Case of the Munchies

The other day I had a short email conversation with my brother Alex. Like me, he started eating healthier this year. While I chose the route of DDP Yoga and eating nothing but homemade foods, he chose a nutrition plan known as D.E.A.N.A Fit for both himself and his wife. We talked about temptations and how to overcome them, and then he wrote this:

“My big obstacle are munchies. I love those.”

I wanted to reply and say that I already solved my munchies issue when I stopped getting fast food. Unfortunately, it seems as though I found a new addiction to fight.

My new addiction: a medium sized bag of M&Ms

Bed of Shame

 My bed consists of a place for my pillow, my laptop, my phone to charge, and now a place for my peanut M&Ms. I don’t know why, but I’ve been gorging on peanut M&Ms for the last few weeks now. I just did it again last night, which is probably why my stomach hurts right now. Instead of going to McDonalds on the way home from work, I now stop out at RiteAid to buy M&Ms. And not the regular bag but the medium sized one. What a filthy animal I’ve become. But as I look back, I see that my fondness of sweets has been long overdue.

The Sweets Section at BJs

Though I've never followed through on it, I really want one of these cakes. Te most tempting are the red velvet cakes!

Every time I go to a supermarket I see snacks. Snacks snacks snacks at every turn. At BJs they serve deliciously cheap pizza and hotdogs near the entrance/exit. It’s near impossible to resist. They have an amazing display for cakes and freshly made muffins. Usually I can resist these when I buy my Wells Farms trail mix snacks, but sometimes I give in. Added up, I spent about $32 on those little extras in November. Some might see this as not a big deal, but that’s never the case with me. I always see instances like these as a chance for me to slip back into my old ways. Just yesterday I ordered a breakfast of crappy food (bagel with cream cheese, large order of french toast, 2 bacon and egg sandwiches on toasted bagels) from the diner at my bank job… the first time I’ve ordered from them since I started making food from home. Ugh!

Bought this a couple weeks ago to "try out" a new pizza place that sold $5 large pizzas. The gateway to my old habits are slowly opening up again

   

You know, when I said I want no vices in my life I meant it. That means I should not be tempted by anything. No sweets, no fast foods, nothing. I think my brain is playing a game. It’s trying to make the distinction that fast food and snacks like M&Ms are different. Like I’ll go to RiteAid, pick up the family size M&Ms and say, “This isn’t so bad. At least it’s not a Big Mac.” But it’s all the same. Anything that I don’t make myself is to be considered fast food. The sooner I lump these things into one unhealthy category, the sooner I can conquer this and all other vices like it.

P.S.: As an adult, it takes so much strength and willpower to resist these things and fill my body with good foods. That makes it all the more infuriating when I see the same types of foods in schools, like I did when I was a teacher. They covered this quite well in that "Fed Up" documentary. Kids don’t have this kind of resistance and companies prey on them as if they were adults. To do this to children in a place of learning and then blame them for eating too much bad foods and getting fat… a real shame on everyone, man…