STOP SHAMING PEOPLE FOR GAINING WEIGHT DURING COVID

This past weekend, one of my girlfriends, whom I haven’t seen since before the pandemic, came over to my house with her husband and kids. When I went to hug her, instead of reaching out to hug me, she pulled up her shirt and grabbed two handfuls of her tattoo clad belly and said, “look at this!”

“It’s beautiful!” I responded, “You’re beautiful and perfect.”  But she was not happy and wanted to show me that she had put on weight since the pandemic. (Side note- she’s a nurse. A nurse during the pandemic. A freaking goddamned hero. She had ridiculous amounts of non-stop stress- not to mention she’s a mother of two boys). She, me,  and most other people in the United States gained weight during the pandemic.  She was upset about it and feeling bad about herself, feeling like she had been bad or done something wrong.

Gaining weight during Covid doesn’t make you a moral failure. Not during the pandemic and not ever.  Yet I have so many clients who absolutely hate themselves and are calling themselves failures because they put weight on during lockdown.

Diet culture is foaming at the mouth to jump on the Covid weight gain bandwagon. But diet culture is ALWAYS looking for a way to shame people in order to make money

Come to think of it, capitalism as a whole loves to use shame and fear to profit. So much easier to sell things to people when they are afraid of what happens if they don’t buy it.

Trigger Warning- Fatphobia below:

When I first moved to California, I remember that 24 HOUR FITNESS (a gym chain up here) had a billboard with aliens landing on earth that said, “When they come, they’ll eat the fat ones first….” I remember this because Marilyn Wann, author of FAT!SO? Led protests against the chain. The fact that they implied that being fat would cause you to be abducted and cannibalized by aliens was absurd and cruel.

Marketing is a little more subtle now, but it still relies on eliciting shame and fear to sell products.

Basically all of my clients have gained weight during Covid and I have as well. Many of my clients are really stressed out about going back to the office, about things opening up again, about having to see family and friends because of their weight gain. And the funny thing is that everyone thinks that they are the only one. They believe that everyone else turned their house into a home gym and became bikini models during Covid. Are there people who did that? Sure, a few. But the majority of people put weight on. If you are reading this, YOU SURVIVED A GLOBAL PANDEMIC!!!!!!!!!! Buy yourself a new pair of jeans. You deserve it.

The Covid situation was so scary and also isolating and caused so much fear and depression and anxiety in people. People moved less since they weren’t out and about. They snacked more since they were always home, and they used food for comfort, which is not pathological nor is it an eating disorder, it’s normal. And when your survival is at stake, eating as a result is biology kicking in. It’s a survival mechanism.

So if you gained weight during Covid, you are not alone. I read a statistic recently that said 72% of Americans reported weight gain during Covid. Which means that if you are in a room of 10 people, there are only about 3 who didn’t gain weight during Covid.

So what are you going to do about it? Nothing.

Your health is certainly important. But as always, focusing on weight loss rather than overall health turns into a shame/blame fest. It leads to obsession and disordered thinking and behaviors around food and body image and scales. So rather than focusing on weight loss in this post pandemic world, focus on gentleness. Focus on being kind to yourself. Meet up with friends for walks or swims or bike rides and spend time outdoors moving again. Buy yourself clothes that you feel beautiful in. Move your body in a way that feels joyful. Eat yummy nutritious food. And most of all, thank your body and your self for letting you get through this really insane time in the world.

You are perfect and whole and complete in this very moment!!!

Your value and worth has nothing to do with your body. It’s what’s inside your body that counts. The parts of you that are kind to yourself and others. The parts of you that can hug, that can tell stories, that can play with your kids or your dogs or your cats or water your plants or who can just sit down and cuddle up with a cup of tea and a good book.

As always, nurture yourself with love and kindness. Your weight might have gone up, and it might go back down again. But the main point here is that you survived. You got through. Don’t let anyone tell you that your worthiness is decreased because you gained weight. And most of all, don’t let yourself tell you that you are not good enough because you gained weight.

The post Covid Weight Gain appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.

