snacks – Sip of Starrshine

I don’t consider myself to be a person of many vices at all. I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I don’t gamble.

What do I do instead?
I eat chips. Or at least I used to.

Hi. My name is Starr and I’m a recovering chip addict. If you could take a pause from laughing at me for a moment, I’ll explain my sad story. (Cue violin music.)

I’ve always loved chips. They’re crunchy, they’re crispy, they have this amazing savoriness, even a bit of umami-ness. I love the taste and texture and how they never let me down.

The funny thing is, I actually gave up chips for Lent a few years ago. It wasn’t exactly a walk in the park, but I pulled through without too much issue and resumed eating chips after Easter, finding that I had regained self-control in the presence of chips. I still loved them, but I no longer felt like I needed to inhale every snack-sized bag that reached my grubby hands. I could eat one bag, or even share one with a friend!

Evidently, I lost this self-control somewhere along the way. I know exactly when. It was a little over a year ago, and I was at a really stressful job. I had a snack drawer at my cubicle and there was always a bag of chips in there. At the peak of my burn-out that would eventually lead to me leaving that company, I was eating an entire family-sized bag of chips every day. FAMILY-SIZED. I was not a family. I was — and remain — one single person. In fact, I was eating so many chips every day that I started gaining weight. I’m lucky enough to not really gain weight very easily at all, but I starting putting on pounds during those last few weeks at that company with all the chips I was eating. No matter how much I love chips, they are no where near as good for your body as they are for your soul, and they are really quite bad for you when you eat enough to supply a weekend barbecue with friends.

With the weight gain and the realization that I could probably eat two full-sized bags of Doritos every day if I let myself buy that many chips, I decided to quit cold turkey. I figured it’d be like when I stopped eating chips during Lent. When I found myself craving chips, I ate some cereal to satisfy my crunchy craving and sate my hunger. But I still wanted chips. Okay, I decided to have some roasted seawood to satisfy my salty craving. I figured chip craving = crunchy craving + salty craving, at the end of the day, and as long as I could fulfill those two, I didn’t need chips. But I was wrong. In fact, I ate through most of my snack foods that day, and even though I knew I wasn’t hungry, I still desperately wanted chips.

In short, I realized I was addicted to chips. I wanted something very specific and I wasn’t able to substitute other things for it.

That moment, coupled with me actually tearing up in the chips aisle of my grocery store, woke me up to a pretty bad problem. Not eating chips was going to take a lot of willpower. Would I ever be able to eat chips again?? I told myself I would start eating chips again when I started a new job, but when my first day approached, I realized I just wasn’t ready.

Today marks me being one-year clean of chips. The last time I had a potato chip was August 20, 2014. (Incidentally, it wasn’t the first day I went chip-free. That was a relapse. Originally, I had quit chips about a week prior.) I have had, on hand, a bag of Captain America Cool Ranch Doritos (Cool Ranch or bust!) ready for this day, but we are not together today. I’m going to ease into chips with those and the Fritos (see below) because I’m not even sure I can handle a potato chip just yet.

Because bae should be there when I have chips

I’m not going to eat the whole bag. I’m trying to really practice healthy portion control with chips, and that’ll be the biggest struggle of all.

Let me walk you through the chips that have tormented me the most:

There are going to be a lot of kettle cooked chips in my future. Nothing beats that amazing crunch!

Ben introduced me to these and I now LUST for jalapeno kettle-cooked chips.

These aren’t potato-based BUT they’re really addicting. My roommate and I used to have to confiscate the bag from each other. They were buy one, get one free yesterday and I’m just such a sucker for deals in the chip aisle.

These are my TOPS. I basically always buy one of those 3 bags (maybe all 3, if I’m feeling really naughty). But you know, in my obsession with these 3, I forgot about other great ones that I rediscovered right before I stopped eating chips.

Sour cream and onion! I missed you. (Until I ate a family-sized bag in one sitting, that was a low.)

BBQ chips are all fine and well but honey BBQ? Oooooooh yes. Also, did not know that Utz was a local(ish) brand!

I have a lot of fears.What if chips aren’t as amazing as I remember them being? What if my body rejects them? (Oh god…) What if a year of hyping them up has just set me up for epic disappointment?

