The Knacki Syndrome 36
(updated July 2026)
I like food. Really.
I am the type of person who asks if someone will finish their plate, who eats the last crepe without trying too hard to hesitate, and who almost completely stops listening when something good arrives on the table.
The problem is that I also like to control what I eat.
For a long time, I called this contradiction the Knacki Syndrome 36. On one side, Knacki sausages, cakes, meals with friends, and everything that makes you want a second helping. On the other, the thin bodies in advertisements, visible abs, and the idea that you should monitor every deviation.
Between the two, we are simply trying to live.
I have already lost twenty-five kilos. Twice. So I know that period well: every staircase becomes an opportunity to burn a few calories, and you start counting journeys, meals, and time spent sitting. I didn't take the elevator because I could walk. It wasn't a fear of the elevator. It was almost the fear of missing an opportunity to move.
I also tried very strict diets. Dukan, in particular. In retrospect, basing a large part of one's diet on protein probably wasn't the most balanced idea in my life, but at that moment, it seemed like a clear method in a subject where I didn't control much.
The word diet bothers me, so we replace it. We pay attention. We watch our figure. We avoid sugar, fat, gluten, or sometimes just pleasure. The vocabulary changes, but the tension often remains the same.
In my case, there was also binge eating. Moments when eating no longer really satisfied hunger, but something more difficult to stop. My most radical solution was to buy nothing. If the cupboards were empty, it became more complicated to empty them during the night.
It wasn't a very elegant solution. But it was a solution.
The strangest thing is that food also remains a link with others. Refusing a dessert prepared with care is never just refusing sugar. It is sometimes refusing a gesture, an evening, a family habit. You can explain that you are paying attention, but the apple pie asked for nothing from anyone.
I no longer think there is a perfect balance between pleasure and control. There are mostly periods when one side takes up too much space, followed by more or less sensible adjustments to find the middle again.
The Knacki Syndrome 36, deep down, is perhaps just that: loving to eat in a world that constantly reminds us that our body should tell a different story.