and-failing is a pattern that I slip into each and every time.

I know chocolate is a drug to me. It makes me feel wonderful and warm and satisfied and calm and it makes me smile and feel all contented.

Today I wrote the words "one week" on my hand in indelible black felt pen. This is to remind me that I have made a promise to myself not to eat chocolate for one week. It is now 7pm. I have managed 13 hours without my darling substance and have only 3 hours left till bedtime.

At this moment I am craving chocolate so much tears have started to run down my face and I feel depressed, almost despairing. There are, most unfortunately, two chocolate-selling shops within 3 minutes' walk of my house that are open until 10pm. I am not sure I can prevent myself from going down to one of them. I'm getting more and more desperate, going up the wall with the craving..... I wish I believed in a god then I could pray! I hav taken off my shoes to make it a little more difficult for me to just rush out to the shop.

I hope I won't let myself down and give in!

Thanks to all of you.

[Waterbabe_Helena]

PS sorry when I said I have gone "13 hours" without chocolate I actually meant 23 hours, my last bar being at 8pm yesterday.

[2big4mysize]

the chemicals that mellow you out from choclate you can get from exercise so do some cardio.

remember even if you do break and have some practice carb harm reduction and stop as quickly as you can and make the next bite Atkins low carb. Soon you will be doing less and less damage with your chocolate addiction until you are finally over it. what ever you do don't sub low carb chocolate for it cause eating a big bars worth of low carb choclate will be just as harmful in the long run and will give you some terrible abdominal issues in the short run.

[Waterbabe_Helena]

Thanks for responding

I go swimming every morning and walk back every weekday (just over one mile) and when I can I walk there too (much of it is uphill and makes me pant). So the first 2 hours of my day I am exercising in a cardio way, but when I get home I absolutely crave chocolate. I kill the craving somewhat with a very greasy brunch of cold roast lamb fried in a lot of olive oil with onions and red capsicum. But an hour later I am climbing the curtains with agonising craving for chocolate.

This is my second day without chocolate. Yes, I did all Monday and almost all Tuesday.

I slipped off Atkins today and had two bananas, but that's not as bad as chocolate is it?

I walked both ways today plus an hour's swim.

Frustrated

[pipee_pl]

i think you are doing a great job, i am not sure about the others but i think you made a good choice with the banana instead of the chocolate- they have the sweetness to satisfy a craving, but you need to kick the craving- don't find a substitute.
it is not going to be easy- you are off to a great start, take it day by day. i find when i have a craving (also chocolate) a cup of decaf coffee sometimes helps to aleviate it, i fight this battle daily also- so i know where you are. i also go for walks or a bike ride- or an activity with my hands.
you can do it!