Memories of...100 cookies

Whether or not chocolate is the boss of me is debatable.  Chocolate chip COOKIES, however, are undoubtedly the boss of me.  They are my kryptonite.  Therefore, I have avoided them almost completely for the past year.

On the eve of launching into my mindful eating online course, I had a chocolate chip cookie disaster.  My last chocolate chip cookie disaster is known as The Time I Ate 100 Cookies.  It was a few years ago now, but was so epic that my sweetheart and I still refer to it when I am teetering on the brink of a mindless eating maelstrom.  My most recent CCCD (chocolate chip cookie disaster) was almost as grisly. I think that sharing it may help me process and move past it.

There happened to be a bag of President's Choice "The Decadent" Chocolate Chip cookies in our office this week.  If you live in Canada, you know these cookies well - President's Choice brand's flagship product. The brilliant, sinister marketers at PC brand use them to advertise insurance and mortgages, for the love of pete.  I don't even like packaged cookies, but I love these.  I have never bought a bag of them for myself as an adult because I know I can't control myself.  It is rather suspicious, don't you think, that they have not disclosed the narcotic substances that the cookies must be laced with in the list of ingredients?

So anyway, I thought maybe I'd just have 2 as a mid-morning snack, while I continued working on the computer.  Poof.  Gone. Surprise!  OK, maybe just one more.  Wait, where did that go?

I continued like this for a few hours, with furtive trips into the common area where the bag of cookies lurked, before a brilliant insight came to me: 

No matter how many of these cookies I eat, I will never feel satisfied, so I might as well stop now.

How righteous I felt!  I made it through the rest of the day, triumphant at 4:45.  I think a sympathetic colleague hid them, just to be safe.  One of the first mindless eating episodes that's cemented in my memory is a bag of these same damn cookies in our family pantry, and me tiptoeing down the hallway instead of concentrating on algebra homework in my bedroom.  25 years later and I may have actually tamed this salty, slightly chewy, and maximally chocolatey beast.

The next morning at home I consciously acknowledged that the bag of cookies would be at work when I arrived there, and that I had a choice.  I decided that I would not eat any of the cookies, since I had had so many the day before and was not that satisfied by them.

At 10 am I revised my decision based on new information (I was hungry and had packed a disappointing lunch).  I decided that 2 cookies, eaten very consciously with my cup of tea for maximum appreciation and satisfaction, was acceptable and prudent.

Let's skip past the graphic and disturbing details that followed.  An hour later the bag of cookies was empty and I felt really gross.  The end. 

A disturbing scene.