Confessions Of A Snackaholic

By .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Wednesday - July 19, 2006

E-mail this story | Print this page | Comments (0) | Archive | RSS

| Share

Del.icio.us

I have a lot of bad habits. Not bad in the sense of vice squad-related habits, but more like misdemeanor bad habits.

One of my worst ones is my compulsion for snacking. Overall, I’ve been eating a lot healthier, but I can’t seem to shake the snack habit.

First, my definition of snack is something you eat between your three square meals. If each meal takes an hour or two to consume, then that leaves me with 18 hours worth of time for snacking.

For a snack junkie, that’s 18 hours too many.

The bad part about it is that I hide the fact that I have this problem. When you have an addiction like mine, concealing it takes some innovative footwork.

I call one of my greatest techniques “out of sight, out of mind.” My wife will ask me to run out and pick up some fast food for the kids. Those food orders will always include french fries. In my amateur days, I would simply eat a few from each bag and my journey home would seemingly get longer. Our kids caught on to me mostly because I was returning with half-full containers and french fry breath.

I now order my own bag of fries and am able to consume the whole bag by the time I get home. Those minty breath strips take care of any detection by smell. Of course, my wife is on to me and the other night busted me for a major snack felony.

I was in the kitchen making some microwave popcorn. There was a box of Wheat Thins on the counter and I popped a few in my mouth. Just then, my wife entered the kitchen and sized up what was going on. She said, “I don’t believe this. You’re actually having a snack while you’re waiting for a snack.”

I didn’t have the guts to tell her that I made the popcorn to eat while I was waiting for my pizza delivery.