When Stress Shows Up, Healthy Eating and Exercise Disappear

I've been very, very quiet here. And now I can cite a news story to explain why.

According to this Associated Press story,

[a]s the credit and housing crises rattle Wall Street, pressures over bigger workloads, job security and shrinking nest eggs are upending diets and fueling unhealthy habits across the country.

Stressed workers often reach for calorie-rich foods, skip the gym after a taxing day or forego meals because of heavy workloads. Or they indulge in other bad-for-you behavior like smoking, drinking or staying out late.

No, I'm not worried about job security, and my spouse and I aren't facing shrinking nest eggs. But it has been financially worrisome as he's gotten his new cabinetmaking business started. (I've been so busy that I haven't even had time to replace the dummy text on his web site!)

He has no lack of potential customers, which are the big contractors to the wealthy of the Hamptons on New York's Long Island. It's just that it takes a while for the customers to get used to going to him on his own, instead of him as an employee of another cabinetmaking firm. Since he was laid off in October, I've helped him put together estimates for 32 different projects—32! Amazingly, since November, he's had only 1 week in which he wasn't working, which is pretty darn good, and that's with having to contend with an Achilles tendon that he tore three quarters of the way through (and the resulting cast and then leg brace) on Super Tuesday. And the prices he commands are high. But people take a while to decide to go ahead with the work, and then the contractors take a while to schedule the work on these people's mansions, which brings in cabinetmakers, construction workers, painters, masons, electricians, tile layers, and more.

So cash flow has been very undependable around here. Because I'm the one who does the books for our family, for my business, and now for my husband's business, I'm the one who's been most worried about our finances. Accordingly, I've also been working 7 days a week for several months, sometimes double-booking projects to bring in more funds.

This means that I haven't exercised in a while now. My eating habits are still fairly healthy, but I've gained back about 7 pounds because I'm not exercising. Not good, and not happy-making.

But the projects are starting to line up for Ed one right after the other, so the financial crunch should start easing up soon. That means I'll have to get my butt back out there and speed-walk again. After all this time, I'll be close to starting from scratch, but at least I'll be starting.

After all, says the news story,

... [i]t is in times of duress, experts say, that minding your health is perhaps more critical than ever. ...

Stress can take more serious, physical tolls. People under great stress release hormones and nerve chemicals that weaken the immune system, rendering them more susceptible to illness, said Dr. Esther Sternberg, who studies the effects of stress at the National Institute of Mental Health. Stress can also slow the body's ability to heal wounds, she said. ...

"The first thing people want to do when they get stressed is eat stuff that's bad for them," said [dietitian Heather] Bauer, who counsels Wall Street executives. "But the end result is that they're more stressed out because they're eating something they shouldn't have."

I know that I've been stressed out over the idea of not exercising. Time to get moving!



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Stir-Fried Veggies with Tofu and Nuts

Tonight's dinner was one of my faves, stir-fried veggies—summer squash, zucchini, green bell pepper, red bell pepper, yellow bell pepper, broccoli, portabella mushrooms, cauliflower, sugar snap peas, asparagus, and scallions—with tofu and unsalted sunflower seeds. Sometimes we add mung bean sprouts and substitute pecans or walnuts for the sunflower seeds. The spouster loves this dish too, but we can't get our sons to like it. We like it so much that it's become a once-a-week staple.



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Vegetarian Dinner

Had a lovely vegetarian meal last night:

Roasted slices of tofu, seasoned with oregano and black pepper

Roasted Brussels sprouts, prepared the way that Julie Cancio Harper described in a comment on my previous post: "Trim the ends and slice each tiny cabbage down the middle. Toss with a bit of olive oil, salt and pepper. Roast at 375 degrees [Fahrenheit] for about 45 minutes. They gently carmelize in the pan."

Yum! I was happy to leave the ground-beef-and-pasta-with-tomato-sauce to my spousal unit and sons.



vegetarian dinner roasting tofu Brussels sprouts Editing My Body

Vegetable Torture

I am the lone soul, in this intergenerational house of 6 people, 3 cats, and 1 dog, who likes Brussels sprouts. I like to eat them steamed about once a week when they're in season. I know that they can be a bit smelly, but I don't think that their scent is horrid.

A little while ago, I turned off the stovetop burner and then emptied the steamer's lovely leafy green contents onto a plate, preparing to savor them as an afternoon snack. From the next room, my 13-year-old son shouted, "Oh my God! What's that horrible smell?!" I told him what I'd just cooked. "Ugh! I'm going downstairs [to the wood shop] to get Dad's respirator!" He ran downstairs, grabbed the respirator despite my husband's laughing at the cause of his olfactory distress, came back up and put it on, and then threw open a window to air the house out, even though it's 39 degrees Fahrenheit outside right now. "How can you stand that smell?!" he asked.