But this has been a really good exercise in self-control. I don’t actually NEED chips. I want them, really badly, but I can live without them. It’s been oddly empowering, and I kind of want to experiment more with these year-long abstinences rather than just my annual Lenten one.

Tell me about your favorite chips please!!

I feel I need to first mention that I’m not Catholic, nor am I a Christian.

However, I think that Lent, like New Year’s, is a great time to start new habits or break old ones while you have the support of friends who are also doing the same. I often find that the habits I form during Lent do persist after Easter has passed, which means that a) I had a pretty bad problem before Ash Wednesday and b) I have helped resolve that problem by a lot!

Some things I’ve given up in the past:

2011: Facebook & Tumblr
2012: Chips & McDonald’s (McDonald’s had gotten too convenient with their fries & sweet teas)
2013: …?? Did I give anything up last year? I don’t think I did actually?

Huh, I don’t think I gave up anything last year. But the previous 2 years I remember being tricky. I missed event invites on Facebook. I ate chips with all my sandwiches and soups! (I have a real passion for chips.)

This year, although I’m a little late, with a little bit of encouragement from Christine & Karen, I am going to be mostly giving up television.

This is maybe going to be my toughest lenten period yet (even tougher than the sad days I had to say no to chips). I have been mildly addicted to TV ever since I was little. My daily routines were structured around my TV schedule. Wake up, watch Sesame Street, Magic School Bus, take a nap, watch Big Comfy Couch, watch Bill Nye, watch Saved By the Bell, etc. etc.

Like a mild version of him, minus the awesome cowboy garb.
(This reference isn’t lost on you guys, right??)

Today, this manifests as me having several shows that I watch each week. I only watch a couple of them when they actually air, which means I typically end up holed up in my room with my computer, watching things on Hulu, CBS, or streaming them from less reliable sources. I also occasionally binge watch shows. Recently, I just finished watching Secret Diary of a Call Girl and I am caught up on Hannibal now.

I have a problem.
I need to solve this problem.

So, I have decided I will allow myself three shows to watch, and I may watch TV socially. But no more holing myself in my room watching TV just to pass the time. (Why do I watch so much New Girl? I don’t like it very much!)

Right now, I’m trying to figure out what shows I will allow myself to watch and I will try to watch them when they air, to minimize temptations to click to the next show and watch TV for 3 hours on my computer. The list right now looks like this:

Once Upon a Time is non-negotiable. It is a problem in and of itself, but I have been waiting for the mid-season premiere and Lent is not going to stop me from watching it.
How I Met Your Mother is finally almost over and I want to see it through. I don’t love it as much as I used to, so we’ll see if this stays on the list.
Hannibal is the newest show I’ve started watching, and I only started because I was too lazy to not watch the season premiere. (I was already sat in front of the TV and I didn’t feel like changing the channel. Do you see how problematic this addiction is?) We’ll see if I keep watching it or if I’ll pick something else.

Other contenders include: Big Bang Theory (next runner-up), Once Upon a Time in Wonderland, Elementary, Modern Family, and Community (last runner-up). Also, it goes without saying that I can’t start any new shows.

<deep breath>
This will be a challenge, and it is meant to me.

In addition, I have been talking to some people about using Lent as an opportunity to add something of value and meaning to your life rather than trying to subtract something. My friend Jenn used the example of eating less beef or red meat. If you try to cut out red meat completely, you’ll likely eat a herd of cows on Easter Sunday. BUT, if you say you’re going to eat more turkey, it’s a bit easier to substitute a turkey burger for a beefy burger to reach that goal rather than turning down a beef burger with a pout on your face.

So! On that note, I am trying to snack healthier by just snacking on more fruits and veggies and making sure I eat fruits and veggies more often throughout the day. This goal will be harder to check up on, I think, but it will also be good for me.

This can’t be so bad if the creepy face is smiling. PLUS I have this plate in my house! Done and done.

(Also, I am aware that Sundays are essentially like “cheat days”, but I have pretty bad problems that require complete discipline. I won’t let myself have days to binge-watch TV. Or eat tons of chips.)

Do you typically give something up for Lent?
If so, what are you giving up this year?
If not, what are some habits you would like to increase/decrease in general?