There’s a new buzzword in town: Liarexic. Apparently the dozens of other “exic” expressions just weren’t getting it done, so someone decided to throw this one into the mix. Because what’s an eating disorder without a proper classification?

This “new” disorder is meant to address people who lie about their food intake. Whether they front a healthy diet to friends and secretly deprive themselves in private or pose extreme diets to friends and then proceed to scarf down some oreos when no is around.

Liarexic is just another way of addressing one of the multitudes of eating issues women tend to suffer from. I think lying about food is a very common occurrence among women in college. When girls feel pressure to lose weight but can’t stick to their crazy detox diets, hiding calories can seem easier. I’m just not convinced their phenomena needs it’s own classification.

Don’t get me wrong, I do think this is an issue. I’m just over the phrases. When we start lumping all these terms together—tanorexic, drunkorexic and mommyrexic (had no idea this one even existed until today) it just gets a to be a bit much. Issues, like girls being incredibly shady about their eating habits get lumped together with girls who hit up the tanning beds too much. Dare I say the terms have even gotten a bit cutesy? And anorexia is not something that should be taken lightly.

Also, it seems people are way too quick to call something a disorder or to claim they have discovered a new issue. Girls lie about their food intake sometimes, this isn’t new. It’s sad and true, but we don’t need another fancy-shmancy word to highlight the issue, and at the same time downplay the importance of all of them with this over used cliche.

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. Last month, Khalea gave up fried food. This month, Michelle is going to come face to face with stress eating. Can she stop the emotional ice cream binges? We'll find out....]

When I started writing this week’s post, I really worried about it sounding like a “Dear Diary…” kind of deal. Stress eating, and the reasons behind it, are so personal, for every single individual. The reasons I stress eat can be totally opposite from the reasons my best friend stress eats or the reasons my boyfriend stress eats. It’s so dependent on life circumstances, and personality, and, when it comes down to it, the way each and every one of us thinks. Which, I hope we all agree on this, is different for everybody. Thought is just not homogenous across humanity. Obviously, I’m not any kind of professional, and everything I write here is based around me and how I think these things through… but I hope all my fellow stress eaters will be able to get a little insight into their own lives from what I’m experiencing.

How’s it going?

The past few days haven’t been easy. I’ve found myself standing in my kitchen holding a bag of tortilla chips and teetering on the edge of, I am going to eat all of these. I’ve been able to (mostly) talk myself down from these moments by addressing how I really feel… but each and every time, I get this itchy, uncomfortable feeling about it. Feeling emotions, really feeling them, makes us all uncomfortable to some extent. Feeling sad, being angry, experiencing grief… they aren’t good feelings and we don’t like it. So if we can avoid it, why not?

I should probably confess something right now: I’m a cry-er. I cry a lot. Probably at least 40% of the time. I cry when I’m angry, when I’m hurt, when I’m frustrated, when I feel ignored, when someone is mean, when I’m annoyed, when I’m stressed… pretty much if it doesn’t make me happy, I cry about it. And sometimes I even cry when I’m happy. I’m a cry-er. It’s what I do.

And I’m an ugly cry-er, guys. Really. It makes my face muscles tense and hurt. My head starts to pound. My nose runs and I talk like I have an extremely bad cold. Crying sucks, but I do it all the time.

Sometimes, when I’m right on the edge of tears, I eat instead. Because I hate crying, even though I do it all the time. But there is another side to my crying habit. Sometimes when I cry, I don’t eat. Sometimes, when I really let myself feel things, when I cry for a few hours like my body wants to, I don’t eat. I’ll feel hungry. But I’ll be so sad, and my head and face will hurt from crying so much, that I don’t have the energy to eat. So what’s better: compulsively eating so I don’t feel the emotion… or feeling the emotion and being so drained from it that I don’t eat?

Girls, this stress eating thing is getting complicated.

So… what’s working?

