I’m seeing a lot of jokes and memes about gaining weight in quarantine, but not many actual reports. I’ve wondered if some of the jokes/memes are Nervous Fishing to see if others identify with the anxiety behind the jokes/memes, and if people would like to talk about it a little.
Here is a post I wrote where I talk a bit about why I don’t generally like to talk about diets and weight. The gist is that I think the diet industry sucks; that society is terrible about thinness and what they think it means (attractiveness, health, goodness, moral protection from illness/death); that praise for weight loss is a bad idea for so many reasons; that talking about diets makes everyone feel bad feelings of one kind or another; and that no one including me seems to be able to talk about it in a way that doesn’t make me want to scream, cry, and/or despair that our culture will ever be able to figure this out.
Well. Onward anyway. Here is what I wanted to say, in case it is something you wanted to hear from someone. I stopped dieting a couple of weeks into the lockdown, toward the end of March. I have gained nearly 20 pounds so far, and I don’t see any reason to think the upward progress will stop until I start dieting again. I have wondered, over the past few years, if it would be possible for me to stop eating keto and go back to eating “normally,” and the answer appears to be no. I have two main reasons for not saying “Welp, now that I have my answer, time to go back on keto permanently”:
First reason, part one: Right now food acquisition is a huge and challenging task. When I was trying to eat Only Specific Things, the stress was making the task exponentially more difficult and stressful. I was worried all the time about whether or not I’d be able to maintain supplies of my few usual foods. When the store didn’t have one or more of them, it was almost impossible to figure out how to manage that.
First reason, part two: I have seen several references to how the lockdown and food shortages are causing upticks in disordered eating—and I was starting to experience signs of that. It was feeling as if The Right Thing To Do was to not eat (or eat much less of) the meat and the eggs and the cheese, so that we’d have enough for the family / so that we’d have enough for me to eat later. And so I would skip meals or eat very small amounts, feeling as if the motivation was stress/necessity/control, and also feeling physically unwell as a result—but meanwhile secretly hoping to see a difference on the scale. Those are Not Good Signs.
Second reason: I don’t want to right now. To get dramatic for a minute: imagine briefly that you KNEW you were going to get very sick starting today and die in three weeks. I know a lot of people would think “Oh no, I never went to Paris!” or “I should have spent more time with friends!” or “I wish I’d spent more time in nature and less time on my phone!” or whatever, but I would think “Oh no, I can’t believe I deprived myself of so many yummy foods when I still had the chance to eat them!!” If I knew I had six months to live, I would definitely want to spend time with friends/family, and maybe I would think of some other standard Bucket List items such as travel and events, but frankly the first list I find myself composing is All the Foods I Want To Eat Before I Die.
So one reason boils down to “Keto isn’t working out for me in lockdown” and the other reason boils down to “Eating freely turns out to be one of my top priorities/joys.” In more normal times, I feel like Being Thinner is fun enough that I can whittle Eating Freely down to once day per week and maintain good levels of overall well-being and happiness; but in THIS VERY NON-NORMAL TIME, that balance completely shifts. I would not, on my deathbed, think “Oh, I am SO GLAD I kept dieting during the pandemic so that I could die thinner!”; but I can easily imagine thinking “Oh, I am so sad I wasted so many of my last opportunities to eat spaghetti and herb bread!” I’m getting a little sad right now, thinking about it. I think I’ll make it for dinner tomorrow night.
It’s not possible, however, to ignore the results, or the accompanying thoughts/feelings. I am trying to ignore them, or to pay them only practical attention, such as making sure I am not wearing uncomfortable clothing or punishing myself by looking in the mirror unnecessarily. I’d saved all the too-big clothes I liked, because I believe the high-profit diet industry uses bad-faith arguments to encourage us to waste perfectly good clothes we’re statistically likely to need again; and because I think it can be fun to need to buy smaller clothes and not fun at all to need to buy larger clothes; and because one of the saddest diet-related things, in my experience, is feeling regret over the loss of the few good larger clothes that were so hard to find. So I have clothes to wear, and I also ordered myself a few new pairs of jeans because some of the saved jeans turned out to be less good than I’d remembered.
