The anticipation is like nothing else. Just the thought will put my mind on nothing else. I become focused – I must have. Nothing else will do.
I need to hold, to touch. I need the feeling against my fingers.
My breathing becomes faster, but shallower. My heart rate quickens. My eyes won’t focus.
I want.
My mouth waters as the taste enters my mind.
I need.
My fingers position it just in front of me as I close my eyes.
Sticking my tongue out, I make contact – teasing.
The taste is like nothing else – salty, for sure, but there’s an element purely indescribable. The taste of pure heaven. A forbidden taste.
The aroma envelops my nostrils. I cannot get enough.
I know I’ll need to work to finish the job, and I need to finish. There is nothing in my world but the task at hand.
I’ll work gladly.
I devour.
Ok, so I might have a small problem with snacking. It’s always been an issue (and yes, that thought process is exactly what I go through every time I eat a cheese curl1). If there is food around me, I’m in trouble. Combatting this has become a mission. Somehow, I’ve managed to succeed at work – it used to be that a combination of communal candy bowls, Friday bagels, Tuesday donuts, and whatever I’d keep stashed in my desk would be my downfall. I’d eat, and I wouldn’t think as I ate, which is just about the worst combination in the world.
Always getting myself something for breakfast has cured me of this, mostly. I’ll eat fruit & yogurt for breakfast (or, if I’ve had a particularly strenuous workout, a few eggs with veggies & swiss cheese), and I’ll keep myself so busy in the afternoons that I don’t give myself the opportunity to think about food. A meeting at Ron’s desk, well, that will never happen – he has those “broken pretzel pieces” that I know I can’t say no to. I simply won’t allow myself to stock chips, or cheese curls, or anything besides fruit that I’ve managed to talk myself into the fact that it’s “healthy.” If I’m going about & have a hunger pang that I can’t satiate another way, I always have a banana, or grapefruit, or apple, or pear, or a bunch of grapes within walking distance. Snacking at work is no longer an issue.
When in my truck, though, it’s a completely different story. The simple answer is to not keep food in my vehicle – but that’s easier said than done. I admit my defeat in not getting myself something at the grocery store when I have to stop in for dinner ingredients of milk for the kids, or whatever. The trick is what to get. At the end of the day, I’m almost always craving salty and sweet2. I’ve found, though, that I can buy a bag of frozen peas and/or edamame and snack away as I drive and drive and drive (seriously, on Thursdays, I put in 120 miles round trip between getting myself to the gym, then work, then band practice, then home). It’s not perfect . . . but it fits the need, keeps me sane, and is far more healthy for me than my cheesy, forbidden friend.
1 The crunchy kind, the poofy kind just don’t do it for me as much
2 Hence the love of cheese curls
I prefer poofy, thank you.
I say no to the poofy, no poofy shirts, no poofy curls.
But I feel ya, I do. I’m a snacker and always have been. The pregnancy only makes it worse.
Might I recommend gum? B/C it does sound like a fixation more than eating from need. Another alternative: a snack that packs a lot of punch, flavorwise. Salt and vinegar chips do it for me, a sharp taste AND crunch. Buy a bag and divvy it up into those ridiculously small snack bags. you get your naughty food fix but in a reasonable portion.
Now could you come take away these thin mints? some one stop me!
You know – I tried gum, but it just doesn’t do it for me. I need to bite into something, I can’t trick myself. But the ridiculously small portions of my favorite snack foods? Do it often 🙂
I crave salty and sweet too. I don’t get those people who day give me chips over chocolate. Give me a chocolate covered pretzel please.
I have a confession to make — I don’t like chocolate. A chocolate covered pretzel, to me, is a wasted pretzel 🙁
When I started reading this I thought it was going to be about your Easter lamb! Anyway, I have the best slaty sweet recipe for you (it’s on my blog with pics too). Get a pizza crust and smear it with crunch peanut butter, top it with mozzarella & parmesean, then top with cooked bacon and tomatoe & bake. Salty, sweet, crunchy, chewy. DELISH! And the kids love it!
Margaret (@goodbadfamily)
I may need to find an alternative for the bacon (I’m giving up on meat again, though I don’t know how permanent this will be), but I’ll be making this some time very, very soon.