A few days ago, I was doing some shopping in a supermarket where I usually don’t go to; this time however, I needed a few items that can’t be found at my regular place of shopping, so I didn’t really have the choice. ‘Lo and behold, no sooner had I walked through the automatic doors that what did greet me? A large aisle full of Easter treats and chocolate bunnies! At this sight, my stomach made a gurgling flip, and painfully reminded me that it was already noon and that I should buy this. Right now. Then eat it on the spot.
Alright, I shouldn’t have done my shopping at such a wrong hour, it’s simply that my previous errands had lasted way longer than I expected and I fell off-planning. Alright, it wasn’t my stomach as much as my mind going all “SUGAR! Whee!”, but it still took me more than one dose of willpower to not give up to the sight-induced craving. I’m not freed from those, far from it; however, I know very well that if such foods enter my house, I’ll get the urge to eat them. “Out of sight, out of reach” is a motto that has worked for me so far, and that I must really apply to these.
This craving is so totally stupid, on top of it. Most of the time, such chocolate just tastes horrible, with the added feeling of heaviness that ensues this particular kind of binge, due to the very low-quality and nutrients/junk ratio of said chocolate. Let’s not even get me started on white chocolate, which sends my liver and guts into another kind of sommersault, and not a pleasant one. The sight, though, the sight! I’m not wondering anymore why a no-fail environment is one essential part of controlling one’s weight. This aisle full of junk reminded me that it’s been a few weeks that I haven’t given in to a full-blown binge on sugary things (nor have I eaten chocolate, for that matter, even dark one), and it started to relentlessly whisper to my ear that “just for once, it won’t be a catastrophe”.
End of the story… I managed to not give in to the craving, quickly making my way to the shelves full of stationery and paper packs in order to grab what I needed, then diving through the women’s clothing aisle in order to look at what I’ll be able to wear in the future if I go on controlling my weight. It’s all I found to calm the craving, and at least it worked; once it was time to pay, I didn’t feel like having the disgusting cheap chocolate anymore, I was rather thinking of the clothes I’ll buy someday, and I went back home with my mind at peace, ready to prepare a healthy meal to fill the real hunger, not the cravings.
These temptations, however, can be a constant problem. There isn’t one holidays period during which our supermarkets don’t have such foods piled right at the entrance - people be damned if they forget to buy their lot of crap for the season, really, and so they must be reminded of it! Sales ploys, of course, that can nevertheless turn to be pretty destructive for those who struggle with their weight and with long-lasting wrong eating habits. If only it were a very few times in the year, just like the really important holidays, yet even this is a vain hope. Come Christmas and New Year, and the aisles are filled with boxed chocolates. Comes Valentine’s Day, and more chocolate appears. Comes Easter and guess what? Chocolate again! Halloween? Treats everywhere! And when there isn’t any official holiday to squeeze the sales ploys through, we get “the Chinese Food/Cheese/Sausages week”, or whatever else can be found in order to present “special” foods that we probably wouldn’t reallythink of buying if not for these campaigns.
We keep on reading that people eat worse and worse, that everybody prefers junk foods to healthy foods, but let’s openly admit it: the first things we see around us in the most accessible places, when it comes to eating, aren’t healthy, they’re junk. We can know where the McDonald’s restaurant is better than when the local weekly vegetables market is held. We can find the bad products more easily than the good ones (stashed in the aisles that we visit last, once the cart is already loaded with the wrong items). It’s going the exact same way on TV: food ads are everywhere, at every moment of the day, but how many ads have we seen that were stating “eat broccoli, it’s good for you”? (The only ad of this type I can remember off the top of my head is the “eat apples” one on French TV, surfing on the sentence said by Jacques Chirac a few years ago.)
What is there to do, then? Short from completely overhauling the current consumption, advertising and marketing trends, nothing - nothing, except be aware of, wary, and ready to react accordingly to the traps once we spot them. Unfortunately, unless I completely stop shopping at the supermarket, which isn’t always convenient, I think I’ll have to cope, and be careful to not buy foods when my stomach is completely empty… in case of.
- Kery
