I have always been a moody person. We're talking serious mood shifts, sometimes from hour to hour. Just ask my friend and co-worker Stuart who, in an act of self-preservation, made a sign for my cubicle so I could warn whoever approached what they were in for:
The mouth part was actually a wheel behind the face part that I could turn to indicate my mood. Stu's a clever guy, but a so-so artist (he got the brows right, but my nose is nowhere near that big).
A sad or worse mood was most often "treated" with food. I remember one incident from very early in my career when I was so aggravated by 9:00 that I left the office, went to the convenience store, purchased a box of those big chocolate donuts and ate every one of them in the car before returning to the office.
And guess what? It calmed me down. I was able to go back to work and be productive, at least until the sugar crash came later. But what a cost for that mood fix - 2400 calories, 160 grams of fat and 136 grams of sugar in about 20 minutes. (Yes, they still sell those donuts and kindly provide that "nutrition" information on their web site.)
So it's no surprise I that my weight continued to climb. The last year on that job I put on 100 pounds. And that was the last year because I was fired - specifically because of my erratic moods. I was trapped in a vicious cycle of "emotions-food-emotions" that has haunted me to various degrees for over 20 years.
But what if the cycle is actually "FOOD-emotions-FOOD"?
(continued)
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