I love words. Not everyone does, I understand. Some people fail to realize the near-electric buzz the comes from identifying the singular word that describes an event, experience, sensation or moment. I don’t know how such people live truly full and joyous lives, but there it is.
Occasionally, I run across new words that perfectly capture a particular sentiment. Such was the case recently, when I saw this gem posted on my Facebook newsfeed:
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Kummerspeck: Literally meaning “grief bacon,” the excess weight we gain from emotional overeating (German)
At the risk of further defacing an already overused cliche, grief bacon is my (dead and possibly hickory-smoked) spirit animal. (No, I don’t really believe in spirit animals. It’s just a metaphor. Go with it.)
Kummerspeck is a mash-up of the two German words kummer, meaning grief or sorrow, and speck, meaning fat, bacon or adipose. Kummerspeck is Comfort Food’s binge-eating older sister.
The whole notion of comfort food is a bit deceiving. I bet the term immediately conjured up food porn in your mind. For some reason, it makes me think of macaroni and cheese or Nana’s molasses cookies or my mom’s coffee squares. To each her own, though. I had a friend whose Mom always took her out for an ice cream to console her on her bad days, or to celebrate on her good days. How many of us still like to dive into a pint of Ben & Jerry’s after a break-up or a bowl of chips and salsa with our besties after a long week? That’s comfort food. Beautiful bonding moments amid the emotional rollercoaster of life.
It even sounds lovely. Who doesn’t want comfort? Comfort Food. Comfort and food. Tasty, pain-relieving sustenance. Nourishment that nurtures.
But then, life keeps happening, and if food is our only or primary comfort, then instead of one molasses cookie wrapped in Nana’s love, we find ourselves in sweatpants covered in crumbs, a crumpled and empty Chips Ahoy bag next to us on the couch. We look around, dazed, wondering how this happened and why we simply can’t lose weight. That is the genesis of grief bacon.
Like Jacob waking up to Leah instead of Rachel, we befriend Comfort Food and wake up next to Grief Bacon. Yikes.
It’s as if we are so weighed down by grief or pain or depression or anxiety or worry, we wear it like a coat — a visible coating of fat covering our whole body. Talk about emotional baggage.
When we are weighed down — physically, emotionally, or both — we are not free.
If I’m honest though, sometimes there’s a little bit of safety in that big, thick coat that keeps the world at bay. And as long as I can blame everything wrong in my life on my … grief bacon … I don’t have to face myself, do I?
There’s a pig-in-a-blanket crack here somewhere that just won’t quite materialize for me. Best left unsaid, I guess.
Unlike “Comfort Food,” the term “Grief Bacon” conjures mixed emotions. I mean, no one likes grieving, but who doesn’t like bacon? On the flip side, though, bacon tastes pretty good but it’s so salty and fatty it drives up your blood pressure and, some would argue, clogs your arteries. So all that goodness isn’t really all that great. At least not in large doses. It smells amazing when it’s cooking, but smells pretty gross the next day when there’s nothing left but the greasy residue in your range exhaust filter.
Grief Bacon is a scam, but one based on an interesting truth about our humanity: food and feelings are inextricably entangled. Our physical condition is a reflection of our spiritual situation. When we don’t know how to comfort our souls, we feed our bodies. When our minds are stressed, it shows up in our bodies.
Over the years, I’ve ruminated on my tendency to eat my feelings. I’ve read about it, thought about it, observed it as though outside myself. Where does it come from? Is it my fault? Why are some people consumed by it and some are not? How do I break the pattern?
Science is figuring out the linkage by understanding the workings of our various hormones. In a ridiculously unscientific and oversimplified paraphrase of The Obesity Code, chronic stress triggers an overload of the hormone cortisol. When we don’t burn off the cortisol, it triggers excess release of insulin, which ultimately causes our bodies to store — not burn — glucose, resulting in a host of issues from insulin resistance to weight gain: grief bacon.
I’ve also heard this phenomenon described as the body interpreting chronic stress as famine— a long time without having needed nutrition, so the body slows down, conserving resources for longevity.
