On Sunday, when I rented the movie to be viewed with my sister, I had a craving. There were chocolate covered almonds at the checkout counter. I know why they're at the checkout counter. It's so chocaholics like me with plunk down that extra cash and just give in. Well, I've got diabetes, so my days of eating refined sugar are basically history. I am very picky about what goes into my mouth, and I take my diabetes medication religiously. Thank goodness, my body still has enough capability, with the help of pills, to generate enough insulin to do its job, so I don't need shots. But I do take high-dose pills, and am supposed to check my sugar levels.

I don't test my sugar levels very often anymore. Since nearly my first day on meds (nearly two years ago), my sugar has been in the "normal" range. I've gone from testing my levels twice a day, every two days (the number of times suggested by my physician), to checking twice a week, to checking weekly, to checking whenever I feel like checking. When I have my blood work done (every four months), the readings have ALWAYS indicated that my four-month average glucose is well within the "normal" range.

So, why am I writing this? Well, last night, I returned the movie to the video store. And that package of chocolate covered almonds was still there. And, after eating everything under the sun EXCEPT the chocolate over the past 24 hours, I remembered the old Weight Watcher's admonition.... it is sometimes better to give in to the craving, than to eat ten-times more of something else trying to overcome it. I bought the chocolate-covered almonds, and went home to indulge my craving. After eating a larger-then-recommended number of pieces (the label indicates 17 pieces is a "serving" - yeah right!), let me say two things... chocolate doesn't taste as satisfying to me as it once did (I wasn't salivating during or after the pig-out), and I was in fear after eating the chocolate that my sugar levels would go through the roof.

I went to bed without testing my sugar levels (what would it prove if the level was high, and how high is normal after eating sugar - these are things I really don't know), but decided to test myself (for the first time in over two months) when I woke up this morning. I figured my readings would be in the high 90's (still very much in the "normal" range). After all, it had been over six hours since I had eaten the candy. My reading was an unbelievably wonderful 78. That's without taking medication before the candy, or after the candy, and without taking medication yet this morning. I've been losing weight intentionally lately, and it just might be that my body is better able to cope with food processing than when I weighed significantly more. I still have a very long way to go in my weight loss efforts, but I've made a good start. I have no intention of stopping my medications, or of indulging my cravings more often than I have been. But it was good to know that I had not done serious damage to my system, or reversed the effects of all the good things I've been doing to cope with the diabetes. I mentioned that I had "pigged-out" on the chocolate. Actually, that's only a half-truth. Yes, I ate more than 17 pieces (it was my first candy bar in more than a year). But I didn't eat the entire package. In fact, I didn't even eat half the package. I ate enough to satisfy the craving (which I will confess was fewer than 17 pieces), and then a few more for good measure - perhaps 25-30 pieces overall.

Now, I have to decide what to do with the rest of the package. Do I keep it, and eat a "proper" serving once a day or couple of days until the package is gone, or do I offer the remainder of the package to my wife (thereby sabotaging her weight-loss program), or do I throw it out (I hate throwing out anything I've paid for). I just don't know.