A love letter to anyone gaining weight, from someone who’s in it with you

Hi friend,

If you’re gaining weight and feeling fine about it, ignore this. If you’re having some hard feels, then this is for you. 

Boy, these body transitions can be hard.

You look down at your body and there are bumps and hills where once there were valleys (or smaller hills).

Sometimes you walk around and feel like the hot shit you are. Then you pass your reflection in a window and suddenly you’re aware of every step, how you have more gravity, more width. You wonder if everyone can see it. 

You stumble on a photo and question how can that be me? The other humans in the picture turn into size barometers, like a penny placed next to an impressive zucchini for scale. You wonder: is that really how I appear?

It’s like if you always had eyebrows and then one day you waxed them off. For a while when you looked in the mirror, your brain would probably still expect to see follicled brows.

Some people who are gaining weight gravitate to the term “dysmorphia.” I don’t like how clinical it sounds, but I get it. Your body was one way, now it’s changing. When you see your image it looks different than what your brain remembers. Your mind is still catching up to the new information. 

A brain/image disconnect. 

It’s not actually an inherent problem, by the way (the weight gain or the brain disconnect).

But then pile on the societal hatred of fat and weight gain. 

Pile on all the stories you’ve ever heard about people gaining weight.

Pile on the cost and energy needed to get new clothes.

Pile on your own body history and trauma.

Pile on the hurts of your ancestors and what their bodies experienced.

Ouch. Ouch ouch ouch. 

Maybe you notice everyone’s bodies more these days. Maybe your mind is a’chatter: How is she so thin? How come he looks like that and I don’t? They gained weight and they look good! Does that mean there is hope for me? Is that body like my body? What does my body even look like?

Pile on that 5 years ago we were in a body positive revolution, with gorgeous fat celebrities and more talk about ditching diets and scrapping the BMI. There was a plethora of plus-size activists and models and influencers we could follow on social media whose existence kept reminding us of the beautiful biodiversity of humanity. It felt like the tides were finally turning.

A lot of people gained weight in the early pandemic and there was some connectedness in the mutual experience.

Then people returned to in person work and school. They had to show their whole bodies again instead of being little face boxes on a screen. 

Then Ozempic came. Many fat celebrities lost weight. A lot of social media influencers got sucked into the weight loss vortex. Those of us who had worked to curate our social media to be a safe haven from diet culture had to cull it once again. 

Everywhere you look it seems people are losing weight and saying how great they feel. 

Ozempic is a shot you give yourself forever and ever

And here is your body, gaining. Getting bigger. Taking up more space. Sizing up the pants and then sizing up again (and again).

Maybe some part of you knows it’s ok to gain weight. Maybe even good. Maybe you got a handle on your disordered eating. You let go of your perfectionism. You embraced a helpful medication. You had a kid. You got older… Your body just wanted to be bigger and you are letting that happen. 

You could be so, so proud.

But, you think to yourself— when will this end? Will I just gain and gain forever?

You think to yourself— I could be ok with this weight if it would just stop here.

You think to yourself— if only I could go back in time to the size I was last year— I thought I looked bad but I was so beautiful.

You think to yourself— should I just try the drugs? The shot? A new diet? A new workout? What’s wrong with me?

Nothing. Nothing is wrong with you.

It’s hard to swim upstream. 

It’s hard to trust your body when everyone tells you not to.

It’s hard to know what health really means to you when our culture makes it so weird and individual.

It's hard to talk about this stuff when there's so much stigma.

It’s hard to talk about this stuff when for some people gaining weight means going from small to less small, for others it’s small to big, and for others it’s big to bigger — each a unique experience.

It’s hard to have a body, to be in a body, when everyone else seems to be saying that the body is something to do. To earn. 

How do I know all this? My body’s been changing the past 4 years. First with pregnancy, in a societally acceptable way. Then with postpartum breastfeeding weight loss, which is also socially acceptable. Then with post-breastfeeding weight gain as my hormones have been trying to rebalance. My body is getting bigger. 

I still wear straight size clothes, still benefit from thin privilege for now, but the future is unknown, and darn if i I don't feel safer in the known.

The old voice creeps into my head: “Maybe if I just tried a little harder I could get back to that weight, fit that old dress.”

Instead I hug myself harder.

I remind myself over and over that the size of my body is not my business. 

Or rather, not the business of my mind. The size of my body is the business of my body. My mind gets to stay in its lane.

In this period of transition I lean heavily on the body liberation tools I’ve cultivated for over a decade, testing their solidity.

I remind myself that there is no plan I need to make, no control I need to take. 

When the thoughts spiral, I try to rest back into this body that has given me everything.

I use my social media tricks, taking in gorgeous images of fat models and celebrities who remain. I eat delicious foods. I move my body in ways that help me feel connected to myself. When I catch myself liking how I look, I extend the moment as long as I can. 

I give myself space to grieve all the changes– the size of my body and also the shape of my life.

I do my best to feel the feelings and not make meaning (e.g “I’m gaining weight because I’m doing something wrong!”) so that eventually they float away (like all feelings do, bad and good).

I look in the mirror and laugh and shake and poke and cry and gently stroke my cheek. 

Then I put on my hoop earrings, breathe, and wink.

Yours truly, wearing hoops and feeling cute

Oh you and me and our changing bodies. How I love us for our tenderness, our boldness, and our softness. I love us for living our lives and doing our best. I even love that critical voice inside our heads, so earnest in its desire for connection.

A part of me wishes to reassure us, to say— I know perhaps this has been going on for months or years, but it will not last forever! Bodies love equilibrium and eventually our bodies will find their new normal. You and your body (and me and mine) will settle in together like old lovers finding each other on a porch swing with a knit blanket.

But I can’t offer us that. For there is this truth– our bodies will change forever. Our skin, our hair, our bones, our very cells. Our hearts, our brains. Change change change. 

Weight is only one manifestation of metamorphosis.

Everyone’s bodies will change.

Everyone’s bodies will end, which is why I use the term “grief” intentionally. For what is fear of change if not fear of death itself (whether actual death or social death or some other ending).

Fear of death is a funny thing, both extremely rational (evolutionarily genius to try to stay alive!),  and also extremely irrational– because unlike the bite of a spider or snake, death will absolutely come for us all. Regardless of how many steps we took or how much protein we ate or how much we meditated or if we bought the right tea or took all the vitamins– it will end one day. Our bodies will return to earth as atoms and particles and existential compost.

But. There’s still good news. Because if you, like me, are feeling some of these things, that means we’re getting a head start on facing this shit. We get to lead the way for everyone else. 

The feelings and learnings we glean now will continue to provide us clues to the ultimate question “How do we be with change?”

Change is happening in our world too, and we need leaders who know how to face it. We need leaders who aren’t afraid to show up and say “I know this is hard! Let’s do it together.”

So to my fellow loves who are gaining weight– perhaps that is us. 

Perhaps the discomforts we feel and work through can make a roadmap for others, to start to answer the questions:

• How do we deal with change collectively? 

• How do we learn to love each other through turbulent times? 

• How do we face our fear of death and endings with hearts so full they spill over?  

• Could we possibly let the reality of death and the experience of change be something almost sweet?

• How do we face change with a steadiness, without clinging to what once was?

Perhaps our changing bodies hold one of the keys.