Are you a stress eater, too?

You may have read my previous blog post about my addiction to food – for me food is my ultimate consoler. When I am happy it makes the celebration better, and when I am sad, it makes me happier (at least while I am eating). In good times, its all part of the celebration, but  in bad times I have been known to nearly BINGE eat my way back to better mental health (or so it seems). I literally eat myself into a stomach bulging, pants ripping, belly aching, food induced near-coma. There have been times when it was nothing for me to eat a full family size bag of chips, or almost polish off a full pack of Oreos, or even a KING SIZE candy bar. Somehow shoveling that food down helps to quite the voices, fill the void, and create the temporary reprieve from the stress at hand.

Throughout our journey so far we have been very, very blessed to face very few problem and really low stress, and for me, that has made staying on track much easier.

If you don’t have stimulus that “re-ignites” that desire to fill up the pie hole, then life if pretty easy … or it was … until now.

This week my Uncle, who has been like a father to me, took a serious fall, we think his EIGHTH in the same number of weeks. He’s broken his finger twice, gotten black eyes, scratches scrapes and bruises. But this last fall was the worst by far, and has sent into my “I NEED JUNK FOOD trigger” into overdrive.

Trying to avoid a stress bing

Driving into town this morning I saw a billboard for Krystal, and it truly took a miracle to keep my car on the road. But I moved ahead because I took a snack with me on the way to the hospital today – NUTS so a reasonable choice to help me stay on track.

I am coping … then I thought I would I ask friends on Facebook how they cope with that stress trigger and received great responses, here are just a few:

• Take a walk
• Don’t keep junk food in the house
• Eat something, but make it a better choice
• Chew on carrot sticks or celery
• Brush with really minty toothpaste

ALL really great advice.

And I have to say I almost faltered at the Farmers Market today as the Tres Leche booth was there. I went up to the tres leche dessert and just looked at it. The owner said, “it’s all homemade” and I assured him that I knew how wonderful it was, but today was NOT the day. But asked if I could just stare at it for a minute and he laughed and told me he was a personal trainer, too.  I explained that I had pizza last night, so as much as i really, truly wanted to eat it, I couldn’t. And INSTEAD of saying awwww one bite won’t hurt – he said “GOOD FOR YOU … that balance is so important.” He saved the moment.

So I BINGED with my eyes … sort of.

Black Hog Farms had some pretty homegrown potatoes today and instead of diving headfirst into a bunch of junk food I indulged in an extra bowl of homemade potato soup – no preservatives – dairy free – and quite fulfilling.

So I know some folks are saying ALL THOSE CARBSSSS uggghhhh. Yeah, well, maybe I could have made an even Healthier Twist on this one, but it kept me out of the Krystal Drive Through, so I am calling it a “WIN”. And because I did brush with that minty toothpaste, too, when I passed the homemade creme horns, I was able to JUST SAY NO.

Photo credit: Scott Beale / Laughing Squid