Help, I’m suffering from seasonally affected eating

I’m eating so much right now. Literally can’t stop. As someone who dropped five dress sizes over the summer, after having embarked on what Americans would call a “weight-loss journey”, this sudden acceleration in appetite has blindsided me – and left me bulging at the seams.

After months of mostly carb-free salad-munching, I can’t stop my cravings. Roast potatoes. Curries. Jerk chicken. Curried goat. Oxtail. Anything Caribbean. Anything loaded with scotch bonnets. Oh, and...

It’s not just savoury that I savour. There’s a doughnut shop near my daughter’s MMA class that makes an amazing cherry bakewell doughnut.

I’ve also gone early on the Christmas trimmings, filling cupboards with boxes of seasonal treats. I now consider warm mince pies and double cream a completely normal snack for a nippy mid-November day.

Do you think this change in appetite has anything to do with the change in the weather? (Do you think...?)

This is what I call seasonally affected eating. As we head towards winter and the temperatures take the plunge, you can forget cuffing season – I’m in scoffing season.

And I’m not alone, either. I checked with a few friends – mostly busy mums like me – and they’re doing the same thing, seeking comfort in heavy and sugary foods. My novelist mate Kate Morrison, a mother of two, told me she’s suddenly developed a massive thing for spaghetti bolognese.

According to Lisa Keith, a dietitian based in Newcastle, it’s only natural. “Our appetites do increase in winter, for a number of reasons – the first being primitive impulses. Our brains are conditioned to stock up for winter, much like animals hibernating.

“Eating also gives comfort when it’s cold, and we’re more compelled to eat more to keep warm and increase energy. Shorter days and increased time indoors can lead to a decreased intake of vitamin D and serotonin, a neurotransmitter that produces sensations of pleasure and wellbeing. Deficiencies in these can lead to seasonal affective disorder (SAD), a kind of depression – and people with SAD often seek out carbohydrates.”

So there’s a scientific basis for this – alright, my – urgent need to scoff. Which I’m fine with. But in an age of “body positivity”, it’s not the done thing to admit that I really don’t want to put the weight back on.

We’re told to “love the skin we’re in”. I know that beauty standards are a social construct. I also know I should be supporting body-positive fashion ranges – Rhianna’s clothing line Savage X, the “empowering, future-forward bodywear” brand Chromat, and Knix, the “supportive and enhancing” underwear label that claims to be “on a mission to inspire all people to live unapologetically free”.

So why do I feel torn about tucking in and... well, letting it all hang out?

In their book The Belly of the Beast, Da’Shaun Harrison puts forward the theory that anti-fatness is anti-Blackness. BMI, the index favoured by the medical establishment to calculate a person’s body fat, has been widely discredited in recent years, as it fails to take into account the fact that Black people have much higher bone density than white people.

My weight has fluctuated dramatically over the years. I’ve always been able to lose weight pretty easily when I want, because I was sporty when I was younger. I thank the Lord today for muscle memory...

The truth is, it wasn’t easy being overweight. It wasn’t great having my seven-year-old singing “Mummy is fat...” to a tune she made up especially for me. Being heavier and middle-aged meant things were hurting that shouldn’t. One day, while lying on my bed, I reached over to get something and pulled a muscle that left me in pain for days. I took longer to recover from colds or minor injuries. I’d had enough – and decided to do something about it.

But every time I’ve posted on X/Twitter about my weight loss, I’ve been chastised. I’ve been told I’m shallow, not a feminist, and that I was making other people struggling with their weight feel bad about themselves. This is going to make me sound awful – but I don’t care. This is about me.

And this isn’t just about vanity. People treat you differently when you lose weight, and I’m not ready to give up those privileges so soon after I’ve got them back.

Yes, life is easier when you’re the “right” weight. But sometimes, a mince pie is all you need to make you feel good.