Yo Yo Appetite

Appetite Begone!

One of the biggest roadblocks to my visions of being a svelte seventy-year-old isn’t lack of exercise, or yo yo dieting. No, it’s my dang fool yo yo appetite! One day, my body tells me it’s starving, and I’m eating everything in sight while trying hard to stay out of the kitchen. The next I cook dinner at the usual time and my body says “ho hum. I’m bored with eating. Let’s do something else.” As a result, I’ll lose a few pounds on the bored days, only to find them on the binge ones.

I’ve tried keeping only healthy snacks in the house, but when I’m bingeing it means I eat more as I search for something I really want that isn’t there. When I’m in a bored with eating mood, those healthy snacks might go bad before I’m ready to eat them again. Most of the time, each cycle lasts several days…sometimes, even a week before the tide turns.

That isn’t to say I haven’t dropped 10-30 pounds on a few occasions, nor that I haven’t managed to keep most of it off. But dropping the other 40 or so is an entirely different matter. Meanwhile, with my trainer’s help, I’m building more muscle, and I suspect that’s keeping me from blowing up like a balloon when I’m in binge mode. But it’s not enough to give me a healthy head start when food doesn’t appeal to me.

Controlling the Eating

The control freak in me is not amused by a stubbornly Rubenesque body that refuses to succumb to my control. It makes it extremely difficult to stick to a plan when my body simply isn’t minding. It’s as if my body is a todd whose eating is driven entirely by whims which change like the temperature in Southern California. There’s a reason I’ve been calling it bi-polar weather.

At least I haven’t been driven to wanting only mac and cheese and chicken nuggets. Thankfully, the idea of chicken nuggets makes me gag, even on my worst eating days, and I keep portion-controlled servings of mac and cheese in my freezer for emergencies. I’ve even incorporated air-fried chicken kabobs into my weekly routine lately. Von’s butchers kindly makes them up daily, and will happily sell me as many as I want. Normally, one kabob with a vegetable and maybe my latest obsession, baby rainbow potatoes is a perfect dinner. Tonight, as I entered another appetiteless period, I could barely eat half of one with a little potato salad.

Every time my appetite wanes, I beg the Universe, and any gods who might be listening to please help me keep it at the current, low level. Up to now, nobody seems to be listening. After a few days, I’ll be like a bear coming out of hibernation once again, cussing all the way to the refrigerator.

Moving isn’t Just for Exercise

One thing that seems to help is keeping busy. Adding dance nights is certainly one way to do it, but  the current heat wave is making hard to fit in my daily walk at an hour when I won’t be subjected to potential heat exhaustion. Dancing may be great exercise, but I’ve come to need those daily walks too!

OK, so I know one solution is to pull out the ballet bar, and queue up one of the Broche Ballet videos in the evening when I’m most prone to graze. Another is to work on some of the line dances I’ve been wanting to learn with the help of YouTube videos. But when certain needy felines eye the sofa beseechingly, it’s hard to ignore their pleas to give them my lap to sprawl on, even when nothing on any of my streaming services holds my attention for more than 10 minutes.

If I’m really desperate, I could even clean house. Heaven knows there’s always something other than my kitchen which could use some soap and elbow grease around here! But once again, it isn’t a lack of exercise, but an excess of food that’s bringing me down (or in the case of the numbers on the scale, up). As always, recognizing the problem is the first step in solving it, so I’m hereby accepting I’m the problem.

Occupying My Lonely Mouth

The Japanese even have a word for my binge eating periods: Kuchisabishii, which literally means “lonely mouth”. In recognition of my lonely mouth problem, I bought some Werther’s Originals but I limit myself to no more than 4 a day. I’m finding I don’t even want the 4 as the days go by, but that might just be the unhungry cycle kicking in. And don’t tell me to drink more water. If I drank any more than I already do, I’d spend all day in the bathroom instead of just every hour or two. As it is, I can’t even do our 3-mile walk without a potty break halfway around!

I’ll continue to wrestle with this weighty problem until I figure out a solution, or some way to stretch out the times I don’t feel hungry until I’ve released the 40 or so pounds which have adhered themselves to my small-boned frame. Trust me. I’m not obsessing over this because someone told me I needed to shed the pounds. I’m doing it as part of my journey towards a healthier me. I’m getting there, slowly but surely in other areas. This really is my last hurdle to cross.

Grateful for All the Progress Up to Now

My gratitudes today are:

1. I’m grateful for the healthy habits I have been able to achieve.
2. I’m grateful for the weight I have been able to release and keep off.
3. I’m grateful for the times I’m simply not hungry, and hope to stretch those out indefinitely.
4. I’m grateful for my trainer who encourages me, extra opportunities to dance, and my walking buddy who gets me out nearly every day.
5. I’m grateful for finding my way to solutions via my writing.

About the Author

Sheri Conaway is a Holistic Ghostwriter, and an advocate for cats and mental health. Sheri believes in the Laws of Attraction, but only if you are a participant rather than just an observer. Her mission is to Make Vulnerable Beautiful. In her spare time, she’s also an accountant with extensive experience in Government Contracting.