Stress starving

VegeKelly

Hi all,

Wondering if any of you have dealt with this and may have advice... 2020 sucked in my personal life and 2021 has somehow escalated into an even messier s***show. Instead of stress eating, I stress starve. I am having trouble getting more than 500 calories a day in me (even that's a stretch) and I'm a little worried that I'm going to do damage to my body if I can't find a way to get an appetite. There's nothing I want less than to chew and swallow something.

Thanks guys. Hope YOU all are having a super awesome new year.

Bex953172

VegeKelly wrote: »

Hi all,

Wondering if any of you have dealt with this and may have advice... 2020 sucked in my personal life and 2021 has somehow escalated into an even messier s***show. Instead of stress eating, I stress starve. I am having trouble getting more than 500 calories a day in me (even that's a stretch) and I'm a little worried that I'm going to do damage to my body if I can't find a way to get an appetite. There's nothing I want less than to chew and swallow something.

Thanks guys. Hope YOU all are having a super awesome new year.

Oh my god
This happened to me in 2020! There was days where I ate nothing at all, in a span of 8ish weeks I lost 30lbs! Everyone kept congratulating me and I was just like, well yeah I've lost weight but not in the way I want and not in a healthy way. It wasn't nice and I feel like a fraud because no effort went into my weight loss.

My best advice, is to fix whatever it is that's stressing you, for me I was being harassed by a neighbour and one day me and my partner had enough, packed the essentials, told school we were isolating for 2 weeks for covid (we weren't, we just wanted out) and we got the kids and the dog in the car and just drove to my MILs, 5 of us lol. So from that day we were technically homeless and it took us 2 months to find a house of our own.
So it was stressful because I had the school ringing me, my parents and my in laws saying we need to find a house etc. We then had to stay at my parents for a little while and they didn't have enough room so we all had to stay in the caravan on their drive. It was hell. Pure hell. And all because of some a-hole neighbour.
But when I got the house, and I moved in, and things were still stressful but not so bad, I just started eating again, as quickly as I stopped.

If I get over stressed now, I might have the odd day where I eat very little. And since then I've been hitting 1200.alories with EASE. I realised my body can survive on much less than I was stuffing my face with previously.

Im sorry I don't have much more advice, I just went through the same thing and I'm just telling you how I got out of it.
I did find more liquid things like soup and stuff helped a bit though, easy to go down but sometimes I felt like my throat was closing up when I was about to eat. It wasn't I just had anxiety.

But what's stressing you, is it something you can sort?

AsthmaticHippo

Stress impacts everyone differently, I also lose appetite when I am stressed, but thankfully I am not someone that suffers from stress badly.

Best advice I can offer is talk to someone about handling the stress (therapy/counseling). The fact that you recognize the issue is positive. While you can take steps to deal with the symptoms you need to address the cause

Good luck

thisvickyruns

I agree with getting some help to deal with the stress.

In the meantime, maybe try drinking some of your calories? And also, don't worry about how 'healthy' what you eat is - any calories that you can stomach are better than no calories.

cwolfman13

I lose my appetite during periods of high stress...fortunately, my stress levels don't escalate to that extreme very often. At the beginning of the pandemic I had stress issues and my appetite suffered for a few weeks. In order to help keep my calories up, I ate things like peanut butter, hunks of cheese, whole milk, etc. Things for which I didn't need a lot of to push my calories up. Even then, I lost about 8 Lbs in three weeks...The flip to that is that I put all of that back on and then some when my appetite returned. Now I'm trying to drop about 15.

Be_theBest_Me

Sounds like you need to make friends with a hippie and burn some trees!! Stress release and appetite all in one!!! Remember find the positive in everything!! Breathe and just tune it out sometimes!! Turn on the music and make your favorite meal or desert!! Really do it up!! You gotta create that happy!! Even when the world outside is zombies and BS YOU MAKE THE HAPPY PLACE IN YA HEART!! You got this!!! 🦾🦾🦾

VegeKelly

Bex953172 wrote: »

VegeKelly wrote: »

Hi all,

Wondering if any of you have dealt with this and may have advice... 2020 sucked in my personal life and 2021 has somehow escalated into an even messier s***show. Instead of stress eating, I stress starve. I am having trouble getting more than 500 calories a day in me (even that's a stretch) and I'm a little worried that I'm going to do damage to my body if I can't find a way to get an appetite. There's nothing I want less than to chew and swallow something.

Thanks guys. Hope YOU all are having a super awesome new year.

Oh my god
This happened to me in 2020! There was days where I ate nothing at all, in a span of 8ish weeks I lost 30lbs! Everyone kept congratulating me and I was just like, well yeah I've lost weight but not in the way I want and not in a healthy way. It wasn't nice and I feel like a fraud because no effort went into my weight loss.

My best advice, is to fix whatever it is that's stressing you, for me I was being harassed by a neighbour and one day me and my partner had enough, packed the essentials, told school we were isolating for 2 weeks for covid (we weren't, we just wanted out) and we got the kids and the dog in the car and just drove to my MILs, 5 of us lol. So from that day we were technically homeless and it took us 2 months to find a house of our own.
So it was stressful because I had the school ringing me, my parents and my in laws saying we need to find a house etc. We then had to stay at my parents for a little while and they didn't have enough room so we all had to stay in the caravan on their drive. It was hell. Pure hell. And all because of some a-hole neighbour.
But when I got the house, and I moved in, and things were still stressful but not so bad, I just started eating again, as quickly as I stopped.

If I get over stressed now, I might have the odd day where I eat very little. And since then I've been hitting 1200.alories with EASE. I realised my body can survive on much less than I was stuffing my face with previously.

