The HAM level

A few months ago, my friends and I were trying to decide where to go to eat.  Matt said to me, "We'd better eat or Kelly will reach ham level."

"Huh?"

"Oh, Kelly gets hungry and then if she's not fed soon, she gets Hungry And Mean - HAM."

We laughed and that acronym has stuck with me ever since.

This past Tuesday was my first day back to work since the end of October.  Truthfully, although I'm not very satisfied with my job, I love working.  I like being productive and doing SOMEthing other than sitting around healing.  That, quite frankly, is boring.  What I do doesn't save the world or make a huge difference in any way.  But I do a good job - I've been the top person in my position for the past two years and I just got a raise.

Anyway, in my zeal for getting things done (and quickly) I've re-realized the importance of eating when I get hungry; of listening to my body's signals telling me when it's time to eat.

Take yesterday.  I woke up and was hungry.  I snacked on a small handful of almonds on my way to work - to tide me over until I could have the oatmeal that I could make in our microwave.  Only things got busy and after a few hours of meetings and phone calls, I realized that I was hungry.  Mostly because I was grouchy and got very irritated when our receptionist told me that our files now go in a different bin.  Since I'm usually of a sunny disposition, it occurred to me that I should eat. 

'But it's only 11,' I told myself.  I already had breakfast - why am I hungry?

By 11:25, I couldn't wait any more - I was too hungry.  When I went to the fridge to get some fruit, I realized that I actually hadn't had oatmeal - I guess I just remembered eating earlier and thought that it must've been breakfast that I ate.

In any event, I had my oatmeal but was so hungry that I ate it too quickly to really enjoy it.  And afterwards?  I was still ravenous.  I made myself wait another 15 minutes so that I could accurately re-assess my hunger, but it was tough.

Even though I'm swamped at work pretty much all the time now, I need to remember to drink water and to eat when I'm hungry.  If I don't, I get headaches and I definitely get cranky.  Maybe not HAM status, but close.

I guess it's just interesting to me that two years ago I would've gotten cranky because I was tired, lethargic, and on a sugar crash.  But now, I get cranky as my body runs out of fuel.

For the record?  When I got home last night, I sat down, started to eat something, realized I wasn't hungry but was exhausted.  I decided to take a short nap until Joe got home...and that "nap" lasted 2 hours.

Oooh...taking care of myself feels so darn good sometimes.  So good that I might just take a nap tonight too. :)