Before I post about the situation with CEO of Home Group, I thought I’d describe my dieting efforts – those are part of me being autistic – everything is.

I had my chicken, some chips and baked beans for dinner. And a garlic sauce. I liked it. I was actually glad that I had it instead of Swedish falafel, so that was good. It was a small portion and the problem with small portion of nice food is that my mouth still wants to eat even when my stomach is satisfied. So what I do instead sometimes is I eat something low calorie and not highly satisfying, like boiled vegetables in a sauce made of instant soup. That works for a bit but of course after a while I feel like I want a proper dinner. That was exactly what happened today.

My dieting doesn’t seem to be going well. I mean, I reduced amout of food I am consuming and I stopped feeling constantly bloated and overeaten and I’m not walking around hungry so that is good, but the scale didn’t move a bit! I think it’s been three weeks since I decided to diet, so maybe not long, and the first two I was mostly staying in bed, so that obviously reduced number of calories I was burning, but there were days when I ate very little, and I’d really expect to lose at least 1.5kg (approximately 3lbs).

I’m not saying I’m discouraged because I really couldn’t continue the way I was eating (normal meals most of the time and a packet of biscuits every 2-3 days). But I do wonder what is going on. I wonder whether the stress that I feel most of the time due to my inability to control the situation is to blame here?

When I worked for Home Group, I put quite a lot of weight on and when I tried to lose it, I couldn’t. I wasn’t dieting as such but I was trying to limit portion sizes and because I really was quite big, losing at least some weight should be easy, but it didn’t work. And suddenly, when I left, I started losing weight without much effort. I mean, yes, eating healthy but without starving myself.

So I wonder now whether specifically the stress caused by being in a situation I cannot control (my brother, the war) is what is causing me to keep the weight on? I wonder if there are any research on that.