Case Studies in Modern Life - 14. For Five Minutes a Day, Only

I savour the taste. Pushing the sweet and smooth taste around my mouth, feeling the almost velvety texture of it on my tongue. I love the way it melts in my mouth, the crisp crunch when I first bite into it, then so quickly it melts into that smooth and rich paste, which allows me to savour it for so long. I will carefully move it around with my tongue, tasting it with the different parts of my mouth. The pure luxury of it.

Today it was cheap milk chocolate from the supermarket, quantity not quality I wanted. I had five minutes to eat it, large chunks of it pushed inside of my mouth to melt on my tongue. The sheer volume of its sweet and sugary flavour, mixing with the smooth texture. The joy of it as I ate it all within five minutes.

Some days I would eat small bars of expensive, luxury chocolate, Belgium chocolate with a high coca content. Other days I would choose flavoured chocolate or chocolate with pieces of fruit or mint within it. Other days again I would have cheap chocolate, going simply for volume and a full sugary taste.

It was my daily five minutes of self-indulgence, to eat one bar of chocolate (no matter what the size, though the higher the quality the smaller the amount of it I would eat; I wanted to enjoy its flavour) within those five minutes. Otherwise, I eat healthily, I exercise regularly and I keep a close eye on my body.

My diet is careful; I eat a high-vegetable and low-fat diet. Only white meat for me, and I keep a close eye on the diary products. I prepare most of the food I eat myself, I never eat any processed food, and I only buy from two food outlets. (They are both places I know and trust.)

I am very dedicated to my exercise regime. Monday, Wednesday and Friday I visit the gym. Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday I go for a one- to two-mile run. Sundays I go for an hour’s cycle ride. I would include swimming in my regime, but my local pool closed six months ago.

I take care over my appearance; it’s not vanity, it’s simply making the most of myself. I’m gay, and if I want to attract a good-looking man I have to look good too. It’s as simple as that.

As a child I was fat and plain. No one looked at me twice, or if they did it was to insult me. I didn’t have any real friends. Food and television were my companions, and as a child I took full pleasure in their company. I hated my childhood. I was fat and unattractive.

When I eventually came out I knew I had to do something about how I looked. I had started to go to gay bars, but all the response I got was to be ignored or sneered at. So I decided to make a change. I changed my diet and took up exercise. It was a hard challenge to begin with, so often I simply wanted to give up and return to my old ways, but the more I persevered with it the more I saw the results. Soon I was being noticed, and as the weight fell off me the more men I attracted. Now, with my carefully maintained body, I can attract a man whenever I want to, and I am never frustrated, in the sexual sense, anyway. I am a hit on all those pickup apps.

The problem still remains with chocolate. I loved chocolate so much while I was growing up I would have happily lived off it alone, if I had been allowed to. It was the one thing I missed when I changed my diet. At first I would fantasise about it, reminding myself how it tasted and the texture of it inside my mouth. Soon that grew into an obsession. I would purposefully walk past certain shops so that I could drool at the chocolate displays in their windows. I would actually dream of simply buying bars of chocolate.

Eventually I gave into it and developed, for myself, my five minutes a day rule. For five minutes each day I will eat just one chocolate bar. I would carefully choose which bar, to give myself a variety of tastes and textures, so that in those five minutes I will savour all the pleasures that chocolate can offer me.

I then wait another five minutes, just five more minutes to enjoy the sensation of the chocolate in my belly and the remainder of the taste left on my tongue, before I rush to the toilet and vomit that chocolate up again. I’ve done it so often now that I know exactly the right place to press on the back of my throat. One or two spasms and I’ve vomited all that chocolate into the toilet bowl. I then use a mint mouthwash to hide that smell. I use the same mouthwash, the one I found shortly after I started my five minutes a day rule, because it hides the sickly smell of vomit and undigested chocolate.

I might eat chocolate once a day, but I can’t afford to leave it in my stomach. I have to purge it from my body, because if I didn’t all the calories in it would make me fat again. And I can’t be fat again.