How Quarantine Is Triggering Our Fear of Gaining Weight
By Stranger Place - April 27, 2020
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| Watch my YouTube video if you want to see me make this vegan Guinness brown bread |
Hi, we need to talk about eating during quarantine. So, first thing’s first, take a minute to make sure you’ve eaten something (preferably nutritious) today.
This is a world of hell for anyone who has suffered with any
form of disordered eating. I keep hearing the phrase “Quarantine 15” in terms
of how many pounds we’re all expected to put on. Every day on Instagram, I see
people reposting that image of the fridge with the sign that says “you’re not
hungry, you’re just bored” taped on it. Talk about weight gain and boredom eating
has infiltrated social media for the worse.
Like many people, I got a lot of my daily exercise from
going to the gym and walking all over town running my errands. Those things are
not available to me anymore, so my activity levels have gone down. As far as
food, I’m in more of a unique situation. I’m vegetarian, eat a pretty balanced
diet, cook most of my own meals, and indulge every once in a while. Since
lockdown began, we’ve moved in with my boyfriend’s parents who (very
graciously) cook us most of our meals. Also, coming and going to the grocery
store unscathed has become no less challenging than an Olympic sport so I’m pretty
much limited to the ingredients that are already in the cupboard.
Right now, I have much less control over what I eat. I have
much less control over how I exercise. And this is very challenging.
I have a crippling fear of becoming “fat”. Not because I
hate fat people, not because I tie all of my self-worth to how I look, but
because I have an overbearing need to control my body. Some quick background: I
was a pudgy kid and a skinny teenager, and I always thought I was too fat no
matter what I looked like. At the height of my depression, I was prescribed one
certain medication (that shall not be named) and I gained an additional 50% of
my body weight in a matter of months. I was not used to being at such a high
weight and I felt completely out of control. I was beyond fat by my own
standards, and I felt foreign in my own body.
I eventually lost all that weight and more after my mom died.
I was restricting my food intake and I was chronically stressed, and due to
that I lost the weight, a lot of my hair, and a lot of my relationships.
At a time where everything felt so out of control, I thought
the only thing I could control was my food and my weight. It felt comforting
for a while but soon I became irritable, lethargic, and lonely. I hated how I
looked no matter how much I lost, how much I’d restricted that day. I binged
regularly, shamefully and avoided most social gatherings because I was afraid
food would be there. Ironically, it ended up robbing me of all the control I
was so desperately trying to hold onto.
I never sought a diagnosis for this and I never sought
treatment for it. That’s on me. I will say, however, I felt like very few
people were willing to take my concerns about eating seriously. Since I’d been
overweight before, most people saw how much I’d “slimmed down” and told me I
was doing great, so of course I kept going. When it became obvious that this
was doing more harm than good, I reached out to friends, family, my partner at
the time. I pretty much always got the same response – you’re not underweight,
you seem to eat pretty healthy – are you sure it’s actually a problem?
I’ve been sheepish about this topic for years. I’ve been
open about depression and grief and I’ve received so much support for these
things, but no one wants to talk about disordered eating when you’re not
underweight.
That’s what makes this a dangerous time.
Although I’ve improved a lot in the last couple years, this
way of thinking still persists. After feeling a “loss of control” over my diet
and exercise regimen, I started convincing myself that I was gaining weight and
soon I’d be fat again. Yes, today in the shower I pawed over my body trying to convince
myself of physical markers that I was, in fact, gaining weight. And yes, it
still makes me not want to eat.
I know I am not alone in my fear and my discomfort and my
shame. This is a tricky time for all of us because we are all experiencing a
lack of control in so many areas of life, and this feeds disordered
eating.
But I’ve decided I’m not going to “take back control” by
restricting what I eat. I know, that ultimately, it will control me. So here is
a list of things I’m reminding myself of while we figure out how to live in
quarantine.
Gaining 5 pounds doesn’t mean you’ll gain 50
I
may gain some weight during this time, so what? I’m still a comfort eater, and
I don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing. I implement healthier meals, but
I find myself needing to be comforted during this bizarre period and some of
that comfort comes from home-cooked meals. There’s something uniquely
comforting about meals made by someone who loves you, it’s a kind of comfort I
feel like I’ve been lacking since family dinners were never really a thing in
my household. They’re getting me all the nutrients I need, I feel satiated when
I eat them, and they make me feel happy and safe – so I’m not going to give
them up. That’s worth gaining a bit of weight. A bit of weight because
it’s not a slippery slope – I’m not going to wake up tomorrow and be fifty
pounds heavier.
Because my big weight gain happened all of
a sudden (and was a side-effect of medication) I have distorted view of what
natural weight gain looks like, and I need to gain some perspective. I won’t
look or feel much different with an extra few pounds, the only thing it will
reasonably affect is the number on the scale (which I’ve decided I don’t care
about).
If you’ve taken up baking three times a
week in order to stay calm, please keep it up. It’s much more important to feel
safe and sane in this crisis even if it means you go up a dress size.
2.
Find an activity you enjoy
So, the gym’s out.
Walks more than two kilometers away from the house are out. Weight machines and
treadmills are a thing of the past for most of us who don’t have the luxury of
owning them in our homes. This doesn’t mean you have to stop being active. This
also doesn’t mean you have to overcompensate with home workout because you no
longer have your comfortable gym routine to rely on.
If you don’t have the energy to get
up and workout every day, that’s okay. I feel like I'm happier and less
sluggish when I do a little bit of activity each day, so I’m trying to do
better to incorporate it. It’s not easy since you’re likely to still come in to
contact with other people on a walk, so I’m trying to find other things I can
do that I enjoy. So far, I’ve challenged my boyfriend and my dad to virtual
plank competitions. The goal is to be able to plank for three minutes by the
end of quarantine, and so far we’re at fifty seconds.
I’d honestly be happy if that’s all
the exercise I managed to do, but I’ve found that since implementing this challenge,
I’ve started incorporating more exercise. I’ve done wall sits, squats,
half-assed pushups, you name it. Some days I sit on the floor in child’s pose
and just start stretching my body whatever way feels best, and it’s great. This
“intuitive” exercising is helping maintain my mental health without making me
feel like I need to gain control of my body in fear of “letting myself go”.
3 Eat to take care of yourself
When I don’t eat,
I’m irritable, tearful, and tired. When I eat too much sugary or processed
food, I’m lethargic, I can’t think straight, and I’m wholly uncomfortable. As
always, what’s best lies between restricting and indulging.
Right now, my priority is making
sure I’m eating in a way that’s going to promote a stable, content mood.
Undereating won’t accomplish that but overeating won’t accomplish it either.
Yes, demolishing multiple chocolate Easter eggs will make me feel calm and comfortable
for a moment but it’s not really comfort eating by my definition because
it will cause me to crash, feel sluggish, and all around uncomfortable
later.
A meal should make you feel
satiated and happy. I want to comfort eat during this time but comfort eat in
the sense that what I’m eating should make me feel more comfortable. That’s a
far cry from how I feel when binge eating.
Yes, it’s totally okay to be eating
unhealthier food and bigger portions right now. But I don’t want to permit
binge eating for myself because it’s going to cause my mood to spike and then
flatline, it’ll screw up my hormones, and it will make me feel worse during a traumatic
time. So, comfort eating = yes, binge eating = no. Some degree of moderation is
still important right now.
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For now, take care of yourself,
x Stranger
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