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The Stress Eater

Currently while slicing:

I’ll try to keep today’s post short and sweet since it’s Friday - and that’s why we drink Rose-yay! I’m relaxing to my current tune-obsession that my SPENGA workout instructor played during the start of last weekend’s class (click the link above and I promise that you will be tapping your toes within the first 10 seconds... and then you'll replay it again and again!). I’m celebrating an incredible day with a glass of wine and some creamy blue-goat cheese, syrah-soaked tuscano, and a few slices of manchego I picked up at my local Trader Joe’s today on my drive back from a local conference I got to speak at today. Realizing the time it is, I know this will be a main-course letdown. Maybe it’s this song that’s making the cheese+wine pairing really come alive for me today. Either way, the marriage of each combined taste of cheese to wine brings a harmony to the soul that brings a yoga-filled deep breath in and out after a triumphant day of work.

And I'm pretty sure I probably look like Remy the Rat from Disney's Ratatouille:

...ah - strawberries would have gone SO well with this cheese right now!

Okay, back to the story. I mentioned that today was incredible, and it was, but it was also a level of intense stress that I experience comparative to when I get ready to fly on a plane (I am a nervous flyer) or when I have to perform at a high-stakes gig with my band. In each of these situations, although all are positive, I’ve noticed that I become a stress-eater. Some part of my brain unlocks itself whenever I’m walking to the waiting terminal to board a plane, and it launches my body to walk quick-paced, faster than on those moving walkways, demanding: “You must find and devour a bagel with cream cheese NOW!” I think it must be a carb thing as I think back to this morning. I had my usual protein try-to-be-healthy smoothie but still felt the need to wolf down a giant cookie in the exhibit hall. At lunch, I toppled my build-your-own chicken sandwich with a mountain of shredded lettuce, more-than-required slices of tomato, and placed not one but two pickles on my plate. I even added a bag of those yellow lays potato chips that in my normal lunch routine I would NEVER include. Ever.

As I sat down at the cafe table with my co-presenters, Dana and Kelly, two hours before our session, the stress goblin joined our empty fourth chair and said in the same airport-voice, “Eat ALL of the chips!” They were flaky, horrible, and overbearingly salty... and I didn’t leave a crumb in the bag. Some people are different when it comes to combining food with stress. One of my colleagues couldn’t finish her sandwich, the other skipped the bread part of sandwich entirely, and there I was eating like it was my last meal. No one has ever died from death-by-audience (yet), so I'll chalk my stress up to just nerves. When I’m nervous, it always feels like the blood is slowly leaving my body and my limbs turn cold as my heart rate flutters in a way I’ve experienced on the all too familiar first date or from standing at a microphone behind a curtain waiting for the stage lights to engulf you. These are all excited-stressors, and in any scenario, I’m either feeding myself carbolicious food before or after. And just in the length of this post, my crackers and almonds have vanished off the plate, there is about one morsel left of that ooey, gooey blue-goat cheese, and I’ve completely neglected my wine.

Happy Friday. Cheers to the weekend everyone!

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