I didn’t mind my diet at all this past weekend (which was a joy). My mom was in town, it was a holiday weekend, and I just felt like I deserved not to think too much about what I was eating. The pizza place I recently found that sells single slices of pizza (Brooklyn Pie Company) has been on my mind since I found it, so on Saturday, I ordered a margarita pizza for us. It was pretty amazing pizza, and I ate too much of it, yet, when I stepped on the scale this morning, I discovered that I hadn’t gained any weight.

I think there’s something to this cortisol thing I wrote about yesterday. Interacting with family always takes me a bit out of my normally skewed way of thinking; it somehow injects a more rational perspective into my brain (however temporary that point of view might be). As a result, my mood is elevated and my anxiety is diminished, and that undoubtedly lowers my production of cortisol.

I have very specific memories of when I was a kid and my OCD was at its absolute worst, and my only respite from the turbulence in my head came from trips I took with my family. Whether it was getting on the road to visit my grandparents or holing up in a motel room with my parents and siblings after a day of skiing, my brain just seemed calmer and more stable. Anyway, when one or the other of my parents is in town, or even when I talk to one or the other on the phone, I get that same sort of relief. I think that’s what happened when my mom was here: my body wasn’t producing the amount of cortisol it typically produces. As a result, despite not eating particularly healthy food, I didn’t gain any weight (and actually lost a substantial amount after the first day of Mom’s visit).

So, I’ve long recognized the psychological component of my overeating (how a day of emotional turmoil leads to eating a pint of ice cream, for example), but the physiological processes (specifically, cortisol production) that take place behind the scenes and lead to elevated cortisol levels and the disruption of specific hunger-related hormones deserve more attention and further investigation, I think. I’ll have to delve into that aspect more as this project progresses since it seems to make a significant difference.