Sue:
I understand you perfectly. I have been going through the same for the past month. We may neither of us receive much sympathy here since the overwhelming majority want to lose weight and wish to persuade themselves to stop eating so much. But I would say that forcing yourself to eat when you just can't is just as difficult.
A lack of appetite or depresed appetite is often linked to thyroid problems and depression. Ask yourself: have you lost interest in many things that usually bring you pleasure? If the answer is yes, you may be depressed. Appetite for food, or appetite for life?
Due to depression I have been finding it very difficult to eat and I have to force myself to do so. This comes at a time when both my PCP and therapist are urging me to eat more and eat breakfast again, something I have not done since my pregnancies. It is not easy to do, I have to fight nausea to do it. I often open my fridge door and then close it again, when no inspiration strikes me.
What I might suggest, if the idea of sitting down to meals appalls you, is instead spend the day grazing. Eat exactly what you fancy, in small and therefore not overwhelming doses. You might then end up with about 6 or 7 mini-meals. Often when nothing appeals to me, just like nothing seems to appeal to you right now either, I drink a lot of mineral water. After a few days of this, and eating a lot of simple fare, plain tasting food, my taste buds get cleared, as it were, and I might feel like venturing onto somthing more cooked, more involved, which will probably have more calories in it.
When this mode strikes, I eat alot of fruit, yogurt, I go back to the food I loved as a child: boiled egg and bread cut for dipping soldiers. This may not seem very "adult," but it's certainly nutritious. A plain bowl of cereal perhaps with ice cold milk, so it seems "cleaner" tasting.
Try and stay away from tastes that seem highly spiced and cloying, like coffee, peanut butter, etc, they might just turn you off food even more.
And try and keep exercising, because it will make you hungry, especially weight training: your body will let you know exactly what it wants then.
I certainly do not think it will do you any harm to graze like this for a few weeks. Even if your calorie intake is lower than normal, if the food you do take in is nutritious, you will remain in good health.
Perhaps making a meal into an occasion with friends, or browsing a great supermarket might help, since both take the accent off "I have to eat" and onto an accent of pleasure, trying out new tastes and making eating such a social thing, you may not even realize how much you are eating.
Hope some of this helps and that both our aappetites return real soon!
Clare ;-)
