Dealing with Stress

[ciao_yall]

I do an in class discussion assignment where we look at a single mom who has 3 kids and also has both time and financial pressures.  Her kids are fussy eaters.  Family history is that they are all on the chubby side.

Dinner choices include:

Kraft Dinner - 2 boxes from Wally Mart and a half gallon of milk. 20 minutes preparation time, kids like it, total cost ~ $5. Dinner has same nutritional value as the box it came in.

Frozen Pizza - 2 pepperoni pizzas from Wally Mart. As cheap as $6 + cost of milk.  Kids like it, 30 minutes preparation time to pre-heat the oven and bake the pies.

McD - 3 Happy Meals and 1 Big Mac Value Meal for Mom - 3 x ~$7 + $12 =$32. Kids like it. Zero preparation time.

Roast Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli w Cheese Sauce Milk & Fruit Cup - Wally Mart Prices - Chicken $7, 1/2 a 5 lb bag of potatoes - $2.50. Fresh Broccoli - $1.50. Cheese/Milk/Butter for potatoes & broccoli - $2. Fruit cups 1/2 of a 12 pack - $4. Milk $2.50  Total cost about $14.00

BUT - Preparation time is ~ 90 minutes after every one is home from school and already hungry, Not a lot of appeal to most children except for maybe the chicken and the cheese sauce.

Given the circumstances under which a person like this lives, making poor choices can have quite reasonable explanations.  The healthy meal is cheaper than the McD but more expensive than the other options, and requires more time shopping, more time cooking, more time cleaning up and kids are notoriously fussy eaters whom mom does not want to have to wrangle into eating their dinner.

It's easy to be critical of food choices, but without knowing somebody's personal circumstances, I try to avoid being too critical - but then again I just had a pack of ramen noodles for lunch, so I'm no model of dietary wisdom. 

Ok but what does any of this have to do with the conversation in this thread? OP is not a poor single mother with fussy kids, they are an overworked administrator with a terrible diet. You are creating this complex thought experiment, which I would take a lot of issue with if I felt like debating it, to make some point that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

And I'm not being critical of anyone for their dietary choices. Eat what you want - it is your body. I'm challenging the myth that it is so time consuming to prepare and eat a healthy meal. And frankly nobody in this thread has disputed that with anything substantive.

Weighing in here...

I'm pretty fit, active and eat very healthy. Except alcohol, that's another story.

Still, last night I had a long drive and no time for dinner. Okay, I could have stopped at a restaurant and had a salad, but I didn't feel like spending 1/2 hour in a restaurant. Drive-through takeout in my car would have been a burger and fries and a greasy mess all over the steering wheel.

Dinner was a Clif bar, a banana, and a bottle of water.

This morning, breakfast at the hotel is basically a "raid the refrigerator" kind of deal. I had coffee, instant oatmeal, peanut butter, banana and string cheese. There is a restaurant across the parking lot but they weren't open for breakfast when I was ready so no veggie omelet and fruit salad for me.

Point is, there are not a lot of quick healthy convenient ways to feed oneself, even if one is highly motivated to do so.

[sonoamused]

Sun-Worshipper says: "And I'm not being critical of anyone for their dietary choices. Eat what you want - it is your body. I'm challenging the myth that it is so time consuming to prepare and eat a healthy meal. And frankly nobody in this thread has disputed that with anything substantive."

Except where the class assignment which you - Sun_Worshipper - claimsa has nothing to do with the OP post does exactly that.  The single mom has the choice between a fast food chain or a frozen pizza - both which are done pretty much right away and require little thought or prep.

Or a much "healthier" meal of roast chicken and veggies, which will take some work and won't be ready for an hour and half.

If someone is already tired and stressed out, then it is hard sometimes to find the energy, time and brain power to GIVE to meal prep, when all you want to do is eat something and go to bed.

[AmLitHist]

AJ Katz, I'm so sorry you're dealing with all this. You might recall I frequently vented on the old Fora when I was having a similarly stressful couple of years (different in some details, but similar in scope and depth) when I was a dept. chair.

I did everything "wrong"--smoked like a fiend, ate junk (and everything else) to excess, not enough sleep, 7-day weeks and 14-hour days--even while knowing I was completely wrong in all of it. I paid the price (family relationships at the time, mental and physical health during and since).

