How To Lose Weight Without Even Trying.

Ha ha….clickbait much???

So, over the years I have gone through bouts of severe weight loss due to stress. On encountering….well….umm…….people, the conversation generally goes like this:-

‘’Oh my gosh you have lost so much weight, what did you do?”

To which I reply, ‘’nothing, it’s from stress.’’

To which they reply, ‘Oh….. I always put ON weight when I am stressed, no, really, what DID you do?”

The fact that these people think I have discovered some miracle method of losing weight, which I have decided to keep CLASSIFIED, under lock and key in a vault, until I am ready to impart my newfound discovery, is very annoying. Although the fact that they do not believe me is preferable to the other response, which is, ”what are you stressed about?”

Firstly, to these blithering bozos, I say everyone has stress. Secondly, everyone stresses about different things, and in different degrees. But at the end of the day, a Type A personality will find a gazillion things to stress about, including, why there is not currently anything to stress about!!

Just by way of an example, because I am so self aware and sensitive……. those are my “good” traits by the way…. I am constantly doing post-mortems on my social encounters, which drives me and the twelve demons living in my head absolutely looney!!

Generally in my head the post-mortem of any given conversation takes ten times longer than the actual conversation itself took. Maybe I should not have said that…..maybe I should have laughed when saying that….maybe I should NOT have laughed when saying that….hope nobody was offended (mmmmm…… right). Then when I have tried to stay silent to be safe……maybe I should have said something. That then is just the stressful situations I put myself under on a minute by minute basis on a daily basis.

Naturally with this ”stress free” environment we are currently living in, anyone who is not experiencing stress, needs to be bottled and distributed to all stressors….no FDA approval delays necessary. Just distribute, distribute….distribute!!!

I mean….with all this sanitizing going on, my OCD (CDO to be alphabetically correct) has OCD!!

So back to me for a change (she said…tongue in cheek), and the issue of my weight loss since COVID reared its ugly mug. Mind you, if I could talk to people using parentheses after each sentence, in order for my tone to be better understood by the victim I am conversing with, that might solve a lot of my problems. But I can’t, so there is that.

Again….back to me……Firstly, what people don’t see, is that by that time I have lost that type of weight, I am generally underweight. Somewhere along my bloodline line, (I think from my mom), myself and my one brother have very skeletal tops. Our shoulder blades, arms and rib cages can tend to look somewhat emaciated when we are too thin. But with me, I was also ”gifted” with a very solid pair of legs……especially calves!!

Just as a side note…..never one for letting an opportunity to mock his mom go to waste, my son Salt mentioned the other day, that maybe he should try squeeze me like a toothpaste tube…..you know…roll me up from feet, and perhaps get some of the meat from the bottom to the top, so that I would be evenly distributed. After being slightly offended, I actually thought about how wonderful that would actually be!!

So with my ”solid” lower half, and my oversized clothing covering my skeletal top half, I look like a fairly normal slim somebody. And yet…by that stage, I have generally lost any trace of minerals or vitamins in my unevenly proportioned body, hair, teeth and all my hopes and desires of ageing gracefully…..that ship has so sailed!!

So now that you have a vivid (and dare I say disturbing) description of my appearance post excessive weight loss, you might be wondering why I am choosing to over share as I have. Well, it got me thinking the other day, that actually, it is not stress, but fear and panic which actually leads to this type of weight loss. I stress ALL the time. If it was the stress that caused this type of weight loss, I would look like a carcass permanently.

Generally, when you find yourself in this predicament, the weight literally ”falls off”. It does that within the first few days rapidly, and then continues to do so at a steady pace thereafter. You are not eating less or differently. On the contrary….you are actually eating more, but your ‘’nervous energy’’ is making quick work of the digestion process, and Bob’s your uncle….you have been graced with a fast metabolism. Before you know it, you have dropped a few sizes. I cannot lie….your clothes fit better, you actually feel healthier and stronger.

But to those who now feel like hunting me down as I am sounding like one of those annoying creatures who “forgets to eat’’ or ‘’ just cannot put on weight’’ no matter how much they eat…know this…. this type of weight loss always comes to bite you in your bony butt!!

Eventually things start falling apart, and that is when you realise that your new found weight loss was as a result of something other than some inexplicable gratuity.

I remembered the times I had this happen to me in the past, and each and every time it was not stress, but anxiety, fear and panic. It was when I felt I had no control over something life changing. When the future was uncertain. Yes, of course all our futures are uncertain. But, I am quite capable of misleading myself into believing that I do indeed have control of my future. What’s more, I have mastered this skill like no other. But when something happens that makes me feel like I have no control over what is coming, I panic like no other.

That is when one always has to start putting oneself back together. It normally involves a gazillion vitamins and minerals, visits to the dentist, untold hours of Googling as to what can be done about hair loss……NOTHING…… and an attempted reconstruction of whatever else was lost in the process. Unfortunately, each time this happens, there is a certain amount of irreparable damage done to your body and psyche.

So how does one avoid this? Well……..one can’t………unless one resorts to medication, which drains you of feeling anything emotionally….so this ‘’one’’ will not even consider going down that road.

Any personality Type B to Z, as well as those fortunate enough to have not been faced with a scary situation (if anyone like that even exists), might never even have experienced this feeling of fear and terror. But sista, if you be a Type A AND you have suffered some kind of shock……you are buggered.

You see, we do this to ourselves. I mean every living being suffers from some type of shock at least once in a lifetime. However they manage to deal with it differently. You don’t see every part of their Temple falling apart and crumbling into little anxiety ridden pieces, do you?? No…nope…those freaks of nature just deal with what life throws them by using all their sense and sensibilities that they were given. Hate those people!!!

So, next time someone asks me how I lost so much weight, I will just tell them I forget to eat!!