Survival Mode

Now that Hurricane Sandy has blown through town and wrecked havoc with all of us, I have a few thoughts about how it effected me.  When the forecasts were nailed down and it looked imminent that this thing was happening, I immediately went into survival mode.  I was convinced that we were going to lose power and several rooms in my house were going to flood.  I was uber prepared.  First was grocery shopping.  I did not buy anything that required a freezer or refrigerator.  My cart was full of canned fruits, snacks, spaghettios, oddles of Noodles, and counting calories was a distant memory. 
My second step of survival was to prepare the house.  I brought in everything off of my front porch which amounted to an extra chair, table, love seat, storage chest and various wall hangings in my living room.  I secured the trash cans and the contents of the backyard and moved on to the basement where I gathered everything of importance off of the floor and placed it as high as I could.  Anyone who has seen my basement knows that this is a mean feat because it basically looks like a hurricane just blew threw there already and tossed crap all over the place.  5 flashlights were lined up on the counter ready for action and the girls were piling blankets on the 2 living room couches preparing to sleep as close to Mom as they could get.  Grace really enjoyed the extra furniture in the house and took complete control over the porch love seat for 3 days!
Once the house was secure, all that was left to do was wait.  I contemplated getting in a quick walk before the rains but quickly reminded myself that I had to be ready at a moments notice to go into protector mode so I decided to "hunker down".  There I said it- the most annoying phrase I have ever heard and would continue to hear several times an hour throughout the storm as I obsessively switched between the weather channel and WBAL. 
The storm began and along with it came a voracious hunger. It felt like the winds and rain were dredging up some deep desire to gorge myself and boy did I oblige.
I basically spend the entire duration of the storm watching news coverage, eating, checking my sliding glass door which had developed a leak,eating, checking the basement, eating some more and taking the occasional peak outside.

When all was said and done I surveyed the dsurroundings and found that the only damage that Hurricane Sandy had caused in my house was to my diet. 
This got me to thinking about survival mode as more and more of my friends began to comment on their own healthy appetite and lack of control over their eating during the storm.  Does our body know that we are in survival mode and our appetite responds to it?  I can't help but think that our brains are so intricately wired that some minuscule spot somewhere in that mess flips a switch and tells our body to stock up on calories in a strange dooms day hormonal surge. 
Read this hysterical blog post that creatively uses GIF pictures that relays the same message: https://email.bcps.org/owa/redir.aspx?C=uEabRs8QgUu720nbui3n9YuNH_rhjM9Icve5rklxRJkLXDFDRyatndmHUTSBo3EQvkO8sOKeVEU.&URL=http%3a%2f%2fupdates.jezebel.com%2fpost%2f34765568302%2fa-new-yorkers-hurricane-experience-as-told-through

 Or maybe not.  Perhaps my subconscious just took advantage of a lapse in routine and decided to have as much fun as it could until I snapped back to reality.  Either way, when I stepped on the scale today, I was screwed.  I am not too upset by it, I know that in this year long process, there will be weeks that I gain, there will be lulls in my exercise plan and times that I need to pick myself up, dust myself off and get back on that horse.  Today was just that day!  Back to counting calories, walking and controlling my mindset so that I can continue on this journey.  But somewhere in the far recesses of my mind, a tiny part of me is yelling, "When is the next storm coming?"  
Until then,
Munching on my 100 calorie snacks