Since the age of forty, I’ve been increasingly dissatisfied with my state of physical wellness. I get out of breath much easier than I used to, and I’m gaining weight even though I eat no more than I ever did. As a result of this dissatisfaction, I have wandered in and out of attempts to “watch what I eat” and to make healthier lifestyle choices, but it’s all for naught. I can’t get over one giant hurdle…my Achilles’ heel…my addiction. Potato chips.
I love potato chips. I never realized how much I loved them until I began trying to watch what I eat, or cut down on carbs. I can easily forego ice cream, cookies, soda, even beer, but not potato chips.
Potato chips are just too convenient and taste too good. It’s never not a good time for potato chips.
On the go, running errands? No time to stop for lunch? Grab a bag of chips!
Working out as part of your healthier lifestyle regiment? Then you deserve a bag of chips!
Sitting idle on the couch binge-watching Netflix? You better get a couple bags of chips.
And if the chips weren’t bad enough by themselves, sometimes my body screams, “WAIT! Those chips aren’t doing quite enough damage to us. Why don’t you load them up with some French Onion Dip?” This is the point at which I am no longer eating chips. I am simply using them as vehicle to get humongous mounds of chip dip into my mouth.
Having identified potato chips as my downfall, I try to shift my brain pattern. I picture potato chips as the enemy. I imagine that each chip is a little Tasmanian Devil, ripping and tearing through my body and wreaking havoc on my health. I even try to associate the words potato and chip with evil. I force myself to cringe at the mention of them—a sort of verbal aversion to the very name of the delicious snack. But I can only stay in that mindset for so long before my cravings start to wear on my resolve. Before I know it, my brain starts trying to trick me. I start thinking of them as “tater chips.” Tater chips sound so much less ominous—almost playful—like what a big fluffy teddy bear would call them. “Here, have some tater chips,” the big fluffy bear would offer, cheerfully. How could something called tater chips be the enemy?
The constant availability of my food drug of choice is not helping. There is a dealer pushing them on every corner. Supermarkets, convenience stores, gas stations, vending machines—Amazon will even deliver a pallet of them to my door if I so choose.
I think if I could get past potato chips, I could manage a reasonably healthy lifestyle. All other aspects of healthy living seem simple compared to the tater chips addiction. I just don’t know if I have that resolve. I seem to be falling farther and farther down the rabbit hole of uncontrollable chip indulgence every day. Even now, as I sit tearfully writing my confessional and jamming handfuls of chips into my mouth in Cookie Monster-like fashion, potato chip crumbs are cascading from my lips down onto the grease smeared keyboard.
Potato chips will be the death of me. The end can’t be far off now.
anon
I love emo articles and sometimes you just want to gush about stuff without someone one upping you with their ‘logic’ and ‘reason’. I come to this site to get all my feels, and maybe you like the feels, too.
Nice to have a friend in the ‘vegging feels good’ dept. I have been staying all day in bed for weeks, and actually it is helping me, but besides that it is nice just to be, rather than always improving.
hoc snacks
Nice Blog