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Let me say it again, this time with feeling. I BEAT STRESS EATING! Have I mentioned before that I’m a stress eater? When things get tough, I head for the fridge. Well really, I head for the carb cupboard or the ice cream, but you get what I mean.
I’m having a tough time at home these days. I love my kids to death, but sometimes I just need a break from them. Afternoons are the worst. Someone is always needing something between 4:30 and 5:30. Megan wants me to color or blow bubbles. Liam wants to be held or to be fed. I just want to cook dinner, straighten up the house, and relax. I have to choose to disappoint my kids by not playing with them or my wife by not having dinner ready and it totally stresses me out. By the time Pam gets home from work, I’m ready to just hand them off–which I know isn’t fair to her since she’s been stressed out all day saving lives.
I made shrimp tacos for dinner tonight. They were delicious and fairly healthy. After eating dinner, while Pam had the kids in the bath tub I cleared the table and noticed that there was one left over tortilla sitting out on the plate. I actually thought that it would be easier to eat that tortilla than to put it away in the refrigerator and save it for later. Then, I took it a step further and got the peanut butter out of the cupboard and the knife out of the drawer. Peanut butter on a tortilla used to be one of my all time favorite snacks–I can’t remember the last time I ate one however.
For crying out loud, I finished dinner less than 30 minutes ago and I was thinking about eating again. The little trainer on my shoulder told me to put down the knife, take a deep breath, really think about if I was hungry or not, and see if I still wanted to eat that peanut buttery deliciousness. I didn’t, and the tortilla went into the fridge with the rest of the leftovers.
This is great progress for me. Three months ago those calories would have been sitting on my incredible shrinking man-boobs. Today, they’re still in the kitchen where they belong.
J.D.
10 responses so far ↓
1 Philip // Apr 10, 2008 at 7:23 am
I always think about those things AFTER I have eaten the “tortilla”. I run into wanting to eat after I have finished the tours and am no longer busy. I need to find something to do or I end up grabbing something to eat just because I am bored.
2 d.a. - allingoodhealth // Apr 10, 2008 at 7:38 am
Right-on! Congrats! *cheers & whistles*
3 elisabeth // Apr 10, 2008 at 8:24 am
great post!
The health coachs at my work place have an on-line assessment that everyone takes every year. It includes questions about diet and exercise. If you aren’t doing something you should be, the assessment isn’t made negatively or even prescriptively, instead it says “you are still in the contemplation stage for X.”
Which is where I’m at with stress eating. The other day I had in my hand a mini bag of cheez-its and as I saw myself opening it I thought, “I’m eating these because I’m distraught about the last half hour of work stress.” BUT, I did eat them. Maybe next time I’ll be able to get from contemplation to (non)action.
4 Nathaniel // Apr 10, 2008 at 8:58 am
I feel like stress-eating is the true test of your discplan with mainting a major diet change. It’s one thing to eat well when everything else in your life is going well, but when your stressed out and emotionally depleted, that’s when the rubber hits the road and you really find out the strength of your discipline. Congrats on passing the test!
5 TosaJen // Apr 10, 2008 at 9:48 am
Nicely done!
One of the tools I’m trying from the Paul ??? “I Can Make You Thin” program is helping me short-circuit some of my work stress eating. I’m very predictable — when I’m about to start a new work task, I head for the kitchen. There’s a technique where you link squeezing your fingers together with an emotional “happy place” (for me, it’s a pastiche of how centered and happy I felt in various hikes and trail runs I’ve done in places like Edinburgh (UK), Yosemite (CA), Big Basin (CA), and Lapham Peak (WI)).
If I’m conscious enough to try to go to the “happy place” first, I usually feel more confident about attacking the next problem.
6 Andrew is getting fit // Apr 10, 2008 at 10:50 am
Way to go!
7 Sarah // Apr 10, 2008 at 2:19 pm
Awesome!! I have to really put on the brakes sometimes when I find myself heading to the kitchen after dinner. One thing they talk about in Weight Watchers meetings (and probably elsewhere too) is to HALT… and ask yourself, “Am I Hungry? Angry? Lonely? Tired?” and really think about the reasons behind the munching.
Keep it up!!
8 greenman2001 // Apr 11, 2008 at 5:46 am
I’m glad you mentioned some of your stressors, because I sense you may be coming to realize that IT’S NOT ABOUT THE FOOD. If 4:30 is the danger zone, I’d be directing resources there. Can you hire a babysitter for an hour and get yourself out of that environment, even if only into the kitchen to get some cooking done? Can you cook at 2pm and schedule a quick volunteer activity at 4:30 to get yourselves out of the house? Can you involve everyone in a task that has you working together, to avoid a situation where those demands are being made on you? I’d work to diffuse those stressors so that you’re not forced into a contest with your own willpower.
Excellent post. This is what it’s all about.
9 Joshua // Apr 11, 2008 at 9:15 am
**sigh**, I lose this battle more often than not. I do so well during the day when I’m at work. I eat what is on my daily food log, and I eat when I’m supposed to. But when I get home, bored and alone, I eat…everything. I’ve been having an extremely difficult time of it recently too. But, props on conquering that mountain.
10 Gwen // Apr 11, 2008 at 7:07 pm
I hate the fact that I *know* what I’m doing, but at that moment in time, I just don’t care. Whatever is around, in my mouth it goes. At work, we even call it stress eating time.
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