Im sorry I don't have much more advice, I just went through the same thing and I'm just telling you how I got out of it.
I did find more liquid things like soup and stuff helped a bit though, easy to go down but sometimes I felt like my throat was closing up when I was about to eat. It wasn't I just had anxiety.

But what's stressing you, is it something you can sort?

WOW. Thank you so much for sharing this! What an awful situation you were in. It's like you can't make this stuff up, life gets so bizarre so fast sometimes..!! I'm glad that you were able to find a new safe space. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs but you just connected some dots for me - until you can fulfill your needs for esteem or even a sense of belonging/connectedness to others and to your environment, you first have to have those physiological needs taken care of, including safety.

What's stressing me out..? Ugh, my husband and I are divorcing. I'm in a half-furnished temporary living situation and trying to maintain my career and 50% kid time. Also general state of the world stuff I guess, you know. There's so much isolation and fear and sickness and hatred in the world right now. Just a perfect storm in a lot of ways. I am SUPER grateful for what I do have though. Thanks again.

Bex953172

VegeKelly wrote: »

Bex953172 wrote: »

VegeKelly wrote: »

Hi all,

Wondering if any of you have dealt with this and may have advice... 2020 sucked in my personal life and 2021 has somehow escalated into an even messier s***show. Instead of stress eating, I stress starve. I am having trouble getting more than 500 calories a day in me (even that's a stretch) and I'm a little worried that I'm going to do damage to my body if I can't find a way to get an appetite. There's nothing I want less than to chew and swallow something.

Thanks guys. Hope YOU all are having a super awesome new year.

Oh my god
This happened to me in 2020! There was days where I ate nothing at all, in a span of 8ish weeks I lost 30lbs! Everyone kept congratulating me and I was just like, well yeah I've lost weight but not in the way I want and not in a healthy way. It wasn't nice and I feel like a fraud because no effort went into my weight loss.

My best advice, is to fix whatever it is that's stressing you, for me I was being harassed by a neighbour and one day me and my partner had enough, packed the essentials, told school we were isolating for 2 weeks for covid (we weren't, we just wanted out) and we got the kids and the dog in the car and just drove to my MILs, 5 of us lol. So from that day we were technically homeless and it took us 2 months to find a house of our own.
So it was stressful because I had the school ringing me, my parents and my in laws saying we need to find a house etc. We then had to stay at my parents for a little while and they didn't have enough room so we all had to stay in the caravan on their drive. It was hell. Pure hell. And all because of some a-hole neighbour.
But when I got the house, and I moved in, and things were still stressful but not so bad, I just started eating again, as quickly as I stopped.

If I get over stressed now, I might have the odd day where I eat very little. And since then I've been hitting 1200.alories with EASE. I realised my body can survive on much less than I was stuffing my face with previously.

Im sorry I don't have much more advice, I just went through the same thing and I'm just telling you how I got out of it.
I did find more liquid things like soup and stuff helped a bit though, easy to go down but sometimes I felt like my throat was closing up when I was about to eat. It wasn't I just had anxiety.

But what's stressing you, is it something you can sort?

WOW. Thank you so much for sharing this! What an awful situation you were in. It's like you can't make this stuff up, life gets so bizarre so fast sometimes..!! I'm glad that you were able to find a new safe space. I'm not sure if you're familiar with Maslow's hierarchy of needs but you just connected some dots for me - until you can fulfill your needs for esteem or even a sense of belonging/connectedness to others and to your environment, you first have to have those physiological needs taken care of, including safety.

What's stressing me out..? Ugh, my husband and I are divorcing. I'm in a half-furnished temporary living situation and trying to maintain my career and 50% kid time. Also general state of the world stuff I guess, you know. There's so much isolation and fear and sickness and hatred in the world right now. Just a perfect storm in a lot of ways. I am SUPER grateful for what I do have though. Thanks again.

Awh I'm sorry to hear about the divorce and everything else on your plate. I guess that is something that would take a bit of time to get on your feet again. I would try more liquid foods like I said before, soups and protein shakes and stuff.
You will get there in the end. When you have a routine and your living situation is sorted, you might find like me that you just naturally start eating again, I just started feeling hungry again one day and I was like oh okay let's eat.

For me it was a big shock because I normally stress eat not stress starve. So I was freaking out lol
Just try remind yourself it's because your stressed and anxious because everything's up in the air, literally everything.
And find ways to calm yourself and accept the situation as it is for now and know at some point you'll feel normal again

Im not familiar with Maslows hierarchy but I will be later lol, gonna have a read

VegeKelly

Be_theBest_Me wrote: »

Sounds like you need to make friends with a hippie and burn some trees!! Stress release and appetite all in one!!! Remember find the positive in everything!! Breathe and just tune it out sometimes!! Turn on the music and make your favorite meal or desert!! Really do it up!! You gotta create that happy!! Even when the world outside is zombies and BS YOU MAKE THE HAPPY PLACE IN YA HEART!! You got this!!! 🦾🦾🦾

I love you.

VegeKelly

cwolfman13 wrote: »

I lose my appetite during periods of high stress...fortunately, my stress levels don't escalate to that extreme very often. At the beginning of the pandemic I had stress issues and my appetite suffered for a few weeks. In order to help keep my calories up, I ate things like peanut butter, hunks of cheese, whole milk, etc. Things for which I didn't need a lot of to push my calories up. Even then, I lost about 8 Lbs in three weeks...The flip to that is that I put all of that back on and then some when my appetite returned. Now I'm trying to drop about 15.

This is actually a really good idea, thank you. I think part of the problem may be that I've been so calorie-conscious for so long that I don't even consider things like whole milk or hunks of cheese an option. I think do I want to eat an avocado spinach salad and say no. No I do not.

Good luck on getting back to your ideal size! I hope you're able to reach your goal without being forced into it this time around.