My name is Nikki and I’m a chocoholic. It’s been 24 hours since my last Boost Bite.

 There, I’ve said it (well, typed it). 

Now I’m not just talking about the odd Mars bar, or little treat. I eat vast amounts of the stuff every single day without fail. A family size bar of Dairy Milk without stopping for air followed by a couple of little Kinder bars to finish then, oh sod it, might as well open the Galaxy Counters. I mean, not every night of course. That would be ridiculous. So sometimes I mix it up and have Twirl Bites instead of Counters. And what are those little stickers even for on the side of bags of chocolate?? No one actually saves some for later do they?

If chocolate eating was a sport I’d be an Olympic gold medalist several times over. I’d be world champion. Unbeatable. It’s a special talent. I could go head to head with Bruce Bogtrotter and he’d have to concede defeat. 

But for October, I am going cold turkey and giving it up. Completely. No chocolate for a month. A whole month! Why on earth would I do this??

The truth is, I still haven’t lost the baby weight. And the baby is 18 months old. I say ‘baby weight’ but of course I have lost the actual baby weight i.e. the weight of the baby, placenta etc etc. I just haven’t lost the other sort of baby weight (the type you get from stuffing your face with all sorts of bad stuff, because surely you are burning it all off what with growing an actual human and lugging this huge bump round, right?) By the time Totsy was about 3 weeks old I had lost two stone. I was very pleased with this. I’d only got another stone to go. Easy. But I still weigh the same now as I did then! And chocolate is to blame. Or to be absolutely accurate, me shoving chocolate in my gob as if it’s going out of fashion is to blame. I eat reasonably healthy all day. Then I totally ruin it by eating my own body weight in chocolate at night. I seem incapable of eating just a little bit of chocolate. 

I am 5ft 4 and weigh 10 stone (oh, ok 10 stone 5). I’m a size 12 (ok, 10/12 top and 12/14 bottom). So I’m not exactly obese but I want to be less than this. I have always been slim, skinny even. I am not skinny now. For the first time in my life I do not have a thigh gap (though huge thanks to Kim Kardashian for making mermaid thighs a thing). 

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not obsessed with getting skinny. Life is short, way way too short to spend chasing a thigh gap, or obsessing over a few extra pounds (or an extra stone or so). I’m not doing any nonsense diet where you can eat nothing other than cabbage soup / milkshake / aloe vera / dust / babyfood. I’m a mum to girls and I don’t want to be sending out the wrong messages, so I talk about being healthier, not slimmer. But I would like to be healthier (for healthier, I basically just mean less wobbly). 

So I am going to be eating a few more vegetables. A few less carbs. And a lot less chocolate. Zero chocolate. For a month. 

Surviving mum life without my usual sugar fix could be tough. Though the kids will be absolutely thrilled, no more sharing their treats with mummy. Total result for them.

Today is 1st October. So far, so good (well, apart from a near miss when I did almost eat a giant chocolate button this afternoon). One day down, 30 days to go. I can definitely do this (though I might just be trying to convince myself here!). 

Might even go for a run tomorrow. Might not though.