Have you been in that place before – that place where you have a wedding, or a reunion,  or a birthday party, or any big event coming up and the first thing that comes up for you is, “Okay, I’ve got about 72 days to lose about 20 pounds. I can do that… cakewalk…” but then things become rough. 72 days becomes 60 days, becomes 40 days, becomes 2 weeks. The big diets come out- the no carb, no fat, big visits to the hairdresser, the esthetician, maybe the dermatologist for a shot of Botox, anything…  everything! You’re feeling stressed out, the most important thing is that YOU LOOK GOOD. And you worry, “but what will people think? what will they think of me when they see how much weight I’ve put on? What will they think when they see my wrinkles? What will they think? I just have to look perfect this time…” 

When you want to know how to stop caring what other people are thinking about you- just remember that what people are most likely thinking is, “I wonder what she’s thinking about me? I hope she’s thinking that I look good, Maybe she notices the weight I put on, maybe she notices my new wrinkles, maybe she…” And it stops you, and it stops everyone around you from going forward and having fun, and living your life for the few months before that event. 

So when you start to get caught up in, “I have to LOOK GOOD,” remember that looking good is not looking different. You can still do lots of awesome self care rituals without going on lots of diets or trying to lose weight. You can still buy a dress that you love, find makeup that you feel great in if that’s your thing, and get your hair done in a way that feels awesome. But try really hard not to get caught up in the lose weight before the event trap. 

What would you do if you were only focused on doing things that made you feel really, really good about yourself and in your body? What would you do? Stop and think about it for awhile… I’ll wait.

What kinds of things would you do for yourself if you had no worries about losing weight or worrying about what people would think about you or your size?  What kinds of things would you do if you just wanted to make yourself feel awesome without worrying about others?

Would you, go to yoga class? Go hot tubbing? Go swimming? Go dancing? Take guitar lessons? Take Karate? Become a Real Estate agent?  

The superfluous energy that we all spend worrying about what other people think of us keeps us away from our passion, and when we are truly engaged in our passion, when we are really, truly, enjoying our life- well then who cares what anyone else thinks- it doesn’t matter. So your focus, rather than being on what others think of you should be on what you think about yourself and what brings you joy. I mean, after all, you only get your time here for a certain amount of time- enjoy it.  

It’s difficult because we’ve been taught that others opinions are a metric of our worth- but if everyone worries like that- then what’s the point? Life would be so boring if we all sat in a room wondering what everyone else was thinking about us– no one would have anything to talk about.

So here are a few quick tips to help you stop worrying about what other people are thinking and reclaim your life:

Remember that other people’s thoughts are none of your business. What people are thinking about who you are is rarely the objective truth, they can only see you through their own lens of experience. So you can be as saintly as Mother Teresa, but if you look like the mean girl that someone went to high school with, she might have some pretty skewed ideas of who you are. And that really doesn’t matter. 

Accept that you cannot control what other people think of you. Trying to lose weight is an attempt to control other people’s perception of who you are based on what you look like. Remember that you have no power to control other’s thoughts as no one has the power to control your thoughts. 

Remember that most people aren’t sitting around thinking about you. Sad but true. We are all pretty self absorbed, I mean we have to be to survive, right? The truth is, most people will have merely a passing thought about you, and it might be one thought out of the 50,000 thoughts that each person has per day. 

Focus on your personal values. Think about what is important to you. Is it honesty? Integrity? Kindness? Intelligence? Being well read? Doing volunteer work? Think about what your true values truly are and refocus on those things- once you do, and you feel strong in your convictions as to who you are as a person, then other people’s beliefs (and beliefs are subjective) are really arbitrary.

Just Do You. Remember that people don’t like people who they are impressed by, people like people who are impressed by them, so working hard to impress people will just be more painful than it’s worth. So, just be the you who YOU like the best. 

Other people’s thoughts can’t hurt you. What if someone does have judgmental or unkind thoughts about you? Honestly, it doesn’t hurt you anymore than your thoughts about them hurt or help them. It doesn’t matter, you’ll never REALLY know what other’s think of you, so don’t worry too much about it. 

Remember that you HAVE to take risks. If you worry too much about what other people are thinking of you, you will have a lot of trouble moving forward on your path. Worrying about other people’s thoughts is paralyzing and it keeps you from moving forward. When you stop giving other people that power, you give yourself the freedom to live your life. 

The post How to Stop Worrying about What People Think of Your Body appeared first on Binge Eating Therapy.