I’m right there with you. I lost a lot of weight before my knee surgery two and a half years ago. I was happy to have lost it, felt better, etc., etc., but HATED talking about it, and wondered if everyone who complimented me thought I was a fat ugly cow before the weight loss. I know, I know, that’s projecting, blah blah, but anyway…
Now here we are, lack of routine, home all day with lots of access to snacks, and I love to bake. I’ve gained probably 20 pounds as well. On the positive side, during my weight loss journey, I discovered I like to work out in group classes. One of my favorite instructors is doing class online 5 days a week. So, I’m fatter but fitter. I would like to eat healthier, but I agree that right now it’s not worth it for me, for basically the same reasons as you. I am going to try to eat more fruits and veggies, and we’ll call that good for now.
Well. You know I agree about all of the many, many reasons Not To Make it a Thing. Still, I can’t help but notice that all of the expert diet advice to “Just cook at home! Make your own lunch! Don’t go out to eat!” doesn’t actually seem to be the whole story! Like, maybe there are other factors and have been all along!? Like stress, food availability, etc? Anyway that has always been one of my (many) pet peeves about the diet industry, and I hope instead of just trying to make every pull themselves up by their fitness bootstraps or whatever after this there is a little more understanding. It’s a good natural experiment at any rate.
Big thank you to Tessa for connecting those dots for me. I’ve always felt guilty about not doing enough of that Healthy Home Cooking that we’re supposed to do, and I probably would have gone right back to feeling guilty about it after quarantine if you hadn’t just helped me think a little more carefully about my experience right now. Thanks for making a difference for me.
I’ve always hated that too, because I’ve always mostly eaten at home, and love veggies and don’t drink soda and yet I’ve always struggled with weight. I used to die a little inside when someone would post that they “only cut out coke and lost 20 lbs!” – not because I was unhappy that they’d been successful but because it was never that easy for me (yes, definitely some jealousy too) and I couldn’t cut much more out of my diet without cutting a major food group.
I am glad you have some of your favorite clothes on hand. I think this is a really hard time to concentrate on exercising, etc and with health clubs closed and limited food supply complicating life in general I think you have to give yourself a break. I use an app called myfitnesspal. I don’t diet but inputting the info has been very eye opening. I eat the same things every day except dinner because of celiac disease so inputting it is easy. Most of my fav foods are off limits because of gluten so I am not likely to eat anything I consider heavenly. As the weather improves I find walking outdoors a welcome change of scenery and a huge stress relief.
Right before quarantine started, I’d gotten into a routine of going to the gym every day before work. I was mostly only using the elliptical for 45 mins or so, and didn’t lose a single pound, but I FELT great. Having to give that up has been more difficult for my mental health than I’d imagined. Going for a walk outdoors stresses me out because everyone else is out walking and the sidewalks are so crowded, so I’ve just been sitting at home. I know I’ve gained over quarantine, too. We don’t have a scale, so I don’t know how much, but I have been avoiding jeans and have been wearing out my leggings and flowy dresses!
I’ve always been an abject failure at dieting. That horrible Kate Moss quote comes to mind, and I always think “OMG HAVE YOU EVER HAD BROWNIES OR CARBONARA OR SMOKED BBQ RIBS?!”
This is probably a really stupid comment, but: is there any way you could buy a (used, perhaps, if money is an issue) elliptical? I know so many people for whom that is the Magic Exercise Strategy (although slightly more whose Magic Exercise is dance in some form or yoga), and… they are expensive, and large, and either of those reasons might make someone not be able to swing it, but if you *can* but hadn’t had it occur to you: here you go! Maybe you could buy an elliptical! And then get to keep your exercise and the endorphins and your-body-likes-this things, which seem like they are *especially nice* to have right now?
