I love our basement. Even though it is unfinished, has cold concrete floors in the winter and leaks sometimes when it rains, I love the place.

Because of the way our house is laid out, the basement is one of the only places I get to myself. Not even the whole basement because half is the laundry room, but the other half is my Man Cave with a TV, computer and recliner.

OK, not totally half because half of my half used to be dedicated to an area where my daughter could play, but she doesn’t go down there much anymore so I’m claiming that space as mine now.

The important thing is that I have a place to retreat and unleash the obsessed teenage sports fan which lives inside of me. I have a place to turn on the game, crack open a beer and have a few snacks.

That last part there poses the biggest problem. While the emotional maturity I bring to my interest in sports may remain in my teens, I still have the metabolism of a 43-year-old.

Whether I have a game or a movie or an old sitcom on the TV, I feel the need to have some sort of snack nearby.

I only feel this way in the basement. I can sit in the living room or lay in bed without even thinking of food, but once I sit in that old recliner, my hand automatically reaches for peanuts or pretzels.

Sometime I don’t even realize that I have started to enjoy a snack. I look down and see a small jar of mustard on my lap and wonder when it got there and how that pretzel rod ended up inside it.

Of course, I enjoy these snacks all the way up to the point where I step on the scale in the morning. That’s when reality hits.

Things didn’t always work this way. I could guzzle sodas and get to sleep with no problem in my younger days. I could eat an entire bag of Bar-B-Q Fritos (sadly on more than one occasion) and see no change in my physical appearance. Well, except for that way they turned my fingers orange.

Now I wonder how a few handfuls of pretzels turns into three extra pounds the next day. I know I look like the poster child for a beer belly, but I chalk most of it up to snacks.

I can easily spend time in the basement with nothing stronger to drink than a glass of water. Even when I do have a few adult beverages, the scale disaster is mitigated when I manage to not stuff my face at the same time.

I don’t help matters by keeping the area well-stocked with my favorite munchies. I certainly could cut down on what I have available, but that would just make me sad.

Apparently, the key to this dilemma rests in my willpower. Somehow, I don’t think this will end well.