How I Avoided Stress-Eating When Life Turned Scary

(For animal lovers: no worries, this story has a wonderful ending.)

On a beautiful spring morning, I awoke early, glugged coffee and drove my sweet shepherd to the dog park. It was a Monday so I knew the park would be quiet, and sure enough, only two young dogs met us at the park’s gate.

As I threw balls for River, the dogs’ mom — who’d been sitting a distance away — walked over to me and we chitchatted about her two: they’d just turned one and both had had a particularly bad puppy-hood.  

As she stepped closer to me, all three dogs circled around us; me sitting on a bench while she stood. We chatted on.

Then immediately next to my bench, one of her dogs viciously latched onto my shepherd’s neck snarling ferociously the entire time. From the bench I dropped to my knees and after a moment or two, finally detached the other dog from River’s neck.

The woman finally got semi-control of her dog while I murmured to River, “It’s okay. It’s okay.” Holding his collar we limped together to the gate and then to our car.

I drove home shaking; completely freaked out.

I’m convinced that the woman’s young dog – coming from a bad puppy-hood — was only trying to protect his mom and River had gotten too close to her.

Thankfully, thankfully River wasn’t hurt at all.

At home, I cuddled River to calm him down, but thought, how am I going to calm down?

My knees were a mess so a shower seemed like a smart way to both clean them and relax. After the shower, I still needed to detress so I climbed into bed to dive back into my really good book. I knew that the shower, bed and two chapters would put me in a much better place.

And I was right.

But here’s the crazy part: our freezer held cookie dough and chocolate chip ice cream. The highest cupboard had mint Oreos and Reese’s Pieces. And my son’s desk drawer hid a full bag of small Snickers bars.

Yet on that scary morning — in hopes of chilling a bit — I took a shower, climbed into bed and read.

To chill.

A shower and a book.

You see my point.

Down the Rabbit Hole.

Back in the day, emotional experiences – bad or good — meant you’d find me in the kitchen or at the nearest fast-food drive-thru.

I self-soothed with food and didn’t have the first clue about how to mellow without junk food.

It wasn’t until hours after the dog park incident that I’d even noticed a change in my behavior. But when I did notice, I was stunned.

Did I seriously choose bed and a book over food?! Appears I did.

Holy macaroni – this was HUGE.

How I Made the Change

First, let me say that I’d had no idea that a fundamental shift had taken place.

Why didn’t I know? Because it had happened so slowly.

One thing I’m committed to on this blog is sharing the truth behind losing and maintaining after fifty. I’m not pretending in any way that this “getting and staying lean” thing has been easy.

My take on what happened that morning is that smart eating habits combined with time equaled an entirely new response to stress. The math would look like this:

Smart eating habits + time = healthy response to a traumatic situation.

Here’s the Good News.

While it’s taken me years to react positively to stress, it’s possible that it won’t take you as long. If I’d had the above equation in mind, I too might have figured this “respond better to crisis” thing much sooner.

I was (and am) one hundred percent committed to living a smart eating lifestyle. No more yo-yo eating. No more “but it’s Christmas!” eating, no more “starving to wear my bathing suit” eating.

I was done with eating poorly. And this foundational intention unfurled into smart eating habits that with time unfurled into a healthy response to a scary morning with my River.

Self-Therapy Writing

In your writing journal – which is awesome therapy, btw – free-write to these questions. Nobody will read this so just let yourself write with abandon:

• How do I engage with patience?
• Who have I shown great patience towards?
• What are five ways that I can increase my ability to be patient?
• When it comes to commitment, what am I like?
• Who have I shown deep commitment towards? (Three to five.)
• What have I shown deep commitment towards? (Three to five.)
• What are five ways I can show commitment to myself?
• What are my hard-core loves in life (like reading, swimming, or photography)?
• What are my default excuses for not doing more of the things I love? (Three to five.)

Is It Even A Thing?

Totally true, I didn’t set out to choose a shower and a book over ice cream when life goes south.

Why?

Because it had never — ever — occurred to me that choosing a book over ice cream was even a thing. I just assumed that I would always reach for junk food in response to a scary emotion. And that I would always invariably fight with myself: “but I wannnt the donuts!” “No! No donuts for you!”

Your Takeaway.

If I could talk to the younger-me who reached for food at any hint of emotion, I would tell her, “Build your commitment to smart eating habits. Increase your ability to be patient. And never, never, never stop searching for the hard-core loves in life. Because those loves may one day become your portal to chilling without binging.”

And remember it’s not your imagination, health is hard (for everyone).

Next week’s post is about surviving a three-day weekend without caving and eating all the calories. If there’s anything specific you’d like me to address let me know in the comments below! 🙂

♥, Wendy