I mentioned about three weeks ago that I’ve had an obsession with chocolate cake. After returning from Disney World, it was chocolate cake and root beer. Even though I thought I was getting over it three weeks ago, we bought a lot more cake in that time frame. Each day I despised the sight of it more and more. I noticed I was feeling worse, and yet I’d find myself in the kitchen slicing up some more. I think adding the root beer sped up the gag reflex.

There were a several days before the end where I would eat almost all of a piece and then just stare at the rest. I grappled with all kinds of thoughts:

“If I try to save the rest of this, someone in the house might eat it before I decide if I want to finish it or not.” (fear of being without)

“What the heck am I saving it for, I shouldn’t even want another bite!” (diet mentality)

“This is the last piece of cake I’m going to have, I might as well finish it!” (diet mentality)

“Am I stopping because I truly don’t want anymore, or is it because I think I should stop eating it?” (confused signals)

Then, there were about three of those times when I set the rest aside and waited to finish it later. Once this started happening, I noticed I was cutting smaller slices than before. Then, it finally happened, there was one piece left (I went through 4 whole Costco chocolate cakes… and I don’t know how many individual slices between cakes from the local grocery store). I should point out that I did share some cake with the husband and kids, but I ate most of it. Anyway, I stared at that piece and I decided to really think about how it tasted and felt. I had been doing this bit by bit with the cake, but this time I was going to savor every last bite. The thought, “this is the last time I have cake”, popped into my mind and I said, “No it isn’t!” I refused to let my mind even go there. I told myself that if I wanted cake again, I could have it… period.

So I sat down with that last one… and some root beer. I gagged my way through the last half of it. By the end, I decided that not only did I not like the taste, I hated how my stomach felt. I only had about three sips of the root beer. Blech.

And then I had another blood sugar crash later. I think that solidified that chocolate cake wasn’t doing me any favors. The husband had some root beer later and offered me some saying, “that’s the last of it”. I wrinkled my nose and said, “no thank you.” Then he said he was going to go to the store to get dessert (after dinner). He offered to pick me up something (since I was out of cake lol). I didn’t want cake. I couldn’t even believe it when the words came out of my mouth, “I don’t want any cake.” Still, even now, I’m shocked. In fact, nothing sounded good. He brought home Jr. Mints, but I didn’t have them that night (had some Super Bowl Sunday). I ended up having a banana with almond butter. No crazy spikes and crashes after that. What was even cooler is that I was perfectly content with my banana.

I’m eating less and less of the things I thought I’d always be “out of control” around if I wasn’t “on a diet”. They are losing their appeal. I can’t say I’m happy or sad to see the cake obsession go. I’m actually feeling quite neutral about it. I think the cake had to run its course. It’s been so long (maybe never) since I ate cake without any guilt. It’s so funny how removing the “restriction” eventually makes you realize that you don’t even like it as much as you thought you did, and you certainly don’t like how you physically feel after consuming it…. and neither of those things has anything to do with guilt.

2/10/2015 UPDATE – I thought this posted on the 4th… but it didn’t… so I’m posting it now. I would like to add, I still don’t have a desire for cake. When I went to Costco on Friday, I did look for the cake, not so I could buy any, but rather to see what my reaction would be when I saw it. I had already decided that if I saw it and wanted to take it home with me… I would. Well, they didn’t have it that day, and you know what? I was completely indifferent about it. I wasn’t sad that it wasn’t there, and I wasn’t relieved either. I just shrugged and moved on to find my frozen strawberries. I will say, that about an hour or so later, the 10 year old and I stopped off at a yummy bakery for a “cake pop”… Yes, one cake pop each (like two bites of cake). Get this, I even forgot about that until sometime later when I was thinking about how indifferent I felt about the Costco cake. I was going to say, “I haven’t had any cake”, but then remembered those two bites and laughed at what a “non-event” that was.