My Chocolate Diet

"Gimme some chocolate or I. Will. Cut. You." So said Becky-the-Cheerio in last week's Halloween episode of 'glee.'

Hello, my name is Peter Varvel, and I am a chocoholic.

("Hi, Peter.")

I love chocolate. I would marry it if it were legal to do so ("No on Prop Chocol8!"). Chocolate is sometimes more emotionally satisfying than most of my human relationships, maybe even more fulfilling than my emotional bonds with my pugs.

Maybe . . .

I miss working in Japan. I miss my late night ritual of going to any of the local convenience stores for a fix or two of chocolate. Sure, I can buy chocolate in the U.S. every day, even the Japanese brands. But I'm not sweating it off by dancing in a theme park five days a week like I was in the nation of Hello Kitty.

Ahh, those past Glory Days of Indulgence without Consequence!

Domestic Partner shakes his head in both disgust and disbelief when I am not able to hide my ability to consume an entire package of Nabisco's Chocolate Chunk cookies in the course of half a day. He tsk-tsk's when I am not being discrete about finishing almost an entire bag of fun-size Snickers on my own (I am convinced that heroin must be what makes them so 'fun' . . . how else to explain why they're so addicting?).

"It's like a direct hit to the 'pleasure button' in my brain," I attempt to explain to him. "I'm like a captive chimp in a testing lab. I have to keep pushing that button over and over by repeatedly eating chocolate."

Domestic Partner doesn't buy it. He is a salt-a-holic, so I do not expect him to understand.

Chocolate candy bars and cookies with chocolate - those are my weaknesses. Portion control with the chocolate-and-cookie combinations requires god-like powers and I know it is neither possible nor realistic in my fallible human existence.

But I've found a couple of good compromises.

Kellogg's Frosted Mini-Wheats come in a chocolate flavor. I take a Tupperware container of those to work now (portion control), instead of giving in to the overpriced Kit Kats and Twix Cookie Bars from the vending machine (which also counts as portion control but alas, not budget control). And at least I'm getting some whole wheat with this at-my-desk snack. You can even taste/feel the crunch of the infinitesimal chocolate chips that are in the cereal squares.

Sometimes.

I need chocolate after dinner. I need sweet. Dark chocolate has been a surprising happy medium and balance, especially the Belgian dark chocolate bar from Fresh & Easy. A moderate portion satisfies my usual craving, but it doesn't activate the addictive urge to continue eating more until none is left.

And right now is that crucial time, once again - that Annual Crucial Period - when balance and moderation are most dire during this solid half-year of perpetual holidays, that Danger Zone of six months, all the way from October's trick-or-treat candy (marked on clearance!!) to April's Easter chocolate (also marked on clearance, and way past Mother's Day!).

God get me through it one more time, please.