I haven't had a terrific week-- some really awful work-related stress. I have a lot going on in my life right now... I work in two completely different fields-- in one field I have a huge deadline looming, and in my other field, there has been all kinds of really bad tension and negative energy, boss yelling, etc.
The other day, I had to go to this awful meeting where my colleagues and I were raked over the coals.
I've always noticed that there are some people who can weather that kind of stress-- when the boss yells they just sort of hear it like an annoying dog barking off in the distance, whereas I would always get very wrapped up in the situation, and how unfair it was, and I'd start thinking about trying to change things, or maybe change jobs, or whatever. Of course, in the past, I would also head into major stress-eating mode in a situation like this.
But, I noticed this time, that I seemed more able to cope. I found myself consciously letting go of the problems and the tension as I drove away... strategies that I guess I've had to learn as I've learned to cope with living without stress-eating.
I really did not feel any urge to overeat or binge, but I did look forward to going to the gym for my runs.
What's weird is that for YEARS, I used to think that I needed to learn how to handle stress in order to stop coping by eating-- but in reality, the opposite seems true. By learning healthier habits, my ability to handle stress seems to have improved...
I do find I'm able to handle stress a lot better than I did before. If it's something I can help fix then I do my best to fix it.....if it's beyond my control then I just roll with it. Things tend to work out so it's all good!
That is great!! I know for me it's still a challenge to not eat when I am stressing. i have been like you trying to focus on working out and getting the stress out that way!
Good for you.
For me, it's like what day is it? Sometimes better, sometimes not so--but I do find that stress running beats stress eating a lot more now!
I think it is awesome that you have dealt with the stress better this time around. My husband is one of those people who can do an *extremely* stressful job and it doesn't get to him. He doesn't talk or think about it at home at all!
Personally I haven't gotten there yet. The last week has been sooo stressful for me. My older ds has autism and he is going through a really, really rough time right now. This morning I was ready to give up on eating healthy. I though I don't care if I gain it all back and then started making a list of all the things in the house I was going to eat: oreos, animal crackers, peanut butter, cereal. Of course, I was going to go to the drive through too. The only thing that stopped me was knowing that I had given away all my larger sized clothes. The feeling of wanting to binge passed which is good. I hope some day those feelings stop coming.
I backslid a bit into old habits of comfort eating when I had some major issues last month. Mine were kid-related too, my son has ADHD and was a real challenge last month. And then I had really, really bad PMS on top of it and my ability to resist bad food choices was just gone.
But I am going to say that I still handled it better because I did not let myself keep going - I used the timing that a new month happened to be starting and that was my opportunity to make a fresh start and turn things around again.
Chicken and egg maybe, as I don't know whether my weight loss came first or second, but either way, I'm SO happy to be back on track now instead of spiraling out of control into a huge weight gain.
I used to handle stress really badly. Comfort eating was often better than several of my other self-destructive habits.
So I've slowly switched to just focusing on keeping those comfort meals healthy. If I'm stressed out, I'll let myself cook or bake, but it has to be healthy, on-plan foods. If I need to focus again because stress is getting to me, I'll sit down and have a snack; now, I just make sure my stress-out snacks are fruits, veggies, etc.
I'm hoping to start shifting towards exercising habits instead, but I know I need to take it slow.
Yes, I handle stress "better" now, and for two reasons:
1. I have admitted that I am a sugar addict, and I have committed to practiciting sobriety, so in the same kind of way that a sober alcoholic "handles" stress better, I do that now.
2. Eating the incredibly healthful diet that I do, getting plenty of deep sleep, and getting plenty of healthful movement really evens out my emotional and mental state. My mind and my body are intimately physiologically connected, and when I take good care of my body then I am taking good care of my emotions, too.
There have been times fairly recently when I have wistfully *wished* that I still wanted to eat a bunch of chocolate in an attempt to feel better, but the truth is that I don't actually even want to do that. I know, intellectually and deep down, that binging on sugar won't help or change anything--so I don't bother to go there.
What does help now: Hard exercise, crying a lot, seeking the shelter of my husband's hugs, being a positive influence with my kids, making progress in non-stressed areas of my life that I *can* control, talking about what stresses me with the people I love, spending time in general with the people I love, and sometimes just crawling into my warm bed with a good diverting book.
