not eating well after breakup

[tacs1895]

Slowly coming to terms with my breakup, it's been four months. Been trying to look after myself during this period, managing to do some exercise and and my sleep pattern is gradually returning to normal. The thing I'm a little worried about is my appetite. I have very little appetite and often go the whole day eating very little (normally my appetite is pretty big). I've lost about a stone and a half in the last month and people have been commenting on me looking slimmer (which isn't completely terrible, but clearly I need to eat better).

 

The funny thing is, when I was with my ex, food was a big part of the relationship. She's a great cook, I'm not too bad either, we took a lot of pleasure in eating together, healthy food, and also exploring different cuisines and eating out. So maybe this is part of the reason I don't feel the urge to eat. It's not just appetite, it's also flavour too, I just can't seem to take much pleasure from taste and I'm not inspired to try interesting things all of a sudden.

 

Also, I'm now living at home with family, they don't eat particularly well, or take as much pleasure from food. Plus, I don't really feel comfortable cooking in the kitchen at home, even though it's my family home, it feels like someone else's place. And cooking for one isn't much fun either. I don't have the motivation to make anything elaborate.

 

Clearly I need to make sure I'm eating healthily. Can anyone give any advice? I think the way forward might be just to have really really simple things, maybe that I can just nibble on throughout the day (as opposed to a full meal), bits of fruit or raw veg and dips or something. If anyone can think of some little ideas I'd really appreciate it! I'm sure I'm not the first person to suffer loss of appetite after a breakup, how did you cope with it?? I know it's normal for the first few weeks perhaps, but it's been 4 months now of eating very little...!

[nsomnia912]

Nuts and berries. Pbj's. Orange juice.. granola bars.

[lucasky]

Hi Tacs!

 

I am struggling with something similar! I was just backpacking through India, so I lost a lot of weight there (about 15lbs), but I have now lost an additional 5 due to this breakup (its been 3 weeks). I WANT to just chow down on food, I really do, but its so difficult. I am actually concerned about getting underweight, because I was already a healthy weight (and athletic bodytype) before my travels. I'm "slender" now, not sickly looking, but if this keeps up my friends will start to worry.

 

I have gone through this in past breakups, and I've found that the solution for me is basically goal setting. So I would tell myself "Today, I will eat this apple and I will eat this banana bread for lunch. Even if takes me hours to slowly work my way through them, I will finish them." And yeah, I'd just set food goals to force myself to eat, and I would remind myself not to hate me for struggling to eat such tiny amounts of food. I slowly worked myself back up to a healthy appetite!

 

That's what I'm doing now. Each day I ask myself: did you eat breakfast? What was breakfast? Okay, L, that sounds good for today. How about lunch? Just a snack today? Okay, that's fine, but eat a more substantial dinner.

 

Etc etc etc.

[Silverbirch]

I have had a lot of problems eating, and got to a stage where I had to have nutritional shakes. That helped a lot with me getting to eat again. I had started getting heartburn prior to going on the shakes, and it was quite unpleasant. I find it easier to eat soft foods, and I'm not too far off eating normally again.

[DigitalSpy]

After my last break up it took me a good 2-3 months before I was eating properly again. I used this a a chance to change my diet, for the better, permanently. By the time I was eating properly I could map out exactly how many calories I was eating daily. I then coupled this with workouts and sports to put my weight back on but in a healthy fashion, muscle as opposed to fat.

 

To get myself back into eating a cooking again, I held dinner parties/ family meals. This gives you a reason to try cooking something new and fancy, and the positive feedback you get in return is a bit of a confidence boost again. As for cooking for yourself, try making things you really like. Like old favourites, things which you know you will want to eat when you see it! or in most cases smell it!

 

If you are struggling to eat volume try eating more nutritional foods. Things like chicken breast (packed with protein) will help prevent muscle deterioration which occurs when loosing weight through dieting. For snacks try things packed with protein and try and drink whole milk instead of fizzy drinks. All of these will help sustain your weight. Things like Almonds are great. snack on them, and they will help boost both protein and calorie intake without filling you up too much.

 

For your main meals, I would suggest at least 3oz lean meat with about 4oz in potatoes and maybe 1-2 oz fresh veg. This isn't a huge meal by any means, but if you couple this with high protein snacks like almonds you will begin to stabilize your weight. And if you can manage it, try a bowl of porridge for breakfast, this will boost your calories quite a lot. If you are still falling to reach 2500 calories a day just increase what you are eating by say 100 calories a week, this can be done by increasing the amount of potatoes you are having or the amount of lean meat you are eating.

 

If you up it slowly, week by week, you can control it well and wont push yourself to eat too much...to fast.

 

Ideally though, split your meals up into 5 meals a day, this will help if you have a low appetite as it makes individual meals smaller

 

All the best mate!

[mark4]

This is why exersize is a must! Because after the gym I just can't help myself from raiding the cupboards/fridge for food!

 

When you don't eat well you don't feel well, and then you start to look not as good as you can. When I eat well I feel well and i'm more active and I can think straight.

 

Eating and exercizing is all part of my healing cycle - this is aside from all the ex-avoiding I am doing it's getting better day by day, I hope you can all join me on this track!

[tacs1895]

All useful tips, thanks