The best advice I can offer--that I should have followed more often myself--would be to say "no" (even when at times it seems like you can't), and to carve out an hour or two a day purely for yourself to not have to deal with others (again, even when it seems like you can't). I'm a lot older, though maybe not all that much wiser, than when I went through it, but I feel sure my health would be less compromised now if I'd have had the discipline to do those two things at the time.

Sending hugs and good thoughts your way.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I do an in class discussion assignment where we look at a single mom who has 3 kids and also has both time and financial pressures.  Her kids are fussy eaters.  Family history is that they are all on the chubby side.

Dinner choices include:

Kraft Dinner - 2 boxes from Wally Mart and a half gallon of milk. 20 minutes preparation time, kids like it, total cost ~ $5. Dinner has same nutritional value as the box it came in.

Frozen Pizza - 2 pepperoni pizzas from Wally Mart. As cheap as $6 + cost of milk.  Kids like it, 30 minutes preparation time to pre-heat the oven and bake the pies.

McD - 3 Happy Meals and 1 Big Mac Value Meal for Mom - 3 x ~$7 + $12 =$32. Kids like it. Zero preparation time.

Roast Chicken, Mashed Potatoes, Broccoli w Cheese Sauce Milk & Fruit Cup - Wally Mart Prices - Chicken $7, 1/2 a 5 lb bag of potatoes - $2.50. Fresh Broccoli - $1.50. Cheese/Milk/Butter for potatoes & broccoli - $2. Fruit cups 1/2 of a 12 pack - $4. Milk $2.50  Total cost about $14.00

BUT - Preparation time is ~ 90 minutes after every one is home from school and already hungry, Not a lot of appeal to most children except for maybe the chicken and the cheese sauce.

Given the circumstances under which a person like this lives, making poor choices can have quite reasonable explanations.  The healthy meal is cheaper than the McD but more expensive than the other options, and requires more time shopping, more time cooking, more time cleaning up and kids are notoriously fussy eaters whom mom does not want to have to wrangle into eating their dinner.

It's easy to be critical of food choices, but without knowing somebody's personal circumstances, I try to avoid being too critical - but then again I just had a pack of ramen noodles for lunch, so I'm no model of dietary wisdom. 

Ok but what does any of this have to do with the conversation in this thread? OP is not a poor single mother with fussy kids, they are an overworked administrator with a terrible diet. You are creating this complex thought experiment, which I would take a lot of issue with if I felt like debating it, to make some point that has nothing to do with the issue at hand.

And I'm not being critical of anyone for their dietary choices. Eat what you want - it is your body. I'm challenging the myth that it is so time consuming to prepare and eat a healthy meal. And frankly nobody in this thread has disputed that with anything substantive.

Weighing in here...

I'm pretty fit, active and eat very healthy. Except alcohol, that's another story.

Still, last night I had a long drive and no time for dinner. Okay, I could have stopped at a restaurant and had a salad, but I didn't feel like spending 1/2 hour in a restaurant. Drive-through takeout in my car would have been a burger and fries and a greasy mess all over the steering wheel.

Dinner was a Clif bar, a banana, and a bottle of water.

This morning, breakfast at the hotel is basically a "raid the refrigerator" kind of deal. I had coffee, instant oatmeal, peanut butter, banana and string cheese. There is a restaurant across the parking lot but they weren't open for breakfast when I was ready so no veggie omelet and fruit salad for me.

Point is, there are not a lot of quick healthy convenient ways to feed oneself, even if one is highly motivated to do so.

Sounds like what you ate was pretty healthy, under the circumstances. But look, I'm not saying there is never ever a situation where it is more convenient to eat something unhealthy. My point is simply that for the most part it is not more time consuming to prep and eat a healthy meal than it is to prep and eat an unhealthy meal.

Sun-Worshipper says: "And I'm not being critical of anyone for their dietary choices. Eat what you want - it is your body. I'm challenging the myth that it is so time consuming to prepare and eat a healthy meal. And frankly nobody in this thread has disputed that with anything substantive."

Except where the class assignment which you - Sun_Worshipper - claimsa has nothing to do with the OP post does exactly that.  The single mom has the choice between a fast food chain or a frozen pizza - both which are done pretty much right away and require little thought or prep.

Or a much "healthier" meal of roast chicken and veggies, which will take some work and won't be ready for an hour and half.

If someone is already tired and stressed out, then it is hard sometimes to find the energy, time and brain power to GIVE to meal prep, when all you want to do is eat something and go to bed.

