Robert Gerard Hunt Stories. Commentary. Endorphins. Updated every Friday.

A Year Without Chocolate

Just kidding. Mugging for the camera this summer with my brother's chocolate cake.

As 2010 drew to a close, I sat on the couch and watched revelers in Times Square while gobbling down handfuls of M&Ms and despising my gluttonous nature. My chronic overindulgence inspired an end-of-year post in which I confessed a lifelong habit of overeating as well as bouts of draconian self-deprivation. I concluded my observations with a noncommittal suggestion that I might try to forgo chocolate for the entirety of 2011, as it had become a rarity for me to go even a day without it. Fellow chocoholics, I stand before you now to report that I am less than 48 hours away from having endured a year without chocolate.

Hold your applause, please. For though I am certain that I shall imminently achieve my goal, I am hardly a changed man. No, my gluttony persists, as you shall soon learn, a vice redirected to other heathen avenues. But I suppose there is something to be said for pulling off a stunt like this in a fattened society where chocolate is as prevalent as our basic necessities. I am here to tell you that, though it may seem as daunting as survival sans oxygen, living without chocolate for prolonged periods of time can be done.

I decided that if my sacrifice was to be pure and meaningful, then it had to be precise, because the world of chocolate has many gray areas. What exactly does it mean to give up chocolate? Are we talking about only the solid form as used in candy bars and M&Ms? What about chocolate brownies? Chocolate milk? Count Chocula? There are too many potential boundaries where the line can be drawn, and so I concluded that the only way to give up chocolate properly was to avoid it in all of its forms, even the most remote and least satisfying. Nothing that claimed to be chocolate in any way would pass my lips. Not so much as a Tootsie Roll. Not so much as an allegedly chocolate Necco wafer. Not so much as a mocha coffee. No sir, I could not accept any edible as kosher unless it was 100% devoid of chocolate both in actuality as well as in intent.

In a strange and unexpected way, this zealotry actually made my challenge easier. There was never any question in my mind about whether or not I was permitted to have any chocolaty item. It was forbidden. As long as I could maintain that mindset, my rejection of chocolate was automatic. In turn, I discovered an unanticipated form of relief, the perverse freedom of self-denial. I no longer subjected myself to internal debates over whether or not it was acceptable for me to indulge my appetite for chocolate. It simply was not acceptable. And so there was rarely any sensation of temptation. I wistfully scanned the candy bars at the checkout counter, but I never considered buying one. When the odd gift of chocolate came my way, I no longer thought about its deleterious effect upon my health. I wasn't going to eat it, and that was that.

However, a routinely obliged sweet tooth does not cease its chocolate addiction without demanding something in return. I still experienced the almost daily compulsion to eat something sugary, especially after a meal. There are so many ways to satisfy a craving for sweetness that I think my diet may have become less healthy after I gave up chocolate. Foremost among my sins was my consumption of pounds - yes, pounds - of Reese's Pieces this year. They are devoid of chocolate, contrary to what many people assume, but the rich flavor of sweetened peanut butter combined with a texture and mouthfeel nearly identical to M&Ms provides a very satisfying sensation. On many occasions when I felt like eating chocolate, I took solace in the joys of peanut butter.

In addition to the lowly goober, I owe another nut a measure of thanks for helping me to diminish chocolate cravings. I have found that hazelnut creamer, when combined just so with coffee and aspartame, creates a rewarding flavor profile, the complexity of which rivals that of chocolate. A regular breakfast of a Honey Nut Cheerios Breakfast Bar with a whipped hazelnut coffee has capped off my mornings with a sugary exclamation point that gives me the temporary sensation that all is right with the world.

Reese's Pieces and hazelnut coffee may have been my chocolate crutches, but I had additional help from many supporting dietary villains. Pixy Stix, Smarties, Laffy Taffy, Nerds, Maple Nut Goodies, fruit pies, glazed donuts, Popsicles, Pepsi Throwback, and white cake made multiple appearances in 2011. I even found fatty satisfaction in combining vanilla ice cream with Raisin Bran Crunch. As I said, the sweet tooth does not like to be denied, and it will find a way. To a large degree, these substitutions are the reason why my chocolate abstinence has not been accompanied by any weight loss.

Despite all of my sugary indulgences, I still wanted to eat chocolate. How it wrenched my gluttonous heart to see bags and bags of holiday candy marked down to almost nothing in January! When was the last time I sailed through Valentine's Day without eating a single piece of chocolate? How strange to have Girl Scout Thin Mints in the house and watch them disappear without helping! To visit a Graeter's ice cream shop and not order a flavor with chocolate chunks! To have no chocolate cream pie at the Kewpee during Marchocolate! To pass by plates of chocolate chip cookies! To take a vacation and not indulge in the local chocolate creations! There was Halloween with its endless supply of candy bars, Thanksgiving with its Texas Sheet Cake, and now the nonstop proliferation of chocolate that accompanies Christmas and New Year's Eve.

Yes, through it all, I have wanted to eat chocolate. In my dreams, I did. Half a dozen times this year, I experienced dreams in which I innocently ingested some M&Ms or a piece of cake, only to realize with horror that I had inadvertently sabotaged my challenge. I awoke rattled by the scenarios, armed with a heightened awareness of the chocolate dangers that surrounded me. Once, upon leaving a restaurant with my brothers, I was about to follow their lead and enjoy a complimentary pair of spherical mints. With the fine-tuned instincts of a paranoid spy, I asked one of them to bite his mint in half, a precaution that revealed a thin layer of chocolate under the candy shell. Alas! I had come so far, and I was not about to be undone by an after-dinner mint.

So, fellow chocoholics, it can be done. I suppose I could carry on my abstinence for as long as I wanted, but let's not be stupid about it. Chocolate is a part of life, at least until your doctor tells you that it's not. I am looking forward to watching the Times Square ball drop tomorrow night, knowing that the shouts of "Happy New Year!" will herald the end of my theatrical self-denial. Aware of this momentous occasion, my daughters gave me for Christmas a pound box of Anthony Thomas Melt-Away Mints, an old and rarely indulged favorite. We also picked up a pound of chocolate-covered pretzels from Findlay's Dietsch Brothers, one of the finest candy shops anywhere. And my sister Chris, who has followed my no-chocolate challenge and knows my love for the absurd, gave me a one-pound package of Reese's Peanut Butter Cups that contains precisely two peanut butter cups (that right, the oversize cups are half a pound each!).

Happy New Year, fellow chocoholics! I know mine will be.

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