A Starvation Situation
As some (most?) of you know, I have been going through a bit of a situation lately. This has left me with zero appetite.
Over the last two months I had gained a bit of weight , thus putting me into the muffin-top category (ugh, I know) due to frequent healthy and hearty home cooked meals and very little exercise. I do not like being a muffin top, I also don’t like going to the gym/running/walking/swimming/etc alone.
This situation of mine has seemed to reverse my appetite into the extreme opposite. Although my brain and stomach realize that to function like a semi-normal human being I need food, my appetite is non existent. The amount of food I have eaten over the last two weeks is roughly equal to the amount of food I would usually eat in two days a month ago. Let me give you a little example:
Yesterday I had two spoonfuls of soup for dinner.Today I had two bites of some (admittedly) delicious salmon that my dad cooked for me, and for lunch had a single bite of a walnut cookie. Not exactly the healthiest way to live and feel good about yourself. Although this has significantly helped the muffin-topedness I constantly feel like my stomach is empty and although I get hungry, as soon as I try to take action to alleviate this condition I end up staring at the plateful of food and feeling no desire to eat with a slight tinge of repulsion at the food(whatever it may be). I force down two of three bites, thus temporarily alleviating the hunger pains and leave until the hunger becomes unbearable again.
I realize that this is not healthy. I force myself to eat something, and only get about two of three bites in.
So to initiate some commentary on this blog: What do you do when you’re feeling down and it’s affecting your eating? How do you make yourself like food again?
Alright, I’ll bite… yes, pun intended.
I kick my exercise up a notch. This has several effects:
1) I burn more energy, thus becoming hungrier, thus becoming more likely to actually eat something substantial;
2) I get my mind off whatever is making me feel down in the first place for a little while, making it more likely I’ll be willing to eat; and
3) I get all the neurochem benefits of exercise to make me feel a bit better.
I stick to really simple food — I find that I can convince myself to eat a sandwich much more easily than a three-course meal, for example — and I keep such food around to nibble on while I’m doing other things.
I also spend as much time as possible around friends, since (being semi-human themselves) they tend to eat and that encourages me to join in.
As Dory would say: “Just keep nibbling, just keep nibbling, just keep nibbling, nibbling, nibbling…”