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!

Two Victories

I watched an episode of I Can Make You Thin where Paul McKenna works with people on their cravings. I don't really have cravings per se. I don't think about a particular food obsessively. I get in the "mood" to have a particular food or flavor but it is not overwhelming.

What I do find difficult is not eating everything on my plate. This is where I'm using some of his craving busting techniques. Not every time I eat but sometimes, usually with foods that are particularly savory or flavorful, or full of carbs, like bread and pasta, I find myself almost unable to put the fork down and stop even when I know I'm no longer hungry or even full bordering on bloated. It's like I don't want to stop the flavor and I don't want to stop feeling the filling up feeling.

It happened last night with a piece of chocolate. It is odd--often, I'm able to eat a small piece of chocolate and leave it alone with no problem. But occasionally I'm eating a little square and then I'm dying to eat the whole bar. That happened last night out of nowhere. I didn't eat the whole bar but I ate more than I wanted, planned, or needed to.

I always find pizza this compelling. Always. I've NEVER stopped at one or two slices and felt, yeah, I don't really want anymore. I HAVE stopped at one or two slices but only with extreme willpower and RESENTMENT.

Today I was finding this with my lunch. I had left over Thai Beef Curry that I made with a Trader Joe's sauce. I wrapped it in a slice of lavash bread. I also put a little homemade macaroni salad on the plate because I've found that I like to have several different flavors and textures at a meal. When I have variety I find it very easy to be satisfied on much less.

I reached a point very early in the meal, about four or five bites in where I knew I was full. I didn't need anymore. But I could not stop. So I stood up and went to the computer and played a word game, telling myself that if I was still hungry at the end of the game, I'd eat more. The game is 3 minutes long. Of course, I was not, and I dumped it in the garbage. Victory.

I reach the point where I CAN eat more but don't NEED to. I find that a difficult place to be in.

I started to put the macaroni salad away and I felt a compulsion to have a bite. I had two conscious bites and then I used the negative visualization technique and I was done. Victory #2.
I can't wait to try pizza and see if I can find Victory against my biggest foe.

The Miracle: Eating What I Want and Losing

My goal when I began this new approach to food was to stay the same weight for the rest of my pregnancy. I still have 20 weeks to go and I had been gaining more than a pound a week. I am adamant that I not return to my first post-partum weight of 268. I actually left the hospital weighing more than when I went in--and that's AFTER I gave birth to a 9 lb 8 oz baby. I had an induction and ended up with an emergency c-section. They pumped me so full of fluids and synthetic hormones I was retaining water EVERYWHERE.

I dropped down to 242 relatively easily and then on a VLCD (very low calorie diet) I dropped down to 212 (2lbs less than I weighed before my first pregnancy) before I got pregnant again. Not so much with the easily there. That was hard work, deprivation, and mind over matter.

I was depressed with the weight gain I saw in this new pregnancy and the prospect of having to endure that again and that is what inspired this latest kick, which I'm calling "appetite regulation" for now.

Having only a mild faith in it working, my goal was to stay within a few pounds of where I started for the rest of the pregnancy. Difficult for a pregnant woman but possible and actually recommended in someone as heavy as I am.

I'm happy to report that I have actually LOST 2 lbs. There are some up and down fluctuations but I'm pretty steadily 2 lbs down. At this rate, if I can stay where I am, with no induction this time around, I may actually come home having only 5-10 lbs to lose to return to my pre-pregnancy weight.

Anyone who has been pregnant knows that losing weight for someone prone to obesity when besieged with hormones and increased appetite is a feat and a half and I'm pleased and more than a little surprised how these appetite regulation tatics are working. And whoa! Here are some of the things I've eaten while losing this weight:

pizza
seafood ravioli in cream sauce
cadbury fruit and nut chocolate
pancakes
bagels
nachos
scallops in a reduction sauce
eggplant rollatine
chocolate cake
chocolate mousse
tiramisu
chocolate chip banana cake
a chocolate doughnut
lattes and cappuccinos with real sugar
macaroni salad
potatoes
fried ravioli

I've of course enjoyed fresh fruits and vegetables, salads, lean protein, milk, and other things--I'm not always so decadent--but I wanted to note the things I've enjoyed all while losing weight, while PREGNANT. None of those things on the list are anything I would have allowed myself in the past.

Experiencing life through abundance and not deprivation: this is the key.

Breakfast: The Most Important Meal of the Day??

I guess not really--like the water myth, this one is a myth we've been brainwashed with by (right, you guessed it) breakfast food companies.

It all comes back to: Eat when you are hungry. When you are full, stop.

Trusting Your Body: The H20 Myth

One of the reasons the diet and health industries flourish is that they propagate the myth that says you'd die of dehydration and malnutrition if left to your own devices.

This grossly underestimates the wisdom one carries around in your own body--and in case you hadn't noticed: wild animals seem to do okay with out the FDA or any blasted food pyramid. When you are hungry, eat. When you are thirsty, drink. It really is that simple.

They've done experiments on babies with particular nutritional deficiencies and put them in a room with various food stuffs, after having let them taste all of them. The babies almost ALWAYS go for the foods (in large quantities) they need to remedy their deficiencies. One baby with a vitamin A deficiency guzzled a bottle of cod liver oil.

So I think left to OUR own devices, we might do okay.

Though we'd have to undo years of "expert advice" which tells us we don't know enough to come in out of the rain.

