Chocolate - Is It Good For You?

Chocolate is great for you...no wait...chocolate is bad for you...no wait...chocolate is good for you - well, food and health industry - which is it? 

Is chocolate good for you? Or is it bad? 

Each day I am bombarded with "new" information on what is considered healthy and what is not - does that ever happen to you? And do you ever see the information contradicting itself as I do? Sometimes it makes you want to sit back and think...hmmm...what is the money trail here? Is it the big bad chocolate companies that are making money from our chocolate addiction or could it be the "health" industry doesn't really want us to be healthy, because then we wouldn't buy their products that claim to cut your body fat from a pill or a shake? 

This is a hard topic for me because...I am a chocolate addict. Know anyone else who is? Yeah, that's what I thought. 

When you are young, you are rewarded with chocolate. Growing up as a young lady, you start using it as a weapon against the dreaded PMS symptoms. Here, eat some chocolate, it will make you feel better. When you combine that with other not-so-healthy foods, you get other addictions including ice cream, candy bars, candy and other high calorie foods. Before you know it, you just need a little bit, maybe every day, to get by. Just a little bit won't hurt, right? 

Hang onto your hats because I'm going to go against the grain again, or as my daughter says, go in the out door again...

Chocolate is not healthy for you. 

There, I said it. I am not a scientist so I cannot give you the scientific breakdown of why. I am not a pharmacist, so I cannot give you the biological breakdown of why. I am not a physician, so I cannot give you the logical breakdown of why. And finally I am not a drug pusher, so I cannnot give you a reason to not want it. 

I am a fitness professional. I see what chocolate does, an overabudance of chocolate, does to bodies. I see what it does to young people who view it as a reward. I see what it does to young women who use it for PMS symptoms. I see what it does to 40-year old women who are addicted to it and are obese and just can't give it up. 

I've been all of them. And maybe so have you. 

What is the psychological reason for chocolate to keep coming up, time after time? I mean really? What is the reason it comes up in common conversations with women everywhere? Chocolate is good for you. Chocolate is bad for you. What's the real reason?

Is it an emotional drug? 


Is it comparable to a drug? 


I don't have the answers for you. All I know is that if it affects your body in a negative way, i.e. sugar high/crash, obesity, overweight, then you have to give it up. You just have to give it up. You have to put your blinders on, regardless of the next newest report that is going to come out and say how healthy it is. Any true chocolate lover knows that it cannot be THAT good for you. I've quit it before, I've had relapses before, but most importantly, I recognize that it is a problem for me and I treat it as such. It is not part of my daily life. It can't be. Chocolate is very good at replacing emotions or feelings. The hard part is when you give it up, you must deal with those emotions or feelings and stop using chocolate as a way to escape. 


Oh, yeah, that's the hard part. 


Is chocolate good for you? Tell me, what do you think?