The Scary Hour

There is one hour of my day that is the most difficult hour to get through. It’s the hour after I get home from work. This hour is usually the time when all the good things I’ve done through the day, the eating well, the focusing on my goals, the keeping it together, everything just falls apart. I suddenly feel the urge to eat anything and everything in the house and I get frustrated when I have purposefully not stocked the house with “snack” items. There are no cookies in the pantry, no pint of ice cream in my freezer, no chips; there is very little junk food in my house. I do this on purpose because I know what will happen if those things are there. I will binge eat them and I won’t register that I am full until half the contents are gone and then I am sick and have gone way over my calorie limit. 

I used to think this was just weakness on my part. I just couldn’t handle eating well, I couldn’t keep myself away from these foods, the foods were stronger than I. I felt like a failure. The being constantly hungry the minute that I walk in the door felt like the end of the world. I couldn’t control it and when I would fight off the urge I would just beat myself up for being so weak. Even without the junk food I was still falling into a trap…and an unhealthy one at that. 

So finally, finally, finally, last week a thought came to me. Well why do I feel like this in the first place? What am I not dealing with??

Well there’s an eye opener. Could it be that I was eating emotionally? Was there something that triggered the sudden need for comfort in food? (Food has been my go to for comfort for a long time, something I am still working on) What was I avoiding, what didn’t I want to feel? 

Well I came up with some answers that surprised me, and thankfully I do have some solutions in mind!

1)      I am currently on ten hour days and am exhausted by the time I get home and more than a little hungry (like actually hungry): Solution: Put a mid afternoon snack in at about 3pm. I am good about a mid morning snack but the afternoons are busy and I forget, I need to stop forgetting! 

2)      I am overwhelmed by the clutter on my dining room table- I didn’t even really think about this until my subconscious decided to clue me in. My husband uses the dining room table for work two days a week and it is also the catch all for mail and other random papers that seem to be reproducing like bunnies in our home. It stresses me out to see a mess the minute I walk in the door and I want to purge things desperately but I cannot get rid of his important work stuff which unfortunately I don’t know what qualifies as important or not. Solution: Filing station, I am going to get a set of file holders and put them up in the dining room and ask my husband ever so nicely if he will keep up with them, or else I will just start putting anything that isn’t mine into box for him. Also I will use the mail divider that we received for our wedding for bills and important documents. I will also get all my stuff divided out and labeled. 

3)      Lack of planning- I literally never know what we are having for dinner. I am terrible at meal planning and I loathe it when the first question I hear is “What do you want for dinner?” Solution: Stop complaining and sit down and actually meal plan. I may not like to do it and I may not be that great at it, but like doing a budget it is something that is crucial to a happy home.

Now that I have identified some of my triggers and actually have solutions planned I hope that the scary hour will turn out to be a lot less scary. Also I have started working out right after work in order to get that last little bit of energy I have going so that once I shower I am done and can feel completely content with just doing a few little chores, eating dinner, and then relaxing the rest of my evening. This will turn all those negative thoughts away because all I will think about is how awesome it was that I worked out and how much stronger I will get if I keep going. Gotta turn those negatives to positives! I will not hate my body; I will not punish it or myself. I will be thankful that each day it does what I ask it to without complaint. I am only human and I will make mistakes, but as long as I am trying then I have a reason to be proud.