In Slate, The Explainer debunks the popular drink 8 glasses of water a day theory. There is absolutely no scientific basis for the health claims of drinking 8 glasses of water a day--its a popular folklore that even medical professionals have promulgated. (The article does a great job exploring the history.)

One thing I hate is around the internet people pass on information with such officious authority as if it is obvious scientific fact. Look at a diet or health and fitness board and see how often this load of malarkey is passed around. People will even tell you that it will flush fat out of your body.

It makes sense that one NEEDS water for health. This is obvious since, without water, you would die. But drink when you are thirsty not to fulfill some arbitrary criteria. If you are really concerned you can by strips that test the specific gravity of your urine that will tell you when you are properly hydrated. But true dehydration would lead to dry mouth, dry eyes, and dry skin. Trust me. You'd know. And also trust me: YOU'D FEEL THIRSTY.

Thoughts on Eating a Cookie

Being that we are to savor every bite, I only buy the best cookies. I have one cookie that makes me very nostalgic. Actually I have several cookies that make me nostalgic, but I'm talking about a specific cookie, here: McVities Milk Chocolate Digestive Biscuits. I lived in England whilst I was a teenager and these were the most delicious biscuits to have with your tea. Sweet wheatmeal biscuits coated with a rich chocolate on one side. Very yummy dipped in your tea, long enough to melt the chocolate a bit.

Then when Dr. Junky and I got married, we honeymooned in Wales. I was happy to introduce him to some of my British faves, like back bacon and cheese and onion potato crisps, ploughman's lunch, and McVities. So we spent every morning up early together, working on a jigsaw puzzle, drinking tea and dipping our McVities.

So I have a lot of pleasant memories associated with McVities. (And now that I'm writing on it, I must never have one without a cup of tea, again!)

I took a writing break to go to the bathroom and I decided to have a McVities on my way back since I was feeling, "Slightly Hungry," a number 4 on the Hunger Scale. My usual plan of attack would be to rush off to the bathroom, grab a cookie on the way back and, without stopping, gobble the entire cookie on my way back to the computer.

I stopped and sat down and chewed the cookie. And I discovered that:

1) I find it very lonely to sit and eat by myself.

2) I find it unbelievably BORING to eat by myself--I was actually reading the label on a cereal box. Normally I'd read a book or a newspaper or watch tv but this is to be avoided now. This led to the idea that:

3) I need to escape the reality of eating--maybe because I feel guilt about eating because of my size?

4) I resist the restoration and rest that would come from taking a break to have a cookie and a cup of tea. Is this why I'm so mentally exhausted in the evenings?

The Burrito Problem

I made a southwest chicken salad yesterday--some of those prepackaged southwest chicken strips, Mexican cheese, black beans, corn, mixed greens and a spicy ranch dressing I mixed up myself. It was delicious and very filling.

My hunger in the morning is still a little off and prone to nausea from morning sickness so I only eat little bits--but this results in a later ravenous hunger, something which, on the hunger scale, (listed below courtesy of McKenna) you are supposed to avoid, primarily because it leads to quick gobbling and overeating.

I made a burrito out of the left over salad at about 9:30 AM and I was a little too close to the ravenous state to be comfort, having only the smallest half of a small ciabatta roll with a dab of chicken salad on it and two spoonfuls of cottage cheese about 2 hours earlier.

I ate a little more quickly than I should have and though I felt somewhat full after it was over, I immediately felt like I could eat another one. But one thing I sort of knew at an intellectual level but still didn't really OWN as a personal truth, if you will, is that satiety takes a few minutes to show up and I rarely feel it WHILE eating.

I told myself I'd make another one in a half hour if I still felt hungry. Did some laundry and about 8 minutes later found myself not just full but uncomfortably STUFFED. Clearly I only needed about half that burrito. The speed at which I ate and my desperation to feel full immediately caused the delusion that I not only needed the whole burrito but possibly another one. Which is about 200% more food than I actually needed.

My compulsion to keep eating when I do not feel satiety right away is a big problem. I want that full feeling so badly--likely because of a lingering addiction to the biochemical change satiety brings. I'll keep struggling with it. Stopping earlier without feeling deprived that's the goal. I'm not sure why I'm afraid of not getting enough food. I've always had enough. No one took food away from me. I was an only child for 12 years. I think it may be the dieting addiction. The idea that I'm eating this today but I'll have to stop for a really long time tomorrow if I ever want to lose this weight.

I keep telling myself newer positive messages like--I can have this again, later, or tomorrow or next week. I won't feel good if I eat it. It taste better when I don't over eat it.

It's the struggle I have right now. That and being TOO harsh with myself, not eating enough, and becoming really hungry only an hour or so later.

Here is the hunger scale I'm using:

1. Faint from Hunger
2. Ravenous
3. Fairly Hungry
4. Slightly Hungry
5. Neutral
6. Pleasantly Satisfied
7. Full
8. Stuffed
9. Bloated
10. Nauseous

When being too harsh with myself, I'm confusing Neutral with Pleasantly Satisfied. In my eagerness to conquer overeating I may underestimate where I can eat to without entering dangerous territory. If I had ate to Pleasantly Satisfied or Full rather than what may have been Neutral, then I wouldn't have gotten to Ravenous. And then I wouldn't have the opposite Burrito Problem.

1 and 2 and 9 and 10 are to be avoided. Perhaps avoiding THAT and the consequent reminder of being on a DIET and being hungry will prevent the Burrito Problem.