Stress Eating

I have to record this before it gets away--so I can learn from it.

I am very stressed right now. My baby is crying upstairs because she is having a nap time meltdown. I need her to sleep because I'm trying to get everything together for a 13 day trip we are taking, beginning this Thursday evening. I'm trying to make and confirm all flight, hotel, and rental car reservations necessary for this multi-legged trip. I'm also trying to take care of last minute details for a CCD class I'm teaching and invitations for my daughters 1st birthday which have to go out before we leave. I'm trying to make a tray of baked ziti because I have ricotta cheese that will go bad if I don't use it before we leave.

On top of it, I'm trying to squeeze in an hour of time a day for my dissertation, which I won't be working on for the next two weeks so I feel a big pressure to get a big chunk done before I go.

I have a pain in my leg and I'm tired. And baby is fussy and requiring a lot of attention. (I KNOW they can sense when you need time alone and react by refusing to give it to you!)

I just ate very unmindfully. And here's the thing--when I'm stressed I don't WANT to take the time necessary to monitor my body. I was starving because I took an extra long walk today to relieve stress and I think the extra effort upped my hunger impulse. It takes so much TIME to chew slowly and to check in with your body. So I did my usual "DIET" mode thing--I decided before I ate what and how much I will eat. This is just so much EASIER for me! I made a weight watchers pizza and a weight watchers cake. I wanted to feel full and have a large portion. So I controlled it by predetermining what I would eat in low calorie foods.

I did force myself to sit down but only succeeded in sitting down for part of the pizza. I stood while eating the cake and I shoveled the cake into my pie hole in three bites.

In the aftermath of my unconscious shoveling (though probably a whole HECK of a lot more conscious than it would have been a month ago) I am feeling FULL not stuffed or bloated. So that's good at least. I measured well before hand what I thought I would need. I probably could have ate less if I ate more slowly. But I was rushed and stressed and preoccupied.

I always have a certain degree of underlying anxiety while getting ready to leave my home. I love travel but have some kind of biological reaction to uprooting my "nest" so to speak.

And the baby still cries. We never have nap problems. Only when I'm desperate for her to NAP!