Peanut Butter is my Crack...

When it comes to food, I often go in phases. I will eat an abundance of fish, or beef, or for a while I was deeply into soups, and even slightly obsessed with a vegetarian chili recipe I found in Cooking Light magazine. In addition to main course phases, I am especially fickle when it comes to my snacks.

I am a snacker from way back! I recall a low-fat yogurt mixed with cereal snack (before you could even buy such a creation), sugar free based pudding shakes, (mix dry pudding with skim milk, ice, and a little vanilla), and I went through a rather long and severe diet ice cream stage, but as I have recently cut carbs from my diet, I have focused in on my recent snack infatuation, which is currently bordering on an addiction: peanut butter. Well, low fat natural peanut butter, as if that somehow makes it better.

A dear friend (Leanne, you know who you are!) recently encouraged me to try a low-carb diet. I have had so much success losing weight doing Weight Watchers in the past that I totally ignored the whole low-carb frenzy when it was in vogue. Instead, I insisted on towing the WW company line "All things in moderation" and tried to live by it. Course, if I had a solid grasp on "moderation" I would not have a weight problem to begin with, so I think that's where the chink in the armor began. But getting back to Leanne, I mean low-carb, she swears by it, and has been doing this type of diet for years. So, since Leanne is thin and pretty, (which means if I didn’t love her, I would hate her!) I decided to take her advice and try it, since it so obviously works for her.

At first I loved it!! I went from my "almost" vegetarian diet to ingesting massive quantities of protein, foods like beef, and salmon, and eggs, and tuna fish mixed with real mayo. It was so new, and exciting, and seriously, any diet that will let me eat real mayonnaise with abandon, is high on my list!!

So, I ate steak, fajitas, beef of any kind, really, and lots of it, since I didn't have to worry about how much I was consuming. And truth be told, I lost about seven pounds my first week. Of course, half of that weight loss was water weight, but still, the scale drastically dropped, and it made me happy. I thought I was on to the next great weight loss phase of my life.

After a while, I found myself eating the same things over and over, which is just something I typically do, and I'm usually ok with that. But after eating eggs and cheese every morning, I was starting to get a little bored with breakfast. But breakfast wasn't the biggest hurdle with this new low-carb lifestyle. I thought, since I was never a big sweets person, that I would be ok without all things sweet. But after weeks of protein, minimal veggies, and lots of high fat foods (mayo, bacon) I realized at night, I craved something…sweet.

I've never been a big fruit enthusiast. I like it ok, especially summer fruit, but I can easily pass on apples, pears, bananas until you realize you can't have any…EVER! Then you realize how much you actually do want these foods. Hmmm maybe that's the point of the whole low-carb thing, to make you realize just how much you miss things like whole grains and fruit.

In an effort to pacify my longing for sweet things at night…I gravitated to the first low-carb sweet thing I came across: Peanut Butter! Leanne suggested I could have "some" in an effort to kill that sweet craving. But I know Leanne, she somehow assumed when she told me I could eat "some" she envisioned me eating a tablespoon of it, or two, at the most! But for me, well let's just say I still don't have a grasp on the word Moderation!

So every night, after the usual routine of coming home from work, making, eating, and cleaning up after dinner. Spending a little time with my husband, I would bring the jar of low fat natural peanut butter with me into the living room and settle in with it while I watched whatever was on the dvr. I have learned to stay away from the food channel, despite how much I love it, cause it always makes me want to eat. You know, years ago, when I used to go to the gym for cardio almost daily, I used to change the tv at the gym to the food channel. Sort of counterproductive, huh?

I keep digressing off of my peanut butter topic, maybe because it's become just too painful to discuss. After a while, I couldn't watch tv without it. And despite numerous attempts to stay away (not buying it when I went to the grocery store), I would make quick last minute trips just to pick some up. I became truly addicted! And sadly, I was going through about a jar of it a week!

Let me tell you something, dieting may be hard, working out regularly may be hard, and quitting smoking was incredibly hard. But giving up that low-fat natural peanut butter was a experience I will not soon forget. I'm happy to say I am completely peanut butter free now. I did it cold turkey too, and it was excruciating. So hard....I don't think I can even talk about it without tears. But sometimes, in the late hours of the night, I just KNOW my husband is spreading that incredibly yummy stuff all over a slice of white bread. Full fat peanut butter on white bread! I ask you, does it get any more decadent than that, nutritionally? When the smell comes wafting in from the other room, despite his attempts to hide it from me…those are the times when I know, deep down in my soul, that peanut butter is my crack...