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April 27, 2006
Stress, Diet, and Sugar
When I was in my early twenties, Dean Ornish's Stress, Diet and Your Heart was one of my favorite books. I am no longer a lowfat vegan, but I still find the title catchy.
Today I contemplated the role of stress, diet, and sugar. I stopped by my mom's place in the morning to bring her coffee and take care of various things she needed -- she can't lift or bend over, so simple things like dishes or scooping cat poop are no longer possible. Then to work for another exciting and stressful day of making the world safe for health care professionals to join the union of their choice. Then back to Mom's to help her shower and do a few things before I was off to a meeting. Stayed on my CR plan just fine all morning: usual breakfast, nice salad (made and packed by my angel MR) with yogurt and a half a megamuffin for lunch, plus sixty calories of almonds for fat. Then I got to Mom's and had a huge sugar craving. Ate about six of her little sour gummy candies, and they tasted so good! Between stress, low calorie levels, and afternoon blahs, it's amazing I didn't eat the entire candy stash at the Carb Castle.
I find sugar hard to resist when I am stressed and tired. Lately, my cat Philomena has been quite annoyed that I was away from her for several days between staying with Mom after surgery and my union convention. So she meows at me much of the night -- night before last, she woke me up once an hour. After getting almost no sleep, I was pretty exhausted all day, and it's no big surprise that I felt some sugar cravings.
At my late afternoon meeting we had some Panera Bread catered sandwiches, and with them came a giant salad. I helped myself to a big plate of lettuce, tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, plus less than a teaspoon of vinegarette and a few squirts of mustard. It was fun to eat something with the workers while not consuming very many calories. The salad was quite good, and I was still hungry for my brewers yeast and veggie soup for dinner.
Now it's after eight and I'm exhausted... I get so tired so early since we get up at five. On Saturday I am taking Mom for an adventure -- her first trip out since coming home from the hospital. We are going to look at flowers at Lowes, then to the Barnes and Noble to buy magazines, and out to lunch. She's doing so well, and I hope that soon she'll be up for a trip to see the big flowers at Longwood Gardens.
I've finished the dishes, the giant tabby is sleeping, the loud calico is howling, and all is right with the world. To bed.
Posted by april at April 27, 2006 8:15 PM
Comments
Baby sister, have a good sleep. I still don't understand why you have to get up at 5.00 a.m.
If it were left to me to schedule your day, it wouldn't start before 11 a.m.
Posted by: zeynep at April 27, 2006 7:08 PM
Ah I know exactly how you feel. Only it's a stressed-out 2 year old who's waking me up every half an hour at night, just to check Mummy is still there (because I've been working too much and not paying her the attention she deserves!). And yes, I get mammoth sugar and coffee cravings too when I get so tired ! Today my son baked flapjacks and I just couldn't resist. Oh dear....not looking forward to the fall-out tomorrow.
Posted by: Lindsay at April 28, 2006 7:23 AM