Since I seem to be in a never-ending loop of stress, I thought I would share what I’ve learned so maybe someone else will be able to handle the stress that comes along in their life. No, I have no advice about how to help your aging parents. But as always, I do know a thing or two about food! Today was really stressful, and I was in the house all day. But I noticed that I had a really good food day. Here’s how I did it.
6am: Raisin bran and unsweetened vanilla almond breeze, cottage cheese and grapes, and a cup of really good coffee with half & half
9am: Felt like cooking, so tried an experiment to make Chocolate zucchini walnut cookies (1 point) and of course I had to try one, with my second cup of coffee. Put the rest of the cookies directly in the freezer.
11:30am: English muffin ‘pizzas, made w/lite eng. muff, 1 lite cheese stick, tomato, marinara sauce and mushrooms (thank you, Roni, for the idea,) and a pina colada smoothie (2 points).
2:30pm: Kozy Shack SF Tapioca w/fresh pineapple, and a Fiber One Choc. Chip bar.
5:00 Tiny ice cream thing (1 point) This was an impulse decision, not planned.
6:00 2 oz. turkey w/a little cranberry sauce, roasted zucchini, and a piece of zucchini bread (1 point)
snack: Cherries in the Snow, 1 point dk. chocolate, and 1 point Jolly Time Kettle Corn.
So, I noticed that I ended up coming in within my points allowance, and ate relatively healthy, wasn’t really too hungry, but most of all that I was eating food I really wanted to–’the new comfort food.’
Just for comparison, here is a sample of how I might have eaten in the past when I was having a bad day.
8am: coffee and two donuts
10am: Bake Chocolate Chip Cookies, and reserve a bowl of dough to eat when I was done baking the cookies. Eat one cookie freshly baked
11am: Eat the bowl of cookie dough
3pm: leftover mac and cheese, chips, and a candy bar
6pm: go to town to get a large hamburger and fries. Chocolate chip cookies for dessert.
I don’t really think this is an exaggeration. I actually had a hard time remembering how I did eat. And of course, this was an example of a stress-eating day. Some days I ate better. But really, a lot of days I ate like this.
So when I have a day like today, just the fact that I am able to eat relatively healthily is, in itself, a comfort to me. Because part of the stress is seeing my parents age, and become feeble. And at least if I continue to eat well and exercise, I will know that I have done my part to age as gracefully as possible.
Good for you – wow you seem so healthy -mentally and physically!
Sorry for the stress, but here’s a funny for you: in college my roommate used to wear a shade of nail polish called Cherries in the Snow. We thought that was so funny! so every time you mention this food I am reminded of nail polish – weird huh?!
Alright, Jill. I didn’t even realize this until you wrote it, but that is the name of MY favorite nail polish! And can you believe I even wear nail polish? When I started losing weight, I started polishing my toenails. I just get a big kick out of it, even though I think its silly.
That is too weird to me. Because every time I ate them, or wrote that in my food journal or on the blog, I would think ‘where did that name come from?’ Well, now I know. Good grief.
You left out lunch on what you used to eat–what’s up with that? And it sounds fine to me–what’s the problem? HAR! HAR!
Hang in there – its hard watching your parents age. I’ve noticed that my 68 year old mom repeats her stories quite often, and when I call her on it, she replies “oh I just forgot who I told!”
Now she prefaces almost every sentence “stop me if you’ve heard this one!”
Congrats on keeping it together!