Day 37, A Chocolate Chip Cookie

On Day 22 I blogged about my experience having a beer after three weeks on a strict diet. Today I thought I'd see how eating something sugary would go over.


I was meeting someone at Starbucks, and decided to have a chocolate chunk cookie along with my coffee. The cookie was 175 calories, which isn't enough to break the bank, but enough to be an indulgence. I was mainly interested in how my body would react to that much sugar at one time. For the past 37 days I haven't had any refined sugar, just whatever comes from fruit and vegetables. And I've had absolutely no chocolate during that time period.

So, here's how it went.

Taste
Delicious! I thought that maybe after my sugar sabbatical the cookie would seem abnormally sweet, perhaps too sweet to be enjoyable. Wrong-O. That sucker was tasty. I savored every bite. I've always liked Starbucks cookies because they aren't sugary sweet (maybe because they use brown sugar?) and the chocolate is pretty dark. Yummy. I loved it.

Effects
I immediately felt a sugar rush, and became more chipper. Ideas started flowing freely. This must have been how the Europeans felt when they first encountered chocolate. Some people even sought to ban it because it was considered a drug along the lines of hashish. There's a book I enjoyed about this period called The Coffee Trader, by David Liss.


In addition, in just a few minutes I could feel my sex drive gearing up, and for lack of a better word, felt more "manly." Perhaps from the chocolate?

Aftereffects
Within two hours I could literally feel the fat from the cookie, especially along my love handles. You might not believe me but I'm just telling it like it is. I can feel a layer of something there that wasn't there before, and it ain't muscle. This doesn't bother me, it'll come off with tomorrow's workout. But it's an interesting and somewhat gross feeling.

So, all in all, another very informative eating experience. Especially considering just a month and half ago I ate one of those cookies about once a week without a second thought.

The glass of beer was 15 days ago, so I'm thinking, why not make this a routine? Every 15 days I will eat something definitely not part of the PCP diet, and report on the effects. So, the next "out of bounds food" experiment will be day 52. And suggestions readers? What should I eat that day?