Cardio recently has not been doing it for me when it comes to exercising the stress away. I still feel good when I get off the treadmill or the elliptical machine, but at the same time, twenty minutes later, I still have the feeling of missing my boyfriend or stressing about the fact that there are, literally, no young professional job opportunities in my area (for people with my training and degree). So what has been working? Circuit training. Strangely enough, doing a series of crunches, leg lifts, high knees and long jumps clears my brain in a way that cardio used to, and afterward, the burn in my muscles is almost cathartic. Plus, if I keep this up, I’ll have some amazing abs. So if you’re finding cardio a little humdrum, give yourself a break and try some circuit training.

Finding a new hobby has also helped me a lot. When I don’t have anything to do (and, frankly, without a job and with my boyfriend in a different state, my options for things to do are pretty limited), I tend to obsess over little things, get stressed, and then eat. I promised my boyfriend that I’d find “little projects” for myself every single day. This week, I received a Canon Rebel T2i in the mail… and haven’t been able to put it down. When my part-time writing work gets done by 2pm, I now have something to do: I go for a walk with my camera and my dog; I visit my favorite spots around my hometown; or I go for a long drive, just me and my camera. Having a hobby distracts me and lightens my mood, especially when I’m having a bad day. I’m not saying you should drop $1,000 on a new camera or any kind of new hobby… but picking up scrapbooking, sewing or sketching is a great way to fill up the times where you would obsess over the little anxieties and stress eat.

Final Thoughts

This challenge has given me a lot to think about. Whenever I’ve been stressed lately, and found myself holding a jar of Nutella or some other tasty snack when I’m not really hungry, I’ve made a few notes in my journal and then calmly talked myself out of making a chocolate chip cookie sandwich with Nutella. All of these notes have essentially added up to the question I started this article with: what is it about feeling emotions that I hate?

Is it that I’m a cry-er? And an ugly crier at that? Because I give myself headaches from crying? Or is it because I don’t want to address what I really, really feel? As an example: when I’m frustrated with my boyfriend for not texting me back, what am I really thinking? Does he not love me? Is he with another girl? Is he ignoring me? It’s all based in insecurity, which fuels my stress, which fuels my stress eating, which fuels my insecurity. So really, when I stress eat to not feel emotion, what I’m really avoiding is addressing the underlying issue: that I’m insecure.

It can be a never-ending cycle, girls. But it’s time with break it. When I think about it, my stress eating always goes back to my little list of insecurities: the things that I’m unsure of regarding my body, my personality, my entire life. My insecurity over my not-so-flat stomach, my insecurity over the job market, my insecurity over the fact that maybe I’m not a likeable person… all of these things add up to anxiety that I pretend is about other things. But it’s not. It’s time to address the insecurity we all feel, so we can break the cycle of stress eating.

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. This month, Melissa's been trying to stop her late night snacking. She hit a few bumps the first week, and sorta hit rock bottom on week 2. And now, thank god, it's all over. So what did she learn?]

It’s my third (and basically last) week at this, and I have come to a conclusion — this challenge, in its perfect entirety, is impossible to complete. At least for someone like me who stays up way past 10 p.m. at night. However, I’ve still learned some very valuable lessons.

Eating is meant to fuel your body. Although after 10 p.m. we all want to nosh, I believe we should try not to, as that is not conducive to food’s goal. Through this challenge, I have learned a lot about my habits and why I eat late at night, and this challenge has made me so aware of my actions.

There is so much dieting information out there that will tell you that eating late at night is the key to weight gain. I don’t necessarily believe that is true — I believe that we eat calorically dense foods late at night, and that is connected to weight gain, not the time of day at which we consume them. But if we change our habits and use the food we eat late at night PURELY for fuel if we absolutely need it (read: if tea or water just doesn’t do the trick), then I personally think that’s totally acceptable. Read More »

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. This month, Melissa's going to stop her late night snacking. She hit a few bumps last week, and it looks like this week didn't get much easier.]

Make this challenge stop. PLEASE, make it stop! I’m failing at this challenge quite miserably, and it’s just so discouraging.

