Grief bacon

Bec brought the word kummerspeck to my attention. It's a German word meaning "excess weight gained by emotional over-eating". It literally means "grief bacon". Ties in wonderfully with Eating the Blues. Though in my case, I think it is more kummerkohlenhydrate (grief carbs).

Irrational

I engage in irrational behaviour and I'm not sure why.

The situation is this: I usually don't have any chocolate, biscuits or chips in the house because I am not to be trusted with them when I'm stressed.

So when I feel like doing some comfort eating, I will spend ten minutes in the kitchen opening pantry door after pantry door, opening the fridge door and freezer, several times. I basically go round and round in circles in the kitchen, opening door after door, looking for non-existent comfort food. I know it's not there because I haven't bought any and I know the contents of the pantry and fridge. Yet I still go foraging, in the vain hope I may have overlooked some biscuits. WHY?

When I finally give up, I ask, "WHY IS THERE NO CHOCOLATE/CHIPS/BISCUITS IN THE HOUSE???"

Combating comfort eating

I have a tendency to comfort eat when I am stressed or tired or both. I have noticed I don't comfort eat when I'm angry or sad. I'm not sure about boredom - I haven't had that luxury in a while.

I've learnt that if there is an open packet of snacks in the house (such as a box of rice crackers), the desire to eat them when I'm stressed and tired is strong. Even if I hide them away in the cupboard, if I happen to open that cupboard for something else, and see them, then I want to eat them (see Jess' related post on fighting cravings).

So this is my plan to combat comfort eating:

Get all the snacks out of the house.
Clearly at this stage for me, I haven't learnt to deal with my stress/tiredness without turning to food and eating more than I should. Until I learn it, the snacks stay out of the house. It may mean that they never return, and I'm fine with that. There are always opportunities to eat those kinds of foods in other situations (church morning tea, parties etc). Give the snacks away or chuck them in the bin. Don't let them hold you back. Would you rather have the food sitting on your stomach as fat, or rotting in the bin? I know what I'd pick.

Go make my bed.
To me, there is something serene and calming about a made bed. Making the bed will distract me from wanting to eat, and I will have ticked one thing off my to do list.

Lie on my made bed and listen to Lifeblood by Manic Street Preachers.
Manics are probably my favourite band. Lifeblood has become one of my favourite albums. I find it very soothing. Or I'll listen to some other music.

The hard bit? It's putting it into action when I'm stressed/tired. I can easily get rid of the snacks. The hard thing is when the stressed/tired emotions hit, you're so used to soothing it with food, it can be difficult to find the strength to make yourself fight it. You really feel at your weakest at that point. But I'm committed to changing, and I will do my best to put my strategy in place.

Having said that, I'm not 100% convinced that comfort eating is entirely bad. Sometimes a little bit of comfort food is so soothing when you're stressed/tired. But we don't tend to stop at a little. We tend to overeat in order to stop these (and other) feelings from surfacing and needing to deal with them (a topic for another day). That's when comfort eating is bad.

Two new series on jelssie

For those of you who haven't seen me in a while or don't read my personal blog, I joined Jenny Craig right before Christmas last year because I knew I had to lose weight. And I have. And I've got a few kgs to go.

When I first started, it was all about losing the weight. But now, I've realised it's more than just that. It is committing to a healthy lifestyle and all that it entails. So even though much of what I want to say relates to weight loss, I am careful in how I use that phrase because:

1. In my case, it's not just weight loss, but fat loss that I'm really after.


2. I want to remind myself it's not just about the weight, but about being healthy in mind and body, and how that makes you feel.

I've learnt a lot during the whole process and I'd like to share with you some of those things. I was most surprised by how much mental stuff and mental change goes on when you're committing to a healthier lifestyle change. I introduce to you, the two new series:

Fight the binge!

The first series I am calling Fight the binge! As I examined why I was living an unhealthy life, I learnt that I have a tendency to compulsively overeat or binge eat. Here I want to share the mental changes I'm making in this area.

Healthy Life/Mental Changes

In this series, I want to talk about the mental changes I needed to make to reach my goal of being healthy.

These two may overlap at times. I hope the things I share will be helpful!