With respect to secundem_artem, this scenario is just a nonsense hypothetical made up out of thin air. Where does 1.5 hours come from? And why did the mom buy a bunch of junk food at the store in the first place instead of frozen vegetables and brown minute rice in a bag? That would be less expensive, take less time to prepare, and be much healthier. I don't even know why I'm responding to it, because it is frankly ridiculous and unserious. And, as I said above, it is irrelevant to this thread about OP and their efforts to deal with stress.

And the folks in this thread trying to play gotcha with some random anecdote or hypothetical scenario are really missing the wider point: Anyone with access to a grocery store can practice healthy eating without it imposing on their busy schedule. Yes, there will occasionally be times when it will be easier to hit the drive through (although nobody is forcing you to order the most unhealthy thing on the menu), but for the most part you - yes, you - can eat well if you so choose. Doing so will not cost you any time and, in fact, it will add significantly more healthy years to your life.

[AJ_Katz]

Hi Everyone – THANK YOU for all of your thoughtful comments and discussion.  I think there is merit to all of the perspectives and comments that have been shared.  What Sun-Worshipper has brought to the discussion has been particularly thought provoking for me... something that my initial gut reaction to was very similar to what Hegemony stated early on that the stress can make it nearly impossible to find the mental energy to prepare meals.  While I agree that the act of eating healthy foods is just as easy as eating junk food, for me, food is also an outlet... one that when I am not under tons of stress is something that I can navigate successfully 95% of the time, but when I am maxed out on stress, makes it so that I cannot resist the donut in the break room, the candy in my secretary's candy dish, the free pizza on Friday afternoon for the seminar...  the amount of time and energy it takes to access free food is pretty minimal in those cases!  Also... no dishes either!  I'm also traveling more and at conferences, with many food options that I would normally not expose myself to.

Nevertheless, a couple of folks on the thread noted significant and/or long-term personal health effects resulting from their stress and lack of self care.... which underscores Sun-Worshipper's guidance to try not to fall into the trap of using stress as an excuse to eat unhealthy foods, which I think is real... my brain is always trying to find a reason it is okay to eat highly stimulating processed foods.

Anyhow, I owe everyone an update that I am feeling leaps and bounds better than I was when I made my post a few weeks ago.  This is largely to be attributed to the departure of our finance person, with whom my interactions were causing me more stress than I previously realized.  The decrease in my stress has made is much easier to find time for cooking.  Also, my partner has started doing more of the grocery shopping (because I had stopped going), which has made it easier to be able to make meals at home.  While I am not yet ready to think about a diet to help me get my weight back down to where is was previously, I feel that I am in a much better place with my stress level.  Thank you all again for the support and energetic discussion.

[apl68]

Glad you've found it helpful after all.  And that the advice regarding healthy eating was well-taken, despite the rather off-putting discussion that resulted from it.  And above all, that the overall situation is looking up for you at this point. 

[AvidReader]

Apparently I missed this the first time through. On the original topic of the thread, some things I do: I have cats, who constantly demand attention but are also fun and stress-reducing to snuggle and make me think about another living being, which is a nice change of brain. I try to spend a few minutes outdoors every day, maybe walking the cats (now leash trained), walking to the corner store to buy something, sitting on a bench while I eat my lunch, etc. That outside time is screen-free; I literally leave my phone on my desk so I can't see emails or hear texts. I keep a notepad by my bed so if I panic about something I can write it down and go back to sleep, knowing it will be there in the morning. I allow myself half an hour every evening as "free" time to wind down before bed--that could be a book, a game, a long shower, etc. When I'm stressed, I have a small budget for small things that make life more pleasant and don't cost much in money or time, such as shower steamers or a piece of fruit I really want. I am trying to convince spouse to hire a cleaner (this is an endless debate, but 10 years in I'm making progress).  In general, I agree with the advice to outsource.

On the derailed tangent, may I politely suggest that "easy healthy meals" could be an excellent thread in its own right that people could enter as they had the time and energy to do so? And I'll also note that where I think healthy eating breaks down into extra time is not--for me--in the cooking, but in the cleaning up after. I recently had a fellowship in which I had limited kitchen access and had to do most of my cooking in a microwave in tupperware, and I was dazzled by how very little time I spent cleaning. On the other hand, I went through an appalling amount of plastic packaging, so what I saved in time I definitely tossed into the landfill.

AR.