Self-sabotage

Events of this past week have proven to me what I had long suspected: that I am my own worst enemy. If you know me at all--and especially if you've ever read my (somewhat seasonal) health and fitness blog--you know that I strive to eat healthy and exercise regularly. I feel better when I do those things and it ensures I can fit into my pants every day to boot.

Even so, I am human--with a culinary history of foods made with lots of butter and sugar and too many refined carbs--and every now and then, I get a craving for one of these unhealthy foods that, let's face it, shouldn't be eaten even sparingly and definitely not in moderation.

Diet and nutrition experts will tell you that, when you get a craving for an unhealthy food, you should wait 30 minutes or an hour instead of rushing to the store or pantry to get said food. Usually, the craving will go away by then and you'll have saved yourself those naughty calories. If you still crave it after an hour, go ahead and have a *little* bit of whatever you're craving, just enough to make the craving go away without doing any serious damage to your diet.

Well, people, that's great advice for the general public, but I can crave foods for days, weeks even. Not every craving for every food will last that long, but when I get a hankering for a chocolate-chip cookie, it usually doesn't go away until I have a chocolate-chip cookie.

Enter the Hostess chocolate-frosted donut.


For some odd reason, I got a craving for these unsophisticated little confections a couple of weeks ago and it did not go away. I disciplined myself for days, trying to avoid it. I allowed myself snatches of dark chocolate and extra helpings of cold cereal, hoping they would quell the insidious craving. They did not.

Last Monday, after suffering for about a week from this gnawing food angst, my defenses gave out. I stopped at 7-Eleven on my way home from visiting a friend and bought an overpriced package of Hostess chocolate donettes (the cutsie name for mini-donuts). I tore into it in the car, feeling ashamed, making sure no one was watching. With every bit, my taste buds moaned in ecstasy, but it was a guilty, furtive pleasure.

When I got home, having eaten three of the five mini-donuts, I told myself to throw the remaining two away. Did I listen to myself? No! I forged ahead, in a crazed, irrational fit of self-sabotage, determined to get rid of this obnoxious craving definitively (or so I told myself to justify my actions).

In short, I ate the entire package.

Blech.

Within about 10 minutes of smooshing that last little donut into my mouth, my stomach began to rebel. I felt disgusting. I briefly considered becoming anorexic to save myself the pain and calories of what I had just ingested so rashly. Alas, no easy road out for me; I had to suffer the consequences of my actions.

Then, filled with the refined-carb pollution of the donuts, my body started craving carrots, the antithesis of what I had just consumed. I had none on hand, and continued to feel gross all night and into the next morning. I had betrayed my body's trust.

Oh, fickle tastebuds! Oh, wayward cravings! I knew that no good could come from anything ending in a cutsie suffex like -ette, and yet I gave in anyway. Oh, pathetic willpower, where were you in my moment of need?

I heard later in the week that Hostess has filed for bankruptcy. Maybe this means they will discontinue those donettes and many of their other diabetes-inducing confections. For all our sakes, I certainly hope so.

Readers, take this as a cautionary tale. And please, don't ever offer me a donut.