How (& why) I “easily” gave up my daily chocolate fix

yogahealth at every sizeself careself acceptancemenopauseintuitive eating
Written By Emma Polette

I have had a turbulent relationship with chocolate throughout my life. During my childhood, I had a sweet tooth (my brothers and I enjoyed sugar sandwiches) and I loved eating freckles and cobbers from my 20c bag of mixed lollies. Then in my late teens, I became a smoker and food just wasn’t important anymore. I used to say to people that I wished I could just get my nutrients from an intravenous drip because food was boring. Obviously, it just didn’t taste good because of the cigs. My best friend couldn’t understand me because she always had a stash of chocolate and I was like, “meh.”

Then my 30s came, and everything changed. I gave up the smokes, became obsessed with my weight, and started to experience chronic pelvic, back, and leg pain from endometriosis. Chocolate became more appealing. Firstly, I could taste it properly again. Plus, I was looking for something to sweeten my life. Both my chronic pain and chronic dieting meant that life was pretty uninteresting at times and often really hard.

I know what you might be thinking… how do dieting and chocolate consumption go together? Chocolate became a reward for being “good.” If I’d lost a couple of kilos or my calorie count had been extra low, I would get into the peanut M&Ms. I’d been to a corporate training that had told us it was a good snack, in small doses. But I loved peanut M&Ms so much. I would devour whole packets and then regret it later when I had to put the calories into my calorie tracker. My worst moment was when a friend dropped me home after one of my surgeries for endo with a big bag of M&Ms, and I deliberately waited until she left to open them because I didn’t want to share them. And no, I’m not proud of myself.

After my hysterectomy and my decision to look after my body with love, I allowed myself to eat chocolate when I wanted. After I gave up drinking in 2021 (that’s a whole other story, but not unrelated), I wanted chocolate every night. It became my wine replacement.

But like many post-menopausal women, my cholesterol has risen dramatically. I really want to try and make changes to my eating habits to address it, even though blood cholesterol is a lot more complex than just dietary factors. When I looked at my diet, I realised that my daily chocolate intake was my biggest source of saturated fat, which isn’t good for heart health. Once I knew that, I also started to realise I wasn’t even enjoying the chocolate most of the time. It had become a nightly reflex. So, the day after my birthday this year, I simply stopped the daily habit. With all that information, it was easy.

Have I eaten chocolate since? Yes. I had some today, in fact. But it’s not a mindless nightly habit. It’s something I enjoy when I feel like it, which is much less often than I thought it was.

The reason I put “easily” in quotes in the title of this post is because what underpins the ease with which I stopped this daily habit is intuitive eating. I know I can eat chocolate whenever I like. I don’t live by food rules. And I have become in tune with my body, so I know when to stop. If you want to read more about intuitive eating, you can do that here.

This is an example of gentle nutrition which is one of the pillars of my menopause health coaching program. The menopause transition is a really important time to take care of the body with good nutrition so if you need some help with that, check out the program here.

 

Free Menopause Health talk

Friday was World Menopause Day and I was asked to present a talk about menopause health for a large organisation in town.

It went so well that I decided I’d like to offer it to the general public.

This free talk is on Saturday 16th November at 11.30am at the Albany Public Library. Spots are limited so please book in today if you are interested. Click here to get one of the tickets.

Pause - one day yoga retreat

Excited to say I’ve got one more one-day retreat in the diary for 2024. This one is dedicated to anyone going through the menopause transition.

  • People who are worried about what perimenopause may bring

  • People suffering from symptoms like hot flushes and brain fog

  • People who are post-menopausal and want to learn to take care of themselves in this new phase of life

This retreat will include yoga, meditation and some mini-workshops about managing menopause. Lunch & afternoon tea is supplied.

When: Sunday 1st December 10 - 4

Where: King River Hall

Tickets: 6 spots - $185

Click here to book.

 
Emma Polette
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