I don’t know about you lot, but I am officially a stress eater.
I’ve been on a marvelous eating plan and have shaken off some of the gazillion kilograms I gained pre-kids, pre-Daniel IVF hormone induced craze, post Daniel, pre Twins, post Twins and post-post Twins sleep deprivation comfort eating. Not to mention the depression lets-stuff-things-in-our-mouth-because-life’s-a-bitch kilos.
I hesitate to talk about losing weight as I’ve been in a rather abusive relationship with the scale the last, oh, 20 years or so. I’m also in the habit of losing and gaining the very same 5 kilos once a year and then adding on a few more just for good measure.
As part of this marvelous eating plan you are weighed every 2 weeks and you have to tell them what you have eaten, every meal, every day. Let me tell you, when you start writing that shit down it gets real. You really start noticing things about yourself and about the things you eat (and drink!!), when and why.
Mostly I have noticed when I’m feeling stressed, tired or insecure I graze scoff stuff food in my mouth eat. I’m fine at work, but the minute I get home and I open the fridge or start packing stuff for the kids for school or Etienne sits down with his packet of chips at night its tickets, especially if I’ve had a rough day at work or I have come home to mammammammammammammamma from the minute I put my foot in the door until the kids are eventually fast asleep. I’m not a big fan of chocolate, but do not let me anywhere near anything remotely salty or these cookies I made last week. Those were a monumental error in judgement, or so my waist alleges.
I’ve also learnt that when I have something really stressful going on I’m often fine during that period, it’s 2 or 3 days later when my body wakes up and I need to eat everything that’s not bolted down.
I follow a very thought provoking (and beautifully simple) blog by Leo Babauta about Zen Living and I found this post in my reader that really made me think about my relationship with food. Before you get all angst ridden about how to change a monumentally messed up relationship of any kind you might want to read his posts about changing habits. I love how he breaks down things that are fundamentally hard for us to change because we go on a mission to re-invent ourselves in one fell swoop and then hate ourselves for failing. Go on, the man talks a lot of sense.
Except for sharing a toothbrush when you are travelling, Etienne didn’t like that idea one little bit. How very selfish of him.
If you could change one habit today, what would it be?