I realized I mostly order quarter pounders with cheese on the days when I’ve had a stressful conversation, or someone else has been a piece of… work.
Or take-out mac and cheese from the Whole Foods hot table.
Sometimes pizza or a brownie.
What are your stress eats?
Chocolate.
Of course it’s also my non-stress eats choice.
It’s when I eat the chocolates I don’t really like (looking at the Lindor balls and Quality Street leftover from Christmas that I’ve been ignoring), that I know it’s stress chocolate. 
My First Bite of the Day was a milk chocolate salted caramel that was ignored because it wasn’t a dark chocolate salt caramel.
Sometimes chocolate. Especially ice cream.
Sometimes it’s mac & cheese variation whether that’s blue box or homemade or alfredo.
Basically, I want fat and carbs in some form or other. Sweet or savory. Possibly both if I can swing it. (Choc. icecream with pretzel chunks, Salted choc. chip cookies, mediocre pizza with “hot honey” dip for the crusts)
Scrambled egg sandwich on soft white bread (either Wonder or untoasted Texas Toast) with lots of ketchup. Like lots of ketchup.
Don’t judge.
My brunch this morning was a thick slice of toasted spelt sourdough from one of my favourite bakeries, slathered with some random processed smoked cheese spread that arrived in a Christmas basket.
I’m not one to judge.
So far, all carbs today.
I make Sunshine some homemade Chocolate Peanut Butter treats after a bad day. I just made up a mini-batch of treats, yesterday. She was a bit down and I didn’t have anything sweet or chocolate in the house.
I did make the mistake of purchasing the Walmart “Great Value” cocoa powder (instead of Hershey’s). We could both tell there was a difference, so I’ll spend the extra money on Hershey’s next time.
For me, I’ll make myself some Mac & Cheese with Chorizo. It brings me happiness. Either that or some home made bread, if I’m feeling that energetic.
Carbs all the way. Realised I’d forgotten to bring my carefully packed meals to work - rice and lentils to heat up - then all pretence at healthy eating went out the window. After a shitty night shift I wolfed down a stroopwafel with my morning black coffee, even though I shouldn’t have. Then after going straight from handing over to the day team into a stressful meeting with a visiting palliative care team, I went into the staff coffee room and prowled round looking for stuff to snack on - found the cold remnants of the morning round of buttered white toast and crumpets and ate some of that while getting disapproving looks from the nurses on their break. Would have killed for a big bowl of pasta. Came home in the evening and drank a big glass of wine.
On a bad day, the last thing I want to do is cook my own food!
So, I’ll either do take out, which will then most likely be pizza or Chinese, or I’d go out for dinner at my favourite place nearby, a wine bar with dishes from France, Italy and Spain.
Oh man- you just reminded me I have some Trader Joe’s peanut butter cups that I never opened- thanks!
Yes, its always good to have some peanut butter cups in stock.
During the pandemic, chocolate and peanut butter were quite necessary to get Sunshine through those dark times. Although we didn’t have many pre-made peanut butter cups in stock, I knew I could make something similar. Luckily, I was well stocked with the necessary ingredients and just kept making those rolls for her.
I’m sure Trader Joe’s are much better, but “desperate times call for desperate measures”
In a fortunate moment of restraint, I bought the small package, which is growing smaller.
Buttered bagel ( doesn’t have to be a good one) or buttered pasta.
I have read that some food makes you more depressed and anxious, while healthy food does the reverse. In other words, comfort food often actually isn’t…
But I have a hard(er) time remembering that.
I’m just the opposite. The kitchen is my happy place.
Depends on how bad of a day. After a really bad day, I don’t want to eat. If it’s a just an average crappy day I want something satisfying and an al pastor burrito usually does it, consumed in 3 minutes…just wolf it down. All of a sudden you’re full and not thinking about things. Fried chicken is also satisfying but not the same, can’t scarf it down the same way.
That WF Mac n Cheese is hard to resist.
Pasta. Wine. Sometimes together.
When we have them, I tend to eat too many of them, and too casually. I can approach the first one as a treat, and then Katy, bar the door. Now I hesitate to put them in my cart.
I’m the same way with peanut butter cups, and with Oreos.
Peanut butter cups were a gateway candy for falling off the health wagon back in 2002, about 6 months before I started posting on Chowhound. I had managed a pretty healthy weight through my last year of law school, the bar exam, my first few months at a new job. I was avoiding most junk food and on top of the portion control.
In October of that year, an officemate kept bringing in bags of PB cups before Halloween. I don’t remember bingeing on PB cups before then. That was the beginning of a slide into gaining around 10 pounds over that year.
I also can’t stop eating Chex Mix, Honey Mustard pretzels, and NY Bagel chips, so I don’t buy them unless I’m having a very impulsive day.
I am about a month into a health process that has drastically cut my consumption of sugars and other carbohydrates, especially ultra-processed, simple and alcohol. I still crave sweets after a meal, but the cravings have diminished. For me, it’s time to reform-- now or never.
I had a law partner whose successful weight loss strategy, after 30 years of overweight, was simply to… eat apples. He mostly kept the weight off, too. If only he had had such success with alcohol…
I have had periodic triumphs with beating carbs and losing weight in the past. My challenge this time at 67 is to retain (or even gain) muscle mass while burning fat. An experiment during a prior gym rat phase convinced me this is possible, so I’m not going to F it up by casually and thoughtlessly surrendering to carbs and sugars.
I comfort myself with the thought that a higher muscle mass equates with a higher basal metabolism, which can equate with eating more calorie-rich foods.
I’ve got a long way to go. Wanna come?
