Stress Eating

I am finding myself in uncharted territory this week.

We have a houseguest in the form of my husband’s aunt. She is visiting her mother (my husband’s grandmother and the woman who raised him), and since Grandma is in a nursing home, Aunt P needed a place to stay, and of course I wouldn’t dream of her staying in a hotel.  She is very nice, and she tries very hard to be helpful (she has bought some groceries for us, and she’s done the dishes numerous times since she arrived, which is awesome!).

However, although I welcome her to stay with us, I can’t deny that having a guest in the house is disruptive to both my routine and my psyche.  Add to that the fact that we are in “transition” week, where the kids’ school year, the fall/winter (aka earlier) church schedule, and hockey season are all restarting, and I really feel like my life is out of control.  Then, on top of that, include the fact that I haven’t been able to run since Saturday morning’s extremely painful run, and you might as well just watch my head implode right now!!

So far, we have been late to both kids’ hockey practices this week, and we missed the bus Tuesday morning because someone overslept (no naming names, but I think it’s pretty obvious, since there’s only one of us in the house with an alarm clock) and only woke up because the sound of a diesel engine churning at the end of the driveway broke into her dreams.  (Talk about messing with your head…I couldn’t figure out why Chris Hemsworth suddenly stopped praising my beauty and decided instead to do detailed mechanical work on an F-350.)

All of this seems to have led to me being ridiculously hungry. All. The. Time.  Since I rejuvenated my weight loss efforts last November, I haven’t had this problem. Yes, there were days when I might be a little hungrier for a short while, but I was always able to find a piece of fruit or a small something to tide me over without going crazy and throwing myself off plan.  Even with the stress of DS#1’s hockey team issue in the spring, I got through it.  Even with a death in the family, I got through it.  Even with the stress of DS#2’s hockey issues this summer (which, thankfully, resolved themselves to the good!), I was fine.

This week, on the other hand, it has been tremendously difficult to stay on plan.  I find myself starving before bed, and I want to eat whatever is in sight.  And, since the things Aunt P so kindly bought snacks were items such as apple Danishes, full-fat Triscuits, and boxes of granola bars for us…well, clearly, that just makes it even harder! To her credit, she also bought bananas, strawberries and other fruit, which has helped get me through some of the toughest times, but it’s hard to eat yet another banana when a damn apple Danish is staring you in the face!! (Did I mention I love any apple-related dessert?)

Because I am feeling stressed (rightly or not), there has also been more imbibing of the alcoholic variety this week. *blush*  I realized the other day that it’s probably not the lack of activity points that’s causing me to run out of points earlier in the day than usual…it’s the excess wine I’ve been consuming. :p I’m sorry, but no matter how nice the person, it’s stressful having a houseguest, and wine is kind of a necessity in these situations.  We won’t talk about how many bottles I’ve gone through since Aunt P got here last Thursday…

BUT, lest you think I’m a complete and total goner, I have stayed on plan (so far) and only had to use 1 of my weekly points (Saturday’s 5-mile run was good for something).  Of course, I still have 3 more days of hosting a guest to get through, while still resting my sore foot, and I realized last night that I need a new game plan, pronto. So, last night I climbed up out of my pathetic pity-party and took the kids for a short bike ride.

Let me tell you, it is challenging to go bike-riding with two kids when one insists on speeding up ahead and the other insists he’s toooooooo tiiiiiiiiiiiiiiired to ride and keeps lagging far behind.  And yet, for all that exertion of doubling back and then shooting forward, I only earned one stinkin’ activity point.  Bah, eTools.  I curse you and your prejudice against bike riding.

Still, it was fun, and it felt good to get at least some activity in.  Plus, the boys are cute.

I really, really want to run tomorrow (one of my normal run days).  But, my foot is not at 100%, though it is definitely better than earlier this week. (Thank you to all those who gave advice—it’s helping!)  But Sunday is DS#1’s 5k, and I need to make sure I am completely healthy for that, so…no run tomorrow.  However, DS#1 will run his last short run tomorrow before the 5k, so at least I can bike with him.

Phew.  There was a lot of whine in this post.  Too bad it couldn’t have been a lot of wine, but clearly that is part of the problem, not the solution. 😉

Thanks for reading!

PS:  A word to the wise for all my blogging friends out there.  Back up your blog regularly!! I accidentally deleted my “I Lost to Gain” pain from my blog last night (only my most defining blog page!), and let me tell you, there was much stress until I remembered I’d done a backup on Monday. It was tricky, because I really don’t know how to restore just one page of my blog from the backup format I have, but I worked at it and I finally got it all back (including comments!).  And you’ll all be proud to know I did not cave and drink a bottle of wine while I worked it all out. 😉 Anyway…that’s my PSA for today.