(but: not always possible, and that is fine!)
No she has not. Lol!
I mean Kate Moss
I am open to the possibility that, while she has eaten various foods since, Kate Moss’s tastebuds were tragically taken off in a freak winter-flag-pole-licking injury when she was a small child?
Any one of those foods would change her thinking, surely.
Around here some gyms are renting (including delivery) their equipment. I don’t want to be free with other people’s money, but if you can afford it . . .
Is anyone else haunted by their own appearance? I have so many mirrors in my house. I never noticed that before I left. I can’t cover them up or take them down because I have a daughter who I do not want to mentally terrorize. So instead I spend sooo much time contemplating the circles under my eyes and my new wrinkled and my frizzy hair.
I’ve gained 15 pounds, no question. Food is a comforting coping mechanism and I needed a lot of comfort lately. I didn’t even realize it happened at first, now I am low-key trying to keep it at 15.
Yes. I took a selfie yesterday to memorialize the new worry lines that came to keep the old ones company.
I spend a good portion of any Zoom meeting trying to casually flip my hair in ways that makes it looks less horrible without making it obvious to others on the call that this is what I am doing. My husband isolated for a week due to a two-day fever scare (seems fine now, no idea what he had), and we called each other several times a day via FB Messenger, and sometimes my kids would come up and play with the filters while we talked, and I was so distressed to discover how much I preferred my appearance with some of those “airbrush out the lines” filters. I haven’t looked in a mirror and thought I looked decent since the first week or two of quarantine.
Yes, mirror time! I asked my therapist about body image stuff and she said it’s a pattern in many of her patients, that we’re all at home with more time to notice and critique our appearances. And also, the lack of childcare makes exercise hard but baking and eating easier. I’ve had to buy new underwear because I’ve gained weight. I’m trying not to direct my frustration inward but instead trust my body to do its best in every circumstance. It’s hard!
I found this Yoga with Adriene helpful for body acceptance: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIRgu5FTajA
I (home with a 2, 4, and 6 year old, husband away for almost 3 months now) had not connected the lines between “exercise is harder” and “baking is easier” with my rounder figure, yet, but it makes SO MUCH sense.
Oh my goodness, if I were flying solo with three little ones, I would be freakin’ congratulating myself for baking.
You’re a hero!
Has anyone else read the leaflet “Be Less Crazy about your Body” by Megan Dietz? It’s a 3 or 4 dollar PDF on Amazon. It helped me so much.
Also, Shrill by Lindy something. And Beyond Beautiful by Anuschka Rees.
Lindy West! Love her
You are speaking the words of my heart. The first sentences of your last two paragraphs EXACTLY describe how I feel.
I keep thinking that I need to cut back a bit, that even if weight LOSS isn’t doable now maybe weight MAINTENANCE is… but then just not finding the will to do what needs to be done to cut back. I feel like I WILL reach that point, probably, when I feel like the comfort/pleasure of food is a lower priority than it feels now. But I haven’t reached that point and I wish I could just be okay with it. Obviously there is a cause and effect relationship between eating comfort foods and weight gain but I really just fervently wish I could shut off the parts of my brain that are berating/disgusted and listen to the parts that are saying This is a temporary coping strategy for atypical times.
I read the Intuitive Eating book by Tribole and Resch just a few months before lockdown, and damn if the restrictions of pandemic didn’t trigger some Troubling Food Thoughts. I was worried about eating food (what if we cannot get more of this?), not eating food (save this for another time!), and wasting food (eat all of it! eat before this goes bad!). Food and eating is just difficult for almost everyone right now, everything from comforting through food to being too stressed to eat. Sigh.
I’ve gained 15 pounds, no question. Food is a comforting coping mechanism and I needed a lot of comfort lately. I didn’t even realize it happened at first, now I am low-key trying to keep it at 15.
