On February 15th I started a diet. On February 16th I broke it.

I was doing so well, too! I made an Excel file and everything to track my food intake to ensure I wasn’t behaving like too much of a pig. I added in formulas where all I’d have to do was plug in the names of the food, the macronutrients, and it would calculate the rest. What happened?

Stress happened. I stress eat a lot. I eat out of boredom. I eat because I need to escape for a few minutes and keeping my mouth busy is the best way to accomplish this.

There are two primary places I break my diet. I do it at work or late at night. These are also the two times I feel the most blue. At work I get overly stressed or anxious and the only way to feel something pleasurable is to grab something from the vending machine. It’s hard to remember a time when I actually used to go the full day without eating anything at work. Now, after I almost fainted on the train one day about a year and a half ago, eating is one of the first things I do when I arrive.

I blame lots of walking for this. I walk a total of two miles each morning on my way to work and I stand on the train for another 30 minutes. For an hour and a half I’m on my feet without an opportunity to sit anywhere. As I get older and my metabolism slows down, this will continue to be a problem until I have to carry a thermose of prune juice with me everywhere.

My late night diet-breaking habits are pretty common. Last Sunday, oh I’m almost embarrassed to admit what a god awful pig I was, after working out I decided I was so hungry I’d get Chinese food. When I get Chinese food I don’t hold back either. I get an appetizer meant for at least three along with a big batch of gooey meat. I really don’t know what is so appealing about Chinese food because most of it looks like a dead animal that came out of something’s nose.

After placing my order, I headed out about 10 minutes later assuming it would take 15 minutes. It wasn’t ready yet so I stopped at another store and got three Cadbury Eggs. I ate two of them while waiting for my food to finish then ate the last when I got back home.

Who does that? What kind of a glutton like this deserves to live?

It’s a mix of my love of food and impatience, see. I wanted my food and I wanted it now!

Jenny and I will attempt to diet starting a few hours ago. I’ve somewhat half-assed it so far today and have probably come close to reaching my caloric allotment for the day. With beecation about 50 days away and life as stressful as ever for us both, Jenny and I have accepted we may need to buy two plane tickets in order to properly fit in our seats.