Snacking

I remember last year I had a conversation with Ruth about how teaching was going for her. She mentioned that she always kept food at her desk which led to her unconsciously snacking on it during her downtime. After judging her silently, I just nodded along to keep the conversation going.

The shoe is now on the other foot, and I can now understand a little bit of what she might have been going through. There's something really hunger-inducing when you have to interact with students all day. Maybe it's all that walking around and talking that comes with teaching, or maybe it's the stress of trying to juggle a million things at once, but dang, you get so hungry throughout the day.

Before I started keeping cheerios and crackers at my desk, my stomach would rumble so loudly that I became self-conscious that my kids would hear. Once I started keeping a stash of snacks in my drawer, I found myself unknowingly grabbing saltines or handfuls of cheerios in between class periods or during prep hours. Last week, I found that I had eaten half a stack of saltines (plain!) in the span of 2 hours!

All I know is, there is something mind-numbingly therapeutic about snacking. Unfortunately, all that constant eating has come with the consequence of making me a bit chunkier around my midsection. Thankfully the One Desire liquid-only fast will teach me how to deal with my stresses in a better way.