I find myself really thinking long and hard before I eat something if I'm not truly feeling physical hunger. In the past, under stressful situations, I would eat to feel better. Now I find myself thinking, "If I'm not hungry, what do I really want?" I am at least cognizant of the fact that eating is not reallywhat I need at that moment. Sometimes I still eat something at those times but when I do I try to make a healthier choice. Other times, I am able to say, "I need a hug, a drink of water or a nap". I am practicing asking for what I need in my relationship, which is fairly new, instead of stuffing worries, feelings, emotions with food.
I treated myself to a pedicure for the first time in my life last week in celebration of losing 20 lbs. That is HUGE for me. To pay $30 for someone to wash my feet, file my callouses (God, bless her!) and paint my toeneails is really something. I never ever put myself first before. $30 could be a pair of shoes for my son, a bag of groceries or a tank of gas but never spent on being kind to myself.
Celebrations in the old days would have included food or alcohol, most likely large quantities of both. I realize now my celebrations were actually self-abuse, not self care as they only set me back further from my goal of being good to myself.
Yes and no. Yes, I don't stress eat that often anymore. I still get wrapped into things just as easily as before, but I don't eat about it. Ironically, that actually makes me feel better because I feel like there is one area of my life that is under control. Before when I ate during stress, I made the problem worse and would just feel really hopeless. I am much more in tune with my emotions, for better or worse.
You have to understand what a big thing it is for me to even identify stress in myself & to be able to label it as such. This sounds so stupid, but I have to admit that I must have spent a lot of time just thinking, "I feel badbadbadbadbad" & "Must eat. Make bad feeling go away." I must have been walking around with general feelings of angst. Instead of thinking, "This report is due tomorrow and I'm only halfway done" and "I'm also worrying about my mother's tendency to forgetfulness and her depression in the wake of my father's death," and "Those two things are STRESSING ME," I would be thinking, "The world is awful. I am completely inadequate to cope with the demands on me. I can't believe how other people get by in life so easily. I am defective, since I'm the only one complaining." You see? I couldn't see the particulars, and see that it was stress that was eating at me. I just felt likea general black hole.
So that, my friends, alone is tremendous progress. To say I'm stressed.
And yes, cardio is my friend. Cardio calms me & centers me. And also I've been reading & listening to audiotapes of Jon Kabat Zinn talking about the role of mindfulness & meditation in stress reduction. Even his voice is soothing. Traffic jams are a way of life down here near NY & I try to have Kabat Zinn around in a CD or audio tape in the car for those times. Also, I'm reading a bit more about Buddhism. I'm still looking for ways out that aren't food-related. I haven't mastered all these skills yet but I am doing better than a few years ago.
I handle it better in the sense that I just don't stress eat anymore, and it's fortunately not a matter of willing myself not to do it, I just don't have the urge to do it. I'm not sure why this is, but my best guess is that when I decided to lose the weight, I knew the emotional eating/binging was something I was going to have to tackle, so I've been very acutely aware for quite some time now, that stress eating is no longer an option for me. Maybe I've just succeeded in hardwiring my brain to not do it. I'm not going to get complacent about it, though!
But I do get terribly upset, and fretful, and full of worry, worry, worry that can lead to some very dark places, very much as saef describes above. I just try to deal with it, and let it happen, and wait for it to pass. I think I am simply a nervous person in general, and I don't know that there's much I can do to change that. My whole attitude, going into this, was to say, there's a lot that upsets and bothers me, and losing weight probably won't change that, but by losing weight I can remove ONE of the things that upsets me the most, and get it off my plate. So now, very often, when I'm stressed and worried and upset, I honestly do remind myself, hey, as much as this sucks, it sucks somewhat less because at least I'm not really fat anymore, and I don't have to be really fat again, unless I choose to engage in the behaviours that made me fat. There's one less thing to beat myself up over. I mean, that may sound kind of stupid, but I do take comfort from it.
I have totally and completely stopped eating due to stress. I used to eat to soothe myself and distract myself when stressed. But for me, to eat now while stressed seems absurd. It is no longer comforting to me - just the opposite in fact. If I'm stressed, the last thing I want to do now is to ADD to it by not eating well. It's so funny, because I used to think it was a comfort to eat and now I find it the exact opposite to be true. Amazing to me, when I stop to think about it, but also pretty darn reasonable when I think about it. Who knew that after all these years, that I would find comfort in NOT eating?
