Everyone has heard the phrase, "stressed is desserts spelled backwards". In my case, I see it as being one of the same these days. Especially when the proof is on my waistline.
Stress: the killer of tranquility and calm. For every person, what stresses one person does not necessarily equal a stressful event of another. While the basics - money and time - are the major culprits of one's stress level, in fact, it is the common thread every person deals with, but there are other factors that people rarely ever pay all that much attention to. In fact, there are plenty of people that have been "conditioned" to tolerate these less than common triggers for stress, but once the threshold has been achieved, the body reacts in a far different way than what people see as "common" or "customary". In hindsight of this personal finding in my life, I have also made a cross-reference to certain behaviors that are coping mechanisms to stressful situations. Here are the ones I believe are valid. at least to me....
I am by no means a skinny girl. I have always had curves. In a society that worships excessively thin women as seen in the fashion magazines, I never managed to measure up. Even when I was considered underweight according to the BMI chart in the doctor's office. Of course, I was only 16 years old at the time, but being at 5'7" and only 110 pounds, I was not happy even at that weight. My bone structure never matched the average cover model and regardless of that fact, I knew I could never truly be happy with myself. In fact, I would sell my soul to be back at that sickly looking weight now, but I do value my faith a little more these days, so selling is not an option anymore. That, and food has been my crutch for stress. Yep, I am another common statistic of being an emotional eater.... both mentally and physically.
Knowing my stress triggers is like listing the acceptable foods list of DH. If you have not heard, DH has a very limited palate... very limited. It is easier to list what he will eat because the list of foods he won't would take forever. He prefers the processed garbage that is dieting no-no after dieting no-no. Sausage, cheese, pizza, burgers, and pasta are his go-to foods. It has taken me almost 17 years of marriage to get him to eat a banana, eat un-breaded chicken or pork, and expand his vegetable choices beyond corn. peas, and carrots. I mean, he will eat celery or tomatoes once in a while, but it needs to have a load of salt on it. Lettuce is only a condiment for tacos and sub sandwiches. His favorite Saturday meal he would make for lunch was buttered noodles with a stick of butter to a 1 pound box of noodles and who knows how much salt. Believe me, his cholesterol was awful. But after a health scare, he is at least trying to be a little more reasonable, but not by much. The responsibility of making his go-to and accepted foods healthy has put plenty of stress on my shoulders. Look at that.... one stress inducing event mentioned here and lets say that this one thing has increased my weight by 10 pounds.
With time and money not even mentioned until now, lets point out the other stress inducing factors to my already tested nervous system, shall we?
With the current economy still in the toilet, this household is under a painfully tight budget and DH is holding the checkbook. With this chosen budget by DH, I have the added pressure to not only make foods he will eat in a healthy fashion (which is a challenge in itself), I now have a limit to how much is made and what a serving size is per person, all with having zero leftovers that may or may not be thrown away. Since DD and I are tired of eating the same stuff from week to week, we are not exactly ones to eat leftovers. DH usually took care of that situation, but after his last cholesterol check with the doctor, we (meaning me) needed to buckle down even more. Yep, being responsible to remain within a budget and ration out what we eat has yet again been placed solely on my shoulders. DH and DD don't cook. It is not like they are incapable of cooking, they just choose to not cook, period. In all honesty, their cooking abilities are really only limited to boiling water, using the microwave, and putting a frozen pizza in the oven. Anything going beyond three ingredients and two steps is completely out of their comfort zone. I have tried to make them participate in cooking since DH is a hawk at watching what lands in the shopping cart every week (yes, we all are required to shop for groceries weekly as a family, yet another stress inducing event I deal with). With a slide rule and limited ingredients, I am to create edible meals that the whole family will consume. Trust me, taking a package of ground sirloin that usually holds four servings, bulk it up to an amount to feed six, divide by two and with those two mounds, create two totally different meals from them. You try that and tell me that it is not stress inducing. Increase in weight.... another 20 pounds.
