food fix

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Does anyone else find that if they have breakfast - specifically cereal for breakfast that by lunch they could gnaw their arm off?

Cuz for me...that is the case. I am MORE hungry when I eat cereal for breakfast than when I don't. I'm not sure if it's because my metabolism is ramped up ,or if the carbs in the cereal are mucking with my bloodsugar. I'm going to try out something next week as a test - complex carbs like oatmeal, or more protein like eggs and veggies...like oh, say an omelette or something. How long can it take to scramble an egg? I'd go all out and make poached eggs (my fave) but then I'd need some toast, so that kind of mucks with that one... I'm trying to figure out how to keep the food monster at bay.

I for one crave carbs...and occasionally salt. And it's been an up and down few days with food. Today, in the light of day I'm trying to look at what I eat and see if my diet is sabotaging my diet...if you know what I mean. To see if what I eat at meals is wrong - maybe I need more protein? I just don't know. Last night was a long stressful emotional day, which ended up OK in the end, but I found winding down very difficult after it all. J was in bed silly early after a long day prepping for another 14 hour day today at work...while I solved my annoying problems and then tried to calm down and unwind. I just couldn't (rare for me) so I went for a drive to do some errands and came home...and I'm annoyed to say that when I came in and got settled that I looked for something to entertain myself...and that I was craving food. I was/am/hope to someday not be an emotional eater. Sometime I crave it to comfort me. Last night was definitely one of those times...
Now, more often I can ignore it as I know it's just my emotions. I had made a healthy meal of chicken/veg curry and rice for supper so I knew I'd eaten enough, but I still needed something. I tried water...nope. Tea...nope. Finally I popped open one of my 80 calorie packs of rice crackers and dipped them in a few spoonfulls of salsa...which finally killed the cravings...mostly. When my mind is racing I find I cannot calm it down. I should have exercised or done something physical to focus on something else, but last night I just couldn't find what I needed... and the food medicated me. It really did.

Infuriating.

I finally gave up and went to bed, but still laid there for a while trying to cool off my brain before I finally slept. This morning the sleep in due to no alarm and being behind on a rainy day brought annoyance, bit not the same thing. That's gone...I've been a good eater today. Tonight will be something healthy...I don't feet "it" like I did yesterday. Whatever "it" is...

Once again I'm faced with this fact: I need to figure out a substitute for this food thing. It now happens far less than it ever did before, but still - I often feel as though I can't keep a hold of myself...that food can make me feel better. That's WRONG. I'm not talking about just wanting a little something...I'm talking about expecting food to fix something. To actually make me feel better.

It just can't...any suggestions? How do you deal with this sort of thing?

1 comment:

Nathalie said...

Totally! If I eat cereal in the morning I feel sooo full while eating it and I have to force it in, but then I'm incredibly hungry 2 hours later. Whit experimenting I found that I need at least a bit of protein in the morning, and a small snack mid-morning if I want to though it out till lunch. My favourite breakfasts right now are multigrain toast with almond butter and jam, or yogurt with fruit and some type of carb such as oatmeal of Fibre One sprinkled on top. My favorite quick snack is All Bran chewy bars, chocolate flavour. Good nutrition stats, filling and a definitive chocolate fix.

As for comfort food or eating out of boredom or stress... Salty: homemade popcorn, with almost no butter but a good dose of salt. Sweet: dark chocolate (at least 70%). That usually does the trick for me, at least when I'm still capable of thinking straight and not buying candy by the truck load.