Middles are tough. To start off, my middle is currently much too wide, the result of too much chocolate and caffeine this past month as I finished THE ALOHA DIARIES. I just didn’t think that a few extra bites of chocolate, McDonald’s, potato chips and all sorts of junk that seemed to call to me would matter in the end. I was wrong.
To go off topic here for a minute, why is it that the anxiety to meet a deadline is met in part by all this emotional eating? It’s probably just a chick thing, too, which is even more infuriating. I’ve been tracking the progress of novel #2 by word count (which means nothing and everything), but maybe I should have charted my weight instead. I honestly think I am about 10 pounds over where I was when I started at the beginning of May. That’s, what, two months? Egads.
Here are my comfort foods, which I know probably doesn’t even technically qualify as “food.” But short of putting them in my acknowledgments, they did help me cross the finish line and therefore deserve some mention. Here they are, in no particular order:
- Chocolate, pretty much in any form, although Reese’s Peanut Butter cups managed to rise to the top of the list
- Kona coffee (I actually don’t drink coffee all that often, but I certainly made up for these past two months)
- Potato chips
- Doritos (original – none of that ranch flavor or anything else will do)
- Cheese puffs (from the health food store and Cheetos)
- Spam musubi(I know – there’s really nothing more to say about this one)
- Powdered donuts (I think I even did a post on this)
- McDonald’s Happy Meals (hamburger)
Of course I did manage to have three (okay, two) square meals a day and got my fruits and vegetables (occasionally) so it wasn’t like I was gorging on this stuff 24/7. But I’d be kidding if I didn’t say they didn’t have a place in my diet these past few weeks.
What do you eat when you’re in deadline mode?
How can you “snack” while you’re thinking, writing and typing, Mia? It would seem that your plate — hands/mind — was already overflowing. Ahem, have you guessed I don’t “snack?” 😉
There is this shortbread ginger cake they sell here that I think is made with pounds of butter. Yum.
I love Kona coffee…and Hawaii.
The title of your new book sounds intriguing.
Carrot sticks and celery.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Ahhh, ha. Ahem.
Yeah, I’m afraid I’m with you on the ten pound deadline weight, Mia. In fact, I wrote my post for tomorrow before I read yours, and yep, it’s in there. I don’t snack so much as go out to dinner too often. It doesn’t help that if I just mention a restaurant my husband has his car keys in hand.
You heard it here first – I am going on a diet as soon as my editor signs off on book #2!
Mia,
Congratulations on finishing.
I can barely write if I’m not eating something. Usually, I’m looking for small things– chocolate covered raisins, pies made at the Amish bakery (the small ones, of course — unless it’s an emergency), cheese puffs (hell-o — you, me and Janet Evanovich all eating cheese curls at the computer. Surely a sign of genius?) While I was finishing FIFTEEN MINUTES OF SHAME, I ate BAGS of Terra Chips. And now, when I should be working that extra ten pounds off, I keep delaying my no-more-cookies plan for one more day.
Maybe I should go ahead and schedule the shoot for my new publicity photos. Surely that will get me back on the treadmill…
There have been studies that chewing something while focusing on a task (ie, taking a test) improves concentration.
The refrigerator is calling me: “Walk towards the light!”