Never enough

Today I threw away my popcorn maker. For it has been the source of my latest in a long-line of unhealthy obsessions.

I am not someone to do things by halves. I do not enter into things lightly. No. I am not someone who feels guilt because they have consumed a Mars Bar or a row of chocolate. No. Instead I am racked with guilt after consuming 4 x 250g blocks of chocolate. Hamstrung by my weakness. Until the next day when I do it again.

I am someone who goes shopping deciding to buy only two blocks of chocolate (after all, even I know that each has over 1200 calories). But then I get home and the worry starts. I only have two blocks of chocolate (never mind that it is enough to provide a treat to an entire classroom of children). The panic sets in. It isn’t going to be enough. What if I run out?

Those-who-know-me have lived through my crazes. My fads. For a while I ate nothing but those pink lolly Big Boss cigars. Then there was a jaffa phase. M&Ms have featured a few times. The peanut ones AND the crunchy ones. Coco-pops, milo and 100s & 1000s (sans milk) was another favourite. Often I will eat nothing else but my latest sweetheart. For weeks I mainlined chocolate icing on biscuits. For breakfast, lunch, dinner and whatever else came between.

Sometimes there is a reason. After I have been on no- or low-carb diets I end up eating nothing but carbs for weeks. To hell with protein, vegetables and fruit!

My latest love has been popcorn. I started just after fat camp. I air-popped it in my popcorn-maker so that part is healthy. But then I smothered it in melted butter and this soup mix flavouring. I like tasty. The spicier or sweeter the better. My taste evolved over the 6 weeks I have fought (or enjoyed) my popcorn addiction. Recently I have had to make two bowls at once. Big bowls. One savoury and one sweet (butter with icing sugar generously sprinkled – strewn – over the top). Initially a ‘treat’, it became a staple. I replaced my evening meals with popcorn. As I was on a non-drinking thing I decided I needed something to occupy my time at night, so popcorn it was. Without alcohol or other evils, my daily intake of calories (despite the butter and additives) wasn’t too bad.

But like all good addictions, my need grew along with my tolerance. The bowls became bigger and more flavoursome. I tried to ‘quit’. To eat real meals and use popcorn as an ‘after’. To try and get some protein and vegetables into my diet (I am not – after all – a teenager, so I should know better). But alas, my level of popcorn consumption remained. I was consuming double the calories from my two ‘meals’. So, I went back to the meal-replacement scenario, forsaking dinner.

I kept telling myself that this bowl will be the last. I stopped buying it. No popping corn. No butter. No icing sugar. Then I craved it. So I bought it. But, as with the chocolate fetish (and others before it), the panic set in. I found myself at home with half a bag of popping corn. Again – enough to feed a small country, but I become obsessed that it wouldn’t be enough. That I would run out. So I had to go and buy more. Before I even started eating the rest of it. I didn’t often need it as 1/3 bag of popping corn gives me two very large bowls. But I panicked.

Even as a non-practicing holder of undergraduate degree in psychology, I realise that this fear isn’t about popcorn. Or chocolate, or alcohol. I could make some guesses about what it means or where it stems from. But hell, that would rob me of years of therapy. Or my next fetish. So, instead stay tuned.