I tried on Valentine’s Day. I really, really did. But my single girl friends and I all gave into our sorrows and ate our feelings and drowned our single girl worries in chocolate. Come on, can you blame me? Worst. Day. Ever.

That night definitely gave me a “screw this” mentality throughout the rest of the week. I know, I’m not proud. I could have told you how well I did this week, but that would have been a lie. And no one likes a liar (Unless they’re on ABC Family’s Pretty Little Liars, during which I also found myself snacking on Monday night. UGH! I really failed this week).

I think I’m starting to lose sight of why I decided to do this challenge in the first place. I’m letting the stresses of everyday life get to me and make me forget that food is never, EVER the answer to stress. This is definitely the hump week. I feel as if I have hit the rock bottom, and the only place to go to succeed in this one-month challenge is up. Read More »

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. Last month Charlotte gave up coffee. This month, Melissa's going to stop her late night snacking. Can she do it!? Could you?]

It’s one week in. And my late-night self is hungry. Really hungry. Ugh.

The college atmosphere definitely makes it really difficult to complete this challenge. I definitely had a few nights that I caved, and when I caved, I caved badly. After a long day of sorority recruitment, all the girls ordered pizza at 11:30 p.m. Seeing how we had to be at the house for even longer after 11:30 to clean up, my starving self quickly forgot about my challenge and caved on a slice of pizza. Oops.

Another night, my roommates and I were thinking of our costume ideas for a themed social we were having this weekend. My costume involved making a dress out of candy (it looks AWESOME, by the way!), and when I had a little bit of candy left over, instead of looking the other way and remembering my challenge, I unwrapped those little chocolates like a little kid unwrapping presents on Christmas morning. Oops again. Read More »

[Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. Last month Charlotte gave up coffee. This month, Melissa's going to stop her late night snacking. Can she do it!? Could you?]

Oh, the wonderful world of late night eating. Whether it’s 2 a.m. pizza or that leftover Chinese food during your favorite nighttime shows, late night eating goes with college like studying goes with college. Except we actually, uh, do it. So, yeah, bad analogy.

Now, I don’t mean to sound like a party pooper, but get this: according to the New York Times, a 2009 Northwestern University study found that late-night eating does lead to weight gain.

Are you really surprised? The drunken munchies, the nighttime study snacks, or the boredom eating that so often takes place on college campuses definitely contributes to college weight gain. Something that I don’t want. So, when I was presented with this challenge, I asked myself — “Hey, if those things all lead to weight gain, why not just not do them?” Seems easy enough, so I accepted the challenge. And one day in, as I sit watching my 10 p.m. TV, dying for a snack to nosh on, I ask myself another question:

“Why the heck did I agree to this?” Oy. Read More »

This post provided by college nutritionist, author, and all around excellent source of healthful info, Melanie Jatsek.

Do you eat when you’re not hungry?  Sure, we all do to some degree!  Food is one of the necessities of life, but it’s also a source of comfort for those times when you are feeling sad, stressed, homesick, angry, or [insert emotion here].  This occasional indulgence usually isn’t a problem, but when you start responding to every emotion with food it becomes a problem in more than one way.  Can you say weight gain and feelings of zero willpower?  You did just eat that entire bag of Lay’s Potato Chips after all!

It’s time to stop beating yourself up.  So you slipped up and let your stress get the best of you – so what?  Forgive yourself and move on.  But what if it happens again, you ask?  What are you supposed to do the next time you are struck with a bout of good old-fashioned homesickness?

Follow the three steps below to learn how not to eat your feelings. Read More »

Here at CollegeCandy, we’ve discussed and confronted body issues many-a-times. Whether its about the downfall of too-skinny models, or the recent obsession of using plus-sized models for “contrast”, these articles always incite heated debate. Even posts unrelated to the subject get pulled into the fire!

While we all might not see eye-to-eye in the quest to define the un-definable “perfect body,” we can all agree that college women have some very strong opinions on the subject. Girls our age are the most affected, and most targeted, by a society that thinks Jessica Simpson is fat, so it’s not surprising that the number of girls with eating disorders has been on the rise. New studies have shown that up to 19% of female college students are bulimic and up to 15% of those without eating disorders display patterns of disordered eating.

