overwhelmed...holiday stress?

I have been feeling so overwhelmed lately. I am not sure if it's the time of year, or if something is going on with me. I don't like this feeling though. I am constantly feeling an invisible time crunch that is all in my head.

The stress is taking it's toll on my resolve as well. The last couple of days I have just wanted to throw in the towel on all of this calorie counting stuff. It's exhausting when you're already feeling overwhelmed. Not only do I NOT want to count calories, I want to make poor choices. I haven't. Yet. And I do feel more in control of my food today, but geez, can't something be easy right now?

Nate has five full days and two half days left of school before Christmas break. Yikes! Then two full weeks off...I am hoping to come up with a lot of fun active things for us to do so that he doesn't just play video games for two weeks. We may go to Tucson to see the in-laws, but I haven't set anything up yet.

Exercise has been going pretty well. I haven't done a lot of really long days, but I have been consistently exercising for an hour minimum. Pretty proud of that :) One thing I have noticed just this week though...I wear a heart rate monitor...and just the last three days my max heart rate for an exercise session has been about 5 beats lower than it was just last week. What that means is that when I am fully exerting myself on the hills or the treadmill my heart rate is going up as high. At first, because I am mean to myself, I thought that I must not be working as hard as I usually do. But...after being the third day of it, I realize that I am pushing myself as hard as I can on the bike ride. So, I guess that it means I need to add more distance or up the gears to work a little harder...woohoo!

I plan on having one snack tonight (maybe two), and leaving the kitchen closed after that. Again, I am feeling a little better today with regards to food so this shouldn't be a problem. If it seems to become a problem, I will probably come and blog some more:)