Twenty minutes later, he's still wearing the respirator while he plays computer games. Too bad okra's not in season right now. I have the evil urge to torture him with its gooey goodness.



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The Hard Way to Lose Weight

I found another way to lose weight—I took off 8 pounds in 1 week!

Problem is, it entails nausea, all-over aches and pains, fever, and generally being miserable. But if you're determined, here is how to do it:

• Give birth to a child. This may be more than some of you want to do.



• Once the child is old enough to attend school, instruct him or her to bring home germs, especially tenacious ones.



• When the child (who in my house is a boy, so I'll use masculine pronouns here) comes home with a particularly nasty set of germs that cause him to throw up a lot, sit with him and comfort him by holding him, thus exposing yourself thoroughly to the germs.



• Within a week, you'll be avoiding food as if it's poison, which it will be to your sensitive, heaving stomach.



• Lie on a couch or bed, looking weak and pathetic, which won't require acting on your part, and alternate between staring dully at the motion on your TV screen and sleeping for hours at a time. Respond to all attempts at conversation with "Huh? Wha ...?"



• When the germs have wrung you out and left you for near dead, look at food and wonder why you ever liked the stuff. Drag yourself onto a scale; be prepared to think that you're hallucinating when you read its verdict.



• Crawl back to bed. You've had your workout for the day.

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The Sound of Blog Silence

I've been pretty quiet on this blog lately, and you'd probably like to know why.

As you can figure out by looking at the numbers in the right-hand column, I've lost 33 pounds since I started eating healthy and exercising in July. I have to lose 109 more to get to my goal weight, a realistic and healthy number.

Between July and early November, I'd gotten up to walking 50 minutes a day at 2.9 mph (and even faster, once in a while) on my in-laws' treadmill, which resides in my husband Ed's wood shop because that's the only place with enough room for it. But because Ed was laid off in early October and has been ramping up his new cabinetmaking business, I've been nearly our sole financial support for a while now, and I'm working 7 days a week and a lot of hours each day, leaving me truly no time to exercise. At least I'm at home doing it (thank goodness for self-employment!), so I can see my family members.

Ed has had a few small projects. But things have been slow for his business because of the holidays. All of the wealthy homeowners for whose homes he'd be creating extensive cabinetry have been busy hosting gala parties off and on over the last month or so or have been traveling and haven't wanted work going on in their mansions. He has just landed a part-time job in the evenings that will help with the money crunch until his business gets going and will leave him free to seek projects and build cabinets on weekdays.

I'm still eating healthy foods, so I've continued my weight loss, though at a much slower rate than before. I think that continuing to eat well has contributed greatly to my having had far, far fewer colds so far this fall and winter, even though I have school-age sons who bring home lots of germs. Changing my eating habits has been a huge learning experience for me, because I figured out that I ate too much (1) out of boredom and (2) to temporarily quash upsetting emotions. I've been teaching myself to stay present in my emotions instead of stuffing my mouth.

I do use Ergociser, which a colleague recommended, so that I do various stretches at my desk regularly. But I long to have time to exercise—and blog!—again. These days, I don't have time to think about much of anything but work.



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How to Fight Off Laryngitis and Chest Congestion

A blogger friend of mine has come down with laryngitis at just the wrong time. (Come to think of it, is there ever a good time to have it?) She asked her readers what treatments they advise. Here's what I suggested:

Try the hot tea of your choice with a little ground ginger sprinkled in. The ginger helps break up the crud and stimulates the immune system to work more efficiently.

Drink enough liquids—not coffee or fruit juices—so that your pee is clear. (If your pee is yellow, that means you're not well hydrated.) This is something that both my physician and my nutritionist recommend that I do daily, not just when I'm sick. Because I'm at the computer all day for work, I find it easy to drink lots of fluids. My preference is unsweetened hot green or white Chinese or Japanese tea, but water's fine when it's warmer out. This does help decrease my cravings for foods I shouldn't eat.

I get my whole-leaf teas here.

I also have just started drinking basil-ginger tea, an herbal tea without caffeine, which is supposed to have lots of good-for-you phytochemicals that work as antioxidants, antibacterials, and immunity-boosters. Tastes great, even without sweeteners. I bought it here, under the brand name Tulsi Ginger Tea. It's from India.



laryngitis congestion tea hunger hydration phytochemicals antioxidants antibacterials immunity Editing My Body