Knitting for Weight Loss

Okay, it might be one of the weirdest weight loss plans ever, but it worked for me... knitting.

I'm a t.v. snacker.  There was no better time to stuff my face full of empty calories than when my fanny is parked on the sofa watching television.  Popcorn, Mike & Ikes, pretzels, chips, dips, cheese, chocolate, even fruit all go wonderfully with whatever is on.  I was a heavy t.v. snacker - literally and figuratively.

Knitting helped me stop snacking.  How?  Expensive yarn and busy hands.

Funny thing about knitting; it takes two hands.  If both hands are busy, the only way to snack is to either stop and put down your work, or contort yourself into wild yoga poses and plant your face directly into the snack bowl or bag.  (Yes, you can grab the chip bag in your teeth and tip it up till the contents slide into your mouth - I know, I've tried, mostly successfully... but... well, then your face gets all greasy... but I digress.)  If you stop and snack, you then need a napkin (or full on hand washing) to remove your snack from your hands before returning to your knitting.  Nothing like Cheetos and angora to drive that lesson home.

I applied these realities to my television habit.  Instead of grabbing a snack when I sat down to watch my favorite shows, I grabbed a project.  Interestingly enough, I got smaller, my completed projects pile got bigger, and my yarn budget had more flex when projects required a skein or two less to fit me.

I find now that my cravings have changed.  I actually crave certain projects for certain types of shows.  What used to be a bowl of ice cream for a sad film is now a hat or some similarly in the round project.  Horror movies and zombies (my husbands favorites) are no longer bags of chips or popcorn, but lace shawls and complex projects that keep my eyes off the gore.  And there is nothing like a good sock pattern for a series.

What has knitting replaced in your life?  Snacking, grief, homicide...?  Do tell.