Peanut Butter Stress

Last night I came home bordering on miserable. It was so bad that I think I only got around 2-4 hours of actual rest, most of the night revolved around thinking and strategizing about work.

Rewind back to 5:00 PM. Work has been crazy for the last three months prior to this kick off of a new lifestyle. I mean crazy that involved crimes and lawyers and massive and abrupt changes to my work environment.

Rewind back further to the last time I was svelte. Before I first started dating my now husband, before my dad got sick and before my "adopted" granddad passed away.

Rewind further to where my first college director tried to do the unthinkable.

Rewind further to my best friend snorting a line of speed in front of me my freshman year of high school.

Each of these moments was met with the same learned reaction. To eat for comfort. To eat because no other reaction was acceptable or beneficial. Not that eating was that either, but it was private and if you ate enough your emotions dulled. Eat because it was better than crying. Eat because it was better than a breakdown. Eat because it was safe. Many of them were followed by a period of weight gain, then loss. Over the years the food/stress dilemma has become so ingrained in my behavior.  A Pavlovian response.

How do you change that? How do you change things that you have been doing for half your life?

Last night was a particularly stressful night. I had come up with a very lucrative business idea and someone was trying to steal the rug out from under me. I agonized over the choices of remaining quiet and resentful or speaking up and preparing for war. I was too emotional to see other options. So I made cookies. Luckily they were healthier in the grand scheme of things than many other options, if such a thing as a healthy cooking exists. Nevertheless, not the best choice. My sister, my husband and I finished the batch, though I am sure I had more than my fair share. And lets face it, my sister and husband are skinny, so no one cares if they take the extra cookie.

My first direct challenge to address is to change the stress food response in my life. When I feel stressed I need to come up with a viable distraction that takes my mind off the stress and the food. We'll see how this goes.