Eat in Heavenly Peace

Our house is beautiful right now. Our Christmas tree is decorated with lights and ornaments, and swooping up the stairway hangs a thick evergreen garland with more twinkling lights. Four festive stockings hang above fireplace. Before my husband Jay gets home from work, I try to remember to turn on the ipod to Christmas music and light candles on the mantle. Everything is warm and cozy and magical.

And then dinner begins. My daughter is throwing her food and screaming, “All done!” My son is begging for more milk, or spitting up, or both. My husband asks if we could turn off the music because it really is just more noise at this point. The kitchen floor looks like a garbage heap. I start wolfing down my food just to get dinner over with.

Dinner is not always an easy time to be thinking about nutrition or portion control, is it? More likely, we just stuff the food in like it’s our last meal. Or we don’t eat enough. Or we skip the vegetables and go for the comfort food because we need it and we deserve it!

Each of us reacts differently to stress. For some, it makes us lose our appetite. Others cram a week’s worth of carbs down in five minutes. Either way, it is bound to result in unhealthy habits.

Stress is unavoidable for everybody. Here are some reminders for handling stress specifically during meals.

Eat a bite or two to quench the craving, then wait until the chaos has quieted before taking another bite. Even if it means asking our spouse to take the kids for ten minutes so we can eat in peace, it will be worth it. If we are absent-mindedly stuffing the food down, we will have a difficult time recognizing when we’ve had enough.

If we have lost our appetite, save the food we would have eaten on a plate and store it in the refrigerator for when we get hungry later. Skipping dinner can later lead to snacking, which is usually unbalanced nutritionally and can be higher in calories.

Breathe deeply throughout the meal. Also, drink plenty of water.

In a way that works best for you and your family, try to deal with the stress using your own “bag of tricks.” In our case, asking our daughter to count to ten helps distract her and calm her down.

Finally, enjoy the chaos as much as possible. Someday the memories of these moments will bring a smile.