Day 2

Day 2 November 13, 2010

First work day-this will be much harder than the weekend.  Okay, breakfast was awesome: huevos rancheros & a latte-as I will have for breakfast pretty much every day this week.  I added an extra egg since one egg did not quite fill me up yesterday, & it is a long time until lunch.  I ate a little past when I was no longer hungry, but not quite when I was full.  This is okay since lunch in six hours away.  I try to finish the latte-but can’t justify it.  So I take it to work with me & have it around 10:00.   I also have my macaroons half an hour before lunch due to starvation. I eat lunch; unfortunately at my desk since there isn’t really a lunch table. I clear off the work though & focus just on eating & conversation with co-workers.  Being conscious of eating is much more difficult with all the people walking by & stopping to talk.  I also have some candy that a patient’s mom gave each of us as a Christmas present, not to mention the ten different desserts and snacks in the coffee room.  I eat my lamb & sweet potatoes, then later snack on a chocolate covered almond-which made me more hungry-so I had my tangerine. 

It is much more difficult to determine when I no longer have hunger at work-I find myself feeling full- after two bites-but then hungry ten minutes later.  I was full after two bites of sauerkraut  but then hungry ten minutes later.  I had a bar on my way to the Round Rock office- I didn’t eat it in the car-I ate it on my way to the car.  I was still hungry after I ate it.  So here is my dilemma.  I am a pediatric physical therapist, which means I schedule appointments with each child for half an hour to an hour.  I do not get a snack break like most people do, so there is never a time to sit down & have my snack.  Yet I did not have hunger after eating all of my lunch.  So, how do I stop eating when I no longer have hunger at lunch, yet manage to not be starving all afternoon?  I don’t think it helps that my job is so active & requires so much activity & sometimes heavy lifting.   My stomach tells me when I have eaten enough for someone who hasn’t been working all day, so I am hungry an hour later, & there is barely enough time to scarf down a snack – let alone be present during it.

Lunch also felt very distorted for me.  It isn’t like when you eat dinner with friends or family at a dinner table or at a restaurant.  People were coming and going, chatting with me.  Going back and forth from their work to socialization.  It was disconnecting, distorted.  I realized that it never really did feel like lunch.  I did a decent job of focusing on the meal through all of this; however, I never really felt satisfied by the end of the meal.  The microwaved meal out of the pyrex container is not that much more satisfying than a tv dinner.  I may need to break down tomorrow & eat at the small table in the coffee room. People still come & go & there is a lot of microwaving.  But at least there is usually one or two sitting there.

I eat my open-faced mushroom gravy sandwich again for dinner.  I eat it.  My stomach feels full after about three bites.  I agonize over whether or not I really am full.  I walk away for a little while.  I don’t know for sure whether or not I have hunger, but I am definitely NOT SATISFIED.  I take some bread and some cheese, sit back down, take two deep breaths & eat it.  I find comfort & satisfaction.  Our society says that I should not have found comfort, satisfaction in food.  It  says that food is a form of nutrition & should be viewed as nothing more:  I was eating emotionally and not for nutritional value.  I should have dealt with the emotion instead of turning to food for the answer.  I disagree.  I had been hungry ALL DAY.  That is why I was stressed.  My over analysis of whether or not I had hunger caused the stress.  It wasn’t until I exhaled & enjoyed my meal & did not freak out about whether or not I had hunger that I found satisfaction.  Instead of stressing over food, I enjoyed it.  I wasn’t quite full-but I was satisfied.