Besides the food and money situation, we have a time management issue at hand. Since returning to work, albeit part time, it is apparently still my responsibility to keep the house clean, the laundry caught up, and the errands done. Usually, I can handle this, but when my family has not exactly been step up worthy and even managed to step back even more.... I cannot keep up. When I was home full time, I could follow them around with an arsenal of cleaning supplies. The hunt to collect dirty clothes to be laundered is still going on. The desire for anyone to put things were they belong is obviously not there, and by the look of my floors..... neither is bending over to pick up crumbs, seeds, or wipe up spills. With the cooking situation still on my shoulders, I just don't have all that much time on my hands anymore. Especially, when I am gone almost every day for work and on those few days that I may not need to be there.... I am running all the other errands. Back in 2008, I knew my family would not step up to ease the load on my shoulders. In fact, I have even more. As overwhelming as it is to me, it is yet another stress inducing event that has created yet another 10 pound weight gain.
Now, with an estimated 40 pounds gained just by my situation at home, I am not even done with the stress weight add on. My relationship with DH is stressful on a personal level. I am the proverbial dart board of snide remarks, nit picking, and lack of interest in who I am as a person. Recent events highlighted that DH has zero interest in what I thought was funny happening over the weekend and managed to shoot down all communications because what I wanted to share with him was not interesting in his opinion. My request for some seriously needed home repairs have been ignored and my kitchen has suffered water damage with zero plans for fixing it any time soon. I probably have mold, but I guess that of it doesn't affect DH, it shouldn't affect anyone else in the house. Of course, that bounces back to the budget situation and since the water damage is not killing anyone at the moment... I guess it can wait? The roof of our home is damaged, but with DH's rerouting of a downspout from a gutter.... I guess everything is just honky-dory? DD is in her unpredictable moody stage and I just have no clue what to do with that. One minute, she is the kid I love dearly, the next, I am an embarrassment to her, then the next.... I am not exactly her biggest fan. Meaning, I love her all the time, but I don't like her as I should from time to time. I guess she feels the same about me. The relationship between her and her father is rocky, at best, and there are times I have to play peacemaker. Then, there is apparently my new responsibility to teach DD to drive since the one time her father took her.... it turned into an argument of epic proportions. With DD's slight tendency to being a lead-foot, I am doing my best to try to breathe through the panic and try to explain to her how to be a better driver without setting her off into a tirade. Hmmm.... that sounds like another 30 pounds of weight gain.
Let's see..... roughly 70 pounds of unwanted fat hanging off my not-so ideal bone structure and I am not even done yet. Lets add on another 20 for the stress from working in a commission based environment, surrounded by a bunch of tightly wound, stressed coworkers that expect everything and refuse to take responsibility for anything. The demands of hard to please clients, the unbearable traffic to and from work, and those long stretches of time I sit at my job, waiting for work to happen.
I guess I should just chalk this all up to being an overwhelmed and very under appreciated woman going through the starting stages of menopause. Menopause alone is a guaranteed weight gaining situation in itself. What I did not expect is the return of my panic attacks and my ulcer. I went to the doctor, complaining about my throat not feeling right. It feels swollen and it is hard to swallow at times. I have managed to choke while eating. If I am not drinking water with every bite of food, I will literally choke, in fact, I have thrown up a few times because I couldn't breathe from choking. Now, that should have me drop the weight like crazy, right? Nope. I have enough weight gaining cortisol flowing through my bloodstream that I am still gaining weight. Regardless of how active I can and have been. With the acid churning insides I have going on, my throat is irritated and slightly swollen.... slightly, my backside! I am in agony here!!!! Even drinking water is a crap-shoot lately. Because of the increased acids reaching the back of my throat, I am now required to take antacids on a daily basis with hopes things will settle down. Along with that, I am debating if I should go back on anti-anxiety medications, but with the stress I am dealing with.... it won't do much good if the stress is still there. Beads and books have been my outlet for stress and even those things are becoming unappealing to me, I fear I am one more aggravation from really losing it and needing a rubber room we cannot afford for my well being. Really, in the grand scheme of things, what is stressing me to the brink of insanity is not all that much for other people to handle, but why is it so hard for me to deal with? Is it because that the track record for those that are supposed to support me seem to always fall short? Is it that I lack the ability to process things individually and lump it all into one pile? Or is it just I am far to weak to deal with anything these days? I just don't know, but my prescription is ready to be picked up and I have to go.
Thanks for reading!
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