This is such a strange time for food stuff and weight gain for me too. My already small body relatives are losing weight during quarantine and discussing it. I have been leaning towards a total anti-diet lifestyle which has led to weigh gain, which isn’t easy with so many in my circle obsessing over diet and weight changes. Recently reading Virgie Tovar’s book: You Have the Right to Remain Fat, was like a gift. You might like it. I even got my husband to read it! I’m trying to remember to be gentle with myself. I think I’ll order some new clothes too.
I would very much enjoy a follow up post to this here we can all discuss our current comfort foods. I like reading what everyone else enjoys eating.
I love the things you write about and the way in which you write about those things. I love your readers – so kind to each other, so matter of fact.
I think it’s brilliant that you kept the clothes you liked. And Yes, if I’m going to die in three weeks (or whatever) I don’t think not eating potato chips would make me glad. Nor do I think I would be, on my deathbed, if only I had not eaten those chips! (Six + years and a bag Of chips a day And the answer might be different)
I am a little bummed that your great pants are not so great. I imagine it was more fun to buy some new stuff because you didn’t have to buy an entire wardrobe because you tossed (donated) the whole thing a year ago
Yes!! I too was doing a restrictive style of eating pre-pandemic, because the size I am is physically uncomfortable for me. But I’ve been baking and snacking and feeling no guilt about it. I did slow down on the comfort eating about a week ago when I started to feel blech from the volume of carbs I was eating. My body just doesn’t process carbs very well. But that’s more about respecting what I need to eat to feel good and less about trying to do anything weight related.
I was doing Keto too- until last summer. Relaxing the rules had me up 10lbs, but still in the same size, so I was ok. But then Shelter in place happened and now I’m up another 15 due to comfort foods/eating, and my clothes are getting uncomfortable and I do NOT at all like how I look on the zoom meetings. And I do not like how it makes me feel to be so critical of my own face. And I feel like EVERYONE can see it- and is judgy. I am not sure what to do about it yet- because I have the same thoughts/fears about food scarcity, about needing specific things and not being able to run out and get them, about eating different things than the rest of my family.
I also have daughters, so I am really really trying to model healthy attitudes/choices.
It’s also the only thing that has ever worked to help me keep weight off for any extended period of time.
I’m sorry I don’t have any solutions. I am just in a similar place – and I do appreciate some place to talk about this because in general, I do subscribe to your “diets are boring and uninteresting to other people” philosophy.
Some time ago, pre-pandemic, I noticed I was feeling stress/negative feelings about eating and wondered why. I paid attention one day and noticed that nearly every time I ate something that wasn’t a naked vegetable, I automatically thought, “Oh, I shouldn’t be eating this; it’s too high in calories/carbs/sugar/fat and my body doesn’t need that!” I decided THAT was tiresome and depressing and started making it a point to think instead, “I am so grateful to have such a delicious variety of food to eat!” every time I eat something. Not only did my stress about eating go down but my stress level IN GENERAL went down.
Great advice!
Oh man, you have your head screwed on SO well, and it’s so cool to see that someone can have successfully lost weight and still be that reasonable about it. I have no issues congratulating someone on losing weight if I know they wanted to and they’re happy about it, but FUCK, the Adelle thing – the last article I saw said “well, she looks much healthier and happier in this picture” – REALLY? Like you can tell the FIRST EFFING THING about how healthy she is from a picture? *deep breath*. I am exercising a little more during lockdown than I was before (after a period of illness and injury), but not a lot. I’m not restricting my eating, but I usually don’t, both because I agree that the diet industry is bullshit and because I lack willpower.
Teleworking has shown me that I would be eating better and exercising more if I didn’t lose an hour+ every day to commuting. I am loving getting back on my very old Nordic Track, so much so that I wondered what I would do if mine ever broke, and luckily they still make one model, plus they are available used all over the interwebs (I highly recommend buying exercise equipment used; no one ever sells it because they were using it too much). Also I am getting to watch an episode of something everyone else watched years ago while i do it. And I sleep well.
