Sneaky ways my brain tries to get me to eat

I had to travel today. A one-day in-and-out visit from my home near Chicago to a small city two states away. Flying there required transferring planes in Detroit. The Detroit airport is huge and I once missed a flight there (when I couldn’t race from one gate to the next in time), so it always stresses me out going there. I was nervous already when I woke up this morning. It didn’t help that I had to drive to O’Hare Airport during early rush hour Chicago traffic.

When I arrived at O’Hare Airport, I was informed that the first leg of my flight was delayed. Delayed an hour. Grrooaaann.

That meant I wouldn’t arrive in Detroit in time to get to the gate for my second flight. Grroooaannn again.

No worries, the gate agent told me. They had transferred me to a different flight for the first leg of my trip. Same departure time as my original flight.  Just one hitch — it was leaving from Midway Airport not O’Hare. Midway is about 45 minutes away. They’d give me a cab voucher.

I raced outside, grabbed a cab and begged the driver to get me to Midway as fast as possible. Go, go, go. The driver raced down there, while I hyperventilated in the back.

I’m making a short story long, but the point is this — it was a stressful morning. Very stressful.

And for the first time, I really noticed how all that stress immediately set my addictive brain in action.

No, more than that. Actually, I think my addictive brain was thrilled. Here was the perfect excuse to get me to eat. I was stressed! What could be better?! Bring it on! The more stress, the more likely she is to break!

My addictive brain just thrives on stress. It loooooves it when I’m stressed.

No wonder I immediately was thinking about food, where I could go for a treat, what airport food I’d eat, where I’d go for dinner tonight as a reward for all this stress. I was thinking about food, rather than thinking about how to keep myself calm and at peace.

No wonder my brain tells me it’s a good idea to start doing laundry at 10 p.m. Or to start cooking something when I’ve only got 20 minutes till I need to leave the house.

My addictive brain has a lot to gain when I work myself up into a stressed condition.

And, to get my food thing under control, I can’t let get myself get caught up in the stress cycle. I just have to do the best I can, and then release the results.

This isn’t an easy process, but at least I know what tricks that little devil is up to. And that’s the first step to getting him to stop.