Don't get me wrong, I LOVE to eat, when it's *time* to. I thoroughly enjoy every morsel that goes in my mouth, but I DO plan my days out and if it's not on my plan - I'm not eating it, so it doesn't even cross my mind to eat other than that.
And then there's the other part of dealing with stress better - yes I don't eat due to it, but I also REACT to it differently. I AM a different person now. I am calmer all the way around, so stress, doesn't STRESS me out - as much. I deal with it better. I've said this dozens of times, now that I'm at a healthy weight, EVERYTHING in my life has seen improvement. I AM happier, more relaxed, more grounded and centered, I don't fly off the handle as easily. I am more at peace.
Thank you all for all of your comments. I really relate to all of them.
What's weird is that I've always given myself credit for handling stress really well. I ALWAYS take on a crazy commitment level and drive myself to do WAY MORE than a normal person would do and shoot for lofty goals that would seem unreachable to most people.
But in reality, I think I've never handled stress well. I just didn't know it because I had this highly developed stress-eating mechanism.
I now realize that learning not to stress eat, has also taught me to recognize stress (Saef, I completely recognize what you are saying-- it sounds so much like me) and to realize that I have started to learn some techniques to let things go...
Catherine-- I think I'm a nervous person too, and here I am 48 years old and have ALWAYS described myself as laid back. I really thought I was laid back.... but in reality, I just think I deal with stress by denial and not dealing with things.
Robin-- I was trying to explain to some thin people why I actually don't miss eating the wrong foods at all-- in fact, it seems SO MUCH LESS STRESSFUL to eat the way I eat now. I don't have to think about food all the time. I don't feel bloated and sick. I don't fret and worry about not getting a chance to eat, or needing to sneak around to eat, or trying to hide when I eat, or worrying about my health, or being ashamed of my appearance.
Now, for example, when I'm at work, I know that my chicken and veggies and a few snacks are in the break room, and I know if I'm hungry I can go eat them, and I'm not eagerly rushing in to eat because after all it's only chicken and steamed broccoli-- delicious when I'm hungry but not singing a siren song from the fridge or anything. What a relief.
If you will pardon me, a moment of philosophical diversion which is, yet, related to the subject at hand. I quote Cornel West, an American philosopher, in an interview in the book Examined Life: Excursions with Contemporary Thinkers:
Quote:
I think in many ways it is the ultimate question: What is truth? How do we understand truth and what are the ways in which we wrestle with truth? And I believe that Theodor Adorno was right when he said that the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak. He said that the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak--that gives it an existential emphasis, you see, so that we're really talking about truth as a way of life, as opposed to a set of propositions that correspond to a set of things in the world.
We ate because we were stuffing down suffering. We were muting, quieting our pain by eating, and/or through other addictions (such as alcoholism). If the condition of truth is to allow suffering to speak, then, we have to start admitting to our "stress" (pain, suffering) in order to stop eating/drinking/using to shut it up.
We Americans are really not good at admitting to pain and suffering and stress. We lie about it to ourselves, and to each other, constantly. We are not honest. There is stuff in our lives that is incredibly hard and painful--we are all suffering. Because we are all lying about it, each of us individually thinks that we're the only one with a problem. And so we eat (drink, use) in order to shut the problem up. We don't know how else to deal with our suffering, and we're not taught to deal with it, culturally.
Part of this process is to learn to sit with the pain, fear, anxiety, stress and just let it be what it is. It's true and real. It's there, and no matter what we do--no matter how "good" or "bad" we are--some of it will always be there. People we love will get sick and die, we will get sick and die; financial problems happen, work problems happen. Stress is inevitable.
I guess what I am saying is, in part, dealing with stress "better" now, for me, means that I admit to it. I am in pain, I suffer, things are very hard. Some things cannot be fixed--eventually, my mother will die from pancreatic cancer, and there's nothing I can do to stop that happening.
But I can love her, love myself, love my husband and children and the other people who matter so much to me. Today, I can love all of us, while yet allowing suffering to speak.
do you handle stress better now?