I think I’ve lost a little weight, but I’m still fat. I don’t have a scale so I can’t be sure, but my clothes seem looser. I’m not pursing weight loss, but I am trying to eat in ways that make me feel good, so we have dinner as a family every night, and there is always something for dessert. I usually eat some of it. I like dessert, and I agree with everyone else, this is the wrong time to make ourselves miserable for weird, societal reasons.
Now if I could just get my husband, who buys most of the groceries, to stop buying stuff we don’t eat. Not on principle, but just because we don’t like them. Things are not so dire that I want mixed vegetables.
Haha – mixed vegetables!! We have a running joke in my family about the time my mil tried to make healthier enchiladas by adding mixed vegetables. Just – no.
My takeaway from all this is that we should be celebrating the joys that we can have in our lives, and if your joy comes from delicious things and wonderful foods, then by all means, you should take that joy. It’s a wonderful reminder that even if we are in a grim and dire season in our lives, it doesn’t need to be joyless. I say, enjoy what you can and what you love. xoxo
I haven’t stepped on the scale and don’t intend to but my clothes fit about the same. However, I bought a pair of jeans (since that’s all I wear now) in the same size, brand, and fit, and they didn’t fit at all. I think I would for sure have to go up a size. Uggggggh. I hate clothes. (Well. I like clothes for lots of reasonable reasons. But you know.)
My neighbor dropped off rhubarb on our porch and I plan to bake with it today. Let us go forth knowing that joy and delight are worth having, whether it’s pandemic time or not.
I am ignoring the scale completely, but am checking my blood sugar numbers twice daily. I had one really scary number on a day when I ate tater tots with dinner AND a brownie for desert. Otherwise, it’s been fine.
Reminder that bodies often gain weight in stressful situations, no matter how much dieting we do, because our body doesn’t know why we are undergoing psychological stress and is saving up stores for what it is sure is the inevitable scarcity of food.
When we are all feeling less stressed, our bodies will be willing to let go of those stores of fat, particularly into exercise. But it might be wise NOT to limit intake, or it will just prove that the body was right to store it.
Or so a nutritionist once told me.
p.s. regarding buying larger clothes, I have been amassing a hoard of book-related graphic t-shirts in 2x and 3x sizes and they make me very happy. Again with the notion of joy and delight.
Ooo, I want to know which ones you chose!
I have an Edward Gorey Gashlycrumb Tinies t-shirt. I have several from Out of Print (not all of theirs come in large sizes, but a lot do!) From that site, I have a Little Women tee, a Hungry Caterpillar tee, and an Anne of Green Gables tee. I have I think three from ModCloth as well, with different bookish designs. My favorite one has a little ghost with glasses, sitting on a pile of books, and it says “Boooooook Club”.
I think I need a library-related one next.
A few years ago, I had a weird throat condition where I suddenly couldn’t swallow easily. I always felt like I would choke. I lost 35 lbs pretty rapidly but I was miserable. Still, I was happy to be thinner. Which is effed up…
After that I was hit by a truck and my throat suddenly got a lot better and combined with limited mobility i gained alllll of it back. Then I joined ww and lost 30 lbs and then I quit and gained most of it back, and so has been the cycle of my life. That was my 4th or 5th round of WW, not to mention all the other diets I’ve tried. I’m just so tired of it.
I decided to quit dieting and restricting food. I’ve gained weight this quarantine but I’m trying to learn more about the “health at any size” movement. I’m currently reading Anti-Diet. I still want to lose weight, but I’m trying to focus now on just accepting my body, loving it and doing things that are healthy but not just for weight loss sake. It’s a lot harder than I thought it would be so I’m struggling. It was easy to quit dieting but the rest of it is unlearning a lifetime of internalized norms.