The human body is an amazing thing, isn’t it? But the human mind can be something of a drama queen with its worries and anxiety and fear and pain and all those other feeling words. When we don’t know how to process those things in a healthy, right way, our body tries its best to help us out. A good example of this is the fact exercise relieves stress by lowering cortisol, the stress hormone.
So no matter how we attempt to compartmentalize our mental or emotional angst from our physical self, they are inextricably linked. Our physical condition ultimately comes to reflect our emotional state. Our outsides reflect our insides. Our hair turns gray, wrinkles emerge on our skin, we gain weight. Or we (well, some people … definitely not me) lose weight under stress. I don’t know what the German word for that is. But it’s its own kind of struggle, and though I’m vaguely jealous, I don’t mean to diminish it in any way.
While some of these things provide a level of clarity, I do not understand the root cause or the full scope of the problem. But I see in myself trauma, sadness, anxiety, disappointment, regret, fear, isolation, and learned behavior. Sin and its consequences, my own and others’. Sometimes it gets the better of me.
But the Apostle Paul says instead of looking to those things, I’m to look toward “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable–if anything is excellent or praiseworthy–think about such things.” (Philippians 4:8)
I do not understand the psychology of the solution. I’ve learned the importance of “unlearning” and processing and forgiveness of others and of self. I know that’s a hard road and one impossible to travel alone.
But Paul tells us to “Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you” (Ephesians 4:31-32).
There’s so much I don’t know. But I do know the answer, as with pretty much all of life’s mysteries and muck, is to look up to Jesus, the author and finisher of my faith.
My pastor on Sunday reminded us again that Jesus heals. In Matthew 19:2 we read that he healed all who followed Him. But it doesn’t say he waved his open palm over the masses and suddenly they were all better. What we read about Jesus’ miracles of healing over and over in the gospels is that each was an individual encounter with Jesus. And it didn’t look the same for everyone. Sometimes He spoke away their disease. Sometimes He touched them. Sometimes He worked through his disciples. He even rubbed spit mud in their eyes, like in the case of the blind beggar at the pool of Siloam.
I’m pretty sure if some random neighbors had rubbed the same mud in the beggar’s eyes, it wouldn’t have worked. The mud, the spit, the touch, the word … they were all just vehicles to deliver the healing of God to those who needed it. People had myriad diseases and maladies. He found them all over the region, in cities, in villages, in wilderness. The single differentiating factor was Jesus and their faith in Him.
Jesus didn’t have a formula that was visible to those who watched Him then. He simply saw the soul-deep need of each person he interacted with, and He healed them in a way that they responded to and usually also in a way that was meaningful to those around Him as well as those of us still reading about it today.
Jesus also prized spiritual healing over physical. His physical healing served as proof that He was capable of the spiritual healing and forgiveness of sins He promised. He gave them sight so they could see a deeper truth. And when He had to choose between the two, He knew that being the Savior of souls mattered much more than being a healer of bodies.
I see this same imagery in my life in what God has been teaching me through my own struggles with weight. The Bread of Life is much better for me than Grief Bacon or Comfort Food, though I still find myself tempted by both at times. Learning to feast on my daily bread of God’s Word helps to free me from what is weighing me down, instead of leaving me heavier and more confused.
As my heart and mind learn to use food to feed my body and God’s truth to feed my soul, my body and my heart are changing and I can see it. People around me see it, too — the people around us always see God’s fingerprints on our lives. And if they know what to look for, they also see when His fingerprints are missing from our lives, just as they always seem to notice (and sometimes mention) when we gain weight.
My own physical changes have given me a vivid picture of the internal changes of sanctification through my walk with Christ. The converse is also true in that I see and so can others the changes in me for the worse when my walk isn’t what it should be or when I’m struggling.
Lately, I am learning something about fasting as well — the importance to our physical bodies of removing things that are harmful for our health. Spiritually, I’m learning that God’s cutting away or withholding of things I want or even think I need so that I can better understand that the end of my strength is just the beginning of His.
It’s tempting in these times of loss to fry up some grief bacon. But manna from heaven is a much better option and tastes better, too.