A corner turned, or just an anomaly?

Different people react to periods of stress in different ways. We all know that, right? Well, it's funny, but something about that seems to have changed - hence the post title.

In the past, a 'difficult' period in life would inevitably mean a hike in weight. If the source of worry/upheaval/distress continued over months (er, like this time), that'd almost certainly translate into quite a significant gain.

That's mostly (no, more like entirely) because throughout my life I've had a real tendency to comfort eat when placed under emotional pressure. Problems? Hey, let's start eating! My 'must nibble' mode would be activated almost immediately and I would actively seek out something, anything, I could munch which might, just maybe, help make me feel better.

D'you know what though? Whatever that 'something' might be it rarely, if ever, made me feel any better at all. Just guilty afterwards... usually... but it was also a reaction I seemed unable to stop. And, as I've mentioned before, looking back to 'what' I'd eat, it was almost always heavily carbohydrate based.

There has been a whole lot (!) of stress in my life over the last few months. Hmmm, there still is if I'm absolutely honest. Plenty of opportunity for my old demons to come to the fore. And heck, I can't and won't pretend I haven't comfort eaten at all either. I have doubtless consumed a fair few more nuts and olives and a bit more cheese than I would normally think reasonable.

But I haven't gained weight this time around. In fact I've actually lost a little weight in the last couple of months. Not masses, just 'some'. Still, this really is quite extraordinary and a very different experience for me... though, unfortunately, one I'm not sure that I can claim any personal credit for.

Now this 'oddity' may just be happenstance. It could merely be that 'anomaly' I mentioned in the title, but I don't quite believe that it is. I think it's more likely that something of a corner has been turned. Sadly, not in terms of 'my' response to stress exactly - after all, I've just confessed that I have still eaten outside of my current norms (and that's something I don't take a great deal of pride in saying).

But maybe this little bit of a loss that I've seen, rather than an almost 'expected' gain, can be explained as a consequence of dietary changes. Cutting out those carbohydrates as much as possible and actively avoiding grains, sugars and crap seems to have helped. Despite some comfort eating, I don't seem to have descended into the cycle of overeating in the way I would have done in the past, and it makes a difference.

Now I'm not trying to say that a low-carb lifestyle is the Holy Grail here, nor do I say it would work in any circumstance to keep weight stable through stress, even for me. It just does seem to be giving me a helping hand this time around. And hey, it's nice to think that (even if I'm dead wrong in this) there's a possible silver lining to this particularly emotionally charged black cloud.