Small victories

The last few days at work have been pretty stressful.

Lots of high-profile speech deadlines, lots of new projects by demanding clients being dropped on my plate. People passing the buck. I shouldn't complain, and actually I really like my job when its busy. Only the problem is, I've been nearing stress eating. Today was the breaking point after a VP tried to shunt his work to me and then promised our top scientist a deadline of COB Friday, which I was planning to take off.

In a frenzy of panic and anger, I made a beeline to the cafeteria at lunchtime for something destructive. My target was General Tsao's chicken and egg roll (often times, local restaurants guest chef some of our food stations). I looked at it before I got in line. The serving was HUGE, covered in sweet sticky sauce, with a pile of white rice and an industrial egg roll.

I decided it wasn't worth it. Yes, you read that right.

More importantly, I decided I didn't want it. I realized it would end up being disappointing since I was past being addicted to the fried/sweet/salty combo.

Instead I got an 8 oz. cup of split pea soup and some cilantro chili peanut noodles. The noodles weren't very good, and I still ate more than I needed/wanted, but I was really proud of my decision.

So I get back to my desk, and our CEO leaves a voicemail to our team and Investor Relations that starts the chaos again. So we all plan for a 3pm meeting, and at 2:30pm I slink down to the cafeteria for a coffee and some reinforcements. I was thinking brownie, or maybe a homemade rice krispie treat.

I peruse the options, passing over the carnival cookie and the German Chocolate cake. I could tell I wasn't even hungry. I decided to get something regardless, so that I didn't have a coo-coo gorge later. I got a regular full-sugar Yoplait and a Kashi bar as that would be filling, and sort of a naughty compromise. I ate half of the yogurt before our meeting. It was WAY too sweet.

Then, at the 2-hr. meeting, the evil work-dumping VP passed around a sack of Halloween chocolates! The jury is still out on whether this redeemed him or exacerbated his evil qualities. I had a single mini-Almond Joy. Funny that Jenna posted an update about eating small portions slowly, because that is what I did. It was freaking DELICIOUS! (Of course I could have easily downed another, but I didn't).

Back at my desk, I finished my now soupy yogurt and ate my Kashi bar.

At home for dinner, I was still craving something not Jenny Craig, and not healthy. I ended up eating a peanut butter and honey sandwich on whole wheat. Did I mention I'm a bit burned out on my spinach salad staple?

So all in all, I totally stayed within calories for the day. Not great on the produce at all today, but I tamed the beast!