Stress Makes Me Fat

When I was in college, I dealt with stress by food restricting. I was stressed, I'd stop eating and take a walk. Now when I get stressed, I head straight for the mac'n'cheese. I haven't gotten a full night's sleep in 3.5 years. That's a slight exaggeration, but I could probably count on two hands the number of times it's happened. The last few weeks I've been averaging 4-5 broken hours of sleep a night. I'm a wreck. I'm angry and mean and cranky and exhausted. I can't work out because I barely have enough energy to lift my limbs. And all I want to do is eat enough mac'n'cheese to put myself in a coma and then hibernate for a month. Of course, I can't do that - someone has to watch the kids all day and then get up with them when they wake up all night. And as much as hubby helps, it's mostly on me to do. I am so burned out I literally spend all day dreaming about being on a tropical beach somewhere - alone. And in the meantime I soothe myself with the mac'n'cheese I was saving for hubby's next business trip when I would be really tired and not have time to cook (so now I have to find time to make a few things for the freezer since I ate up my easy-food stock) and chocolate chip cookies that I once again baked as a treat for my kids (aka for myself and then regret it because my kids eat some and go bonkers from the sugar). I'm back up to 130 lbs after a couple of weeks at 126. I'm stressed out, I'm frustrated, I'm tired of being fat, but I don't have the energy to do anything about it. And I don't see it getting better any time soon. Which makes it even harder to deal with. I keep telling myself they'll grow out of it, but frankly, I doubt they will. My 3 year old sleeps worse now than he did when he was little, and his siblings are headed in that direction. And short of putting them all in their beds and then checking myself into a hotel, nothing is going to change. So anyway, whine groan complain this is my excuse for keeping myself fat even though I know better. It's just easier that way. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go comfort a crying baby and try to stop two toddlers from peeing on the floor....