Can we just talk about periods, pads and pms for one post? (if there were any brave gentleman left, they’ve surely gone now!)
Holy cow what a week this has been. For as long as I can remeber part of my monthly PMS symptoms have come in the form of food. There is just something about the few days before ‘that time of the month’ that drives me insane.
It’s not that I have to eat badly for those two days... it’s that I eat constantly even if it’s healthy foods. It’s like my stomach is a bottomless pit and no matter how many healthy snacks, fiberous foods (which are supposed to be more filling) and meals I try to eat, I am just constantly hungry. For those two days my belly has amnesia and my thighs are paying the price!
Now before I was really watching what I was eating I would just do what my body was telling me. Eat Sarah... EAT!!! It wouldn’t even be a full hour after an American size meal and I would be ready for round two or dessert or second dessert if I had already had the first.
So now that I am being more health concious, those two days are absolutely crucial days in my month. Mostly because I don’t realize that I am overeating as I am just listening to my belly. Sometimes I don’t realize how much I’m eating until I’m searching for my third snack of the day and it’s only 11 o’clock in the morning. Thats when the bell goes off in my mind, hey.. something’s not right here. A quick flip through my calendar confirms it... I officially have PMS.
This week I was at work during my “monthly munchies”. That was a good thing since it is a semi-controlled environment. All I had around me was my apple and my snack in my drawer. Unfortunately lunch is a free for all in the canteen filled with different breads, meats, cheeses, veggies, peanut butter, honey, jams and fruits. You can take as much as you want, nobody keeps track. This is where the real challenge was for me.
I usually fill my plate with tomato and cucumber slices. Then have a piece of ham and a slice of cheese on two slices of “Zwarte Bread” translated “black bread”. I don’t think there is an equivalent in the US, but it is similar to adark rye or pumpernikel I think.
On a side note, one trick I have learned for feeling fuller at lunch is to get all the components of my lunch together at once and look at the abundance of food on my plate. I look at it all and say, wow thats a good amount of food. Then I assemble my sandwich. It kind of tricks me, or rather it keeps me from tricking myself. Before I would say, oh I only had one sandwich for lunch and THAT would justify me eating snacks later. Now I mentally picture what I had for lunch all laid out on my plate and I can’t really justify snacking later in the day.
So I filled my plate as usual. I ate my veggies as I talked with my co-workers. Then I ate my sandwich too while still chatting away. Then my meal was gone, my plate was clean and my belly acted like I hadn’t touched a thing. So I decided, ok, maybe I am just unusually hungry today. I did only have a slimfast shake for breakfast as I was running late. I took two small slices of another kind of bread and thinly spread some peanut butter one one side and honey on the other. I ate it. It was good. I sat there.
At this point I think I actually heard my stomach whisper to me... “psssst...hey lady, I think there’s some nutella over there with our name on it. Mmm mmm mmm hazelnut chocolate spread. We haven’t had that in a long time. Come on lady, just one little sandwich.” I looked around and spotted the nutella. Mmm chocolate....
Just then it was like I snapped. Like a crazy women I grabbed my plate, my silverware and my water bottle and bolted up from the table. My coworkers stopped talking and just looked at me like I had horns growing out of my head. I fumbled around with my chair, trying not to knock over the person behind me and said “uh I gotta go. See you upstairs”. I practically ran out of the lunchroom and up the stairs to the third floor.
I had to remove myself from that situation or it could have been ugly. It would have been so easy to sit there and eat until I had a little familiar full feeling in my stomach. It was so hard to leave when my body was telling me, whipsering to me, begging me to stay. I’m just lucky I had the foresight to know that this happens to me every month and to watch for it.
It’s the first time since I’ve started this journey that I’ve dealt with PMS and I’ll have to say I handled it better than usual as far as my eating goes. Of course I still had the normal bouts of hysteria, peace, sadness, anger, love, rage and the plethora of other emotions you go through being a woman. I may have been a bitch on wheels for a few days but at least I wasn’t taking it out on my thighs this time. Just ask Marco, he’ll tell ya!
At this time I want to thank my husband for being so understanding during my monthly episodes of craziness. You’re a trooper sweetheart! I love you!
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