I’ve had my own battles with anorexia for four years, and have confronted a few friends with their own eating habits (or lack thereof). I’ve been on both sides of the situation and can tell you than it’s not easy confronting a friend from either point of view. So here are a few do’s and don’ts that will help you when you suspect a friend might be in need. Read More »

Attempting to lose weight can be seriously stressful when you feel like you have to follow a laundry list of rules—don’t eat after 7 pm, banish white flour, etc., etc.—in addition to hitting the dreaded treadmill and the stinky weight-room. According to Women’s Health magazine, however, it’s possible to shed pounds successfully without listening to every piece of diet advice that gets thrown around (or, you know, printed in Women’s Health).

What are the diet rules you can break?

Eat many small meals a day instead of three big meals:

Many people insist that eating small portions throughout the day instead of stuffing your face with three big meals will lead to weight-loss by revving your metabolism and keeping it going from morning until night. But Women’s Health points out that if you’re eating multiple times a day, you’re running the risk of consuming more calories than you might if you stuck to breakfast, lunch, dinner, and a snack. Instead, make sure that mealtimes are defined by fiber-rich foods and lean proteins (those will fill you up without packing in the calorie), and leave the daylong grazing to the farm animals.

Brown rice and whole wheat breads and pastas are better than their evil white flour twins:

At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter if your pasta is white as long as you’re consuming the recommended six ounces of carbohydrates each day. Women’s Health says that a study published in the Journal of the American Dietetic Association reports that people on high-carb diets were slimmer than their carb-banning counterparts even when they consumed “bad carbs.” While you should make sure that half of your daily carbohydrate intake comes from whole grains, white bread isn’t going to lead to weight gain any more than whole-wheat bread if you keep your portion sizes small.

Don’t eat after dark:

Women’s Health quotes doctor Ann G. Kulze, who explains that the body handles calories in the same exact way no matter what time they’re consumed. Figure out how many calories you should be consuming each day – this number depends on your age, height and activity level – and stick to it. To make sure that you have enough energy to fuel your daily activities, you should spread out caloric intake throughout the day. But if you eat two cookies at 9 p.m., you’re not going to gain any more weight than you would if you ate them at 6.

Ban desserts:

Putting foods on the do-not-touch list only makes you want them more and can lead to binges. Eating dessert is okay as long as you tweak your diet accordingly, which means eating less for dinner and picking desserts like chocolate-dipped fruit and sorbets instead of ice-cream sundaes. Women’s Health points out that restaurant dessert portions are often ridiculously large and high in calories—an Applebee’s chocolate chip cookie sundae, for example, contains 1,620 calories, more than many people should be consuming all day long! The magazine also suggests re-thinking the traditional idea of dessert when you want to indulge. Your after dinner treat doesn’t need to be chocolate; a craving for something sweet can be met in the form of a yogurt and cereal parfait.

Those of you attempting to keep track with me and my diet – or those who just notice the blogs as they work their way down the page – might have noticed that I haven’t been updating recently. Nothing has gone wrong, really. In fact, nothing has gone on at all, and to say that I’m disappointed and put out is an understatement.

Really, I have no reason to be complaining. I’ve noticed a definite increase in my energy level, and while I can still quite happily sleep until noon, I don’t find myself passing out during the day as much as I used to. And while my allergies are still being a pain, even my asthma seems to be less aggressive. I’ve gotten to the point where I like and even look forward to going to the gym; I’ve perfected my iPod routine and work out for the entirety of an album (double albums don’t count) before I hit the showers.

But I’ve barely lost any weight. My endocrinologist swears I don’t have anything wrong with my metabolism, but I can’t help the sinking feeling that I’m not going to reach my goal weight when I wanted to. I’m not expecting anything ridiculous, but I would like to see a little progress, you know? Read More »