I had been on a pretty slow and successful weight loss path for about a year before the pandemic. I was doing a food logging thing using MyFitnessPal and a linked FitBit to help me meet the right calorie targets. It was working– I ate pretty much what I wanted, including quantity-limited cookies/ice cream, etc. I had made it past my first goal (upper end of normal on the BMI chart) and had set a slightly lower goal (middle of normal on the BMI chart).
I’d bought a lot of chocolate chips prior to lockdown, though, with the plan of baking the way I did pre-pandemic– I usually baked a double-batch of cookies which were kept in the freezer except for the ones that were considered on deck for the week. What happened, though, was that we (and especially I) just ate the chocolate chips by the handful. And any cookies that were in the freezer got eaten straight from the freezer. When I thought about logging and weight monitoring, I couldn’t muster the energy or interest. It just felt so irrelevant. And there were so many more pulls on my time and attention.
What I’ve done to at least slow the weight climb is to not replenish the household chocolate supply and quit baking sweets. I’ve switched to store-bought cookies for the rest of the family, but picked ones I’m allergic to.
Our state has been partially reopened for a few weeks now, and in the last few days I started weighing myself and logging what I’m eating again. It feels like just going through the motions, but I’m telling myself that going through the motions is good enough: I don’t have to feel like it matters to do it anyway.
I wish I could pry myself out of this mental state. I think for me, it’s the bigger problem.
I know that the only reason I haven’t put on more weight is because of the whole “muscle weighs more than fat” thing. I’ve REPLACED nearly all my nice strong heavy muscles with squishy fat, and then added on some additional fat for good measure.
2018 to 2019 were hell. Several family deaths, child behavior issues, etc. I coped with large amounts of sugar as food aside from whatever I cooked for family dinner. I was heavier than I was pregnant. Now for 2019 into 2020 the year has been much better. A new diagnosis and proper treatment in addition to the major reduction in family related stress has decreased my candy consumption to “treat” levels. I think it’s gotten more notice from friends and family since we aren’t seeing each other every day or so so it’s more noticeable. But it’s odd to hear the comments about losing weight in quarantine when others point out that they’re gaining. It feels like I have to explain the diagnosis and meds being a major factor. And then how to explain just how terrible the last year was in comparison to now without sounding like I’m downplaying the awfulness of quarantining.
So here’s my story: at the beginning of January I went on a diet, a real, official one, where I count calories and weigh myself daily, for the first time in my life. By the time quarantine hit I was down twenty pounds… and no one seemed to notice! No one remarked on it! Not even the hyper-body-aware friends I have at the gym, where I wear form-fitting shorts and tank tops to work out. I don’t really want people to be too enthusiastic in a way that underlines how heavy I’d gotten (I peaked at the weight I was when 38 weeks pregnant previously), but SOME ACKNOWLEDGEMENT that all my effort was noticeable would have been nice.
Since the lockdown I’ve let myself have a lot more treats, and go a little higher than my calorie target for the day, but almost always stay under 2000 calories. I’m probably averaging 1600-1700 on most days. And it’s been enough to keep creeping down about a half pound a week. BUT I realized only recently that this current lifestyle of working at home and hardly leaving the house isn’t going to change back to “normal” any time soon – almost certainly not until there’s a vaccine and most of the population around here has had it – and I’m going to have to get used to dealing with being more sedentary (I literally sit up, pull my laptop over, and start working during the week, rather than having to do all the bustle and movement required to get to work), and having constant access to my fridge and pantry, and if I really want to reach my goal before Christmas I’ll need to ease back on the sugar and snacking, and build in more physical activity. Thank goodness it’s starting to finally warm up here!
Oh by the way, a male coworker changed his diet habits during lockdown and lost 20 lbs. And even though all we can see of him is his face on a Zoom call, and he has a beard, one of our team members pointed out how he looked like he’d trimmed down and how great he looked and everyone verbally patted him on the back.