Musings: The Thing About Gaining Weight

Ah, weight gain! It's a right bitch isn't it?

I'm pretty sure you've only come on my blog because you yourself have struggled with weight loss, so I'm assuming you've experienced weight gain. If that's true, then I'm sure you'll relate to a few of these points. If not, then maybe it'll give you some insight into what it's like.

Regardless, weight loss/gain is bloody difficult, and if someone can figure out the magic cure that would be fan-bloomin'-tastic. 

It doesn’t happen overnight

They always say you didn’t gain the weight overnight, so you won’t lose it overnight and it’s true. You don’t just suddenly wake up one morning three stone heavier because you decided to do two for one Dominoes all to yourself the night before (although it often feels like it). No, gaining weight is actually a slow process. It’s slow enough that often you don’t catch it in time (lol to me making it sound like some sort of disease, it’s not), you don’t notice you’re gaining weight until you’ve gained weight. It’s a weird one. I have said countless times before that I won’t ‘let myself’ gain weight again, but lol, I have. And each time you don’t seem to realise it’s happened until you’re crying in a changing room wondering if they’re going to have to call the fire brigade to come cut you out the clothes you’ve tried to squeeze yourself into.

People look at you with sympathy

The people that are the first to comment on you losing weight are the first to look at you with eyes full of sympathy when you gain it back. They obviously won’t say anything (unless they’re really cruel, or a concerned loved one), but they’ll give you the look. The ‘poor fatty is back again’ look. Every bite of food you take in front of them makes them wince as they hold back the “should you be eating that” comment. It’s enough to make you want to stay inside all day, which you do as much as you can.

Your head is stuck/rebelling against diet culture

No matter what you eat, you feel bad. If you eat a chocolate bar you hate yourself because you’re just adding to the weight gain, but if you eat an apple you’re pissed off because you’re fed up of eating apples and apples don’t taste like chocolate bars. Most likely you’ve been on a ‘diet’ for as long as you can remember, and you forget that food is just food.

You lose all motivation

At some point, you feel like you’ve hit the point of no return. You continue to think fudge it and just eat whatever you want, whenever you want. Usually when you’re not hungry, but just need ‘something’. Fruit and vegetables become the devil, because what’s the point of eating them when you’re just getting fat anyway. You half-heartedly try to exercise, but then think what’s the point. Basically, the fatness funk takes over.

Nine out of 10 times you end up bigger than when you started

I mean, this is basically just scientific fact, right? Because although you may be gaining weight, you always have that safety net of ‘I’m not as fat as I was’. But then suddenly, you are as a fat as you were, then the next thing you know you’re even fatter. And apparently, you have to reach that size for the lightbulb to turn back on that makes you think you need to do something about it.

People are quick to offer words of wisdom

Everyone’s an expert on everything these days. Especially weight loss. Because Aunt Jean’s younger cousin’s daughter lost weight on Weight Watchers, and then Sally’s step-mom’s brother in law Bob lost loads of weight on Slimming World so they know exactly how you can get that weight off again. Plus, have you not heard of fabulous fitness Fred on Instagram who can get you back into shape in no time?

You could open a shop with the amount of different clothes sizes you have in your wardrobe

You literally have loads of clothes and nothing to wear. Because half your wardrobe fit you when you’d lost the weight, and then slowly you’ve had to go up sizes, but because you’re now the heaviest you’ve ever been, there’s jack all in there. Of course, you also chucked out all your ‘fat’ clothes as you were losing weight because you obviously wouldn’t need them again.

Making leggings acceptable to wear out of the house is your new mission statement

See point above with the whole having nothing to wear. And because you’re obviously going to lose all the weight again, this is just a small (huge) blip, you don’t actually buy anything ‘cause that would be a waste. So you either squeeze into clothes that are too small, or you make leggings the height of fashion.

You avoid mirrors like the plague

Because if you can’t see it, it’s not happening, right? But then, when you can’t avoid it, or one creeps up on you – you don’t recognise the person looking back at you. That or you send yourself into shock and end up rocking back and forth in a ball of denial.

Body dysmorphia

This is the real gut churner, and probably the reason you don’t notice yourself putting the weight back on – because you don’t look like that in your head. In your head your still the slim person, you’d become. Clothes shops have obviously shrunk their sizes and the tumble dryer must be playing up again. You’ve been up and down so much that you just don’t notice what other people see. You think pictures are just taken from a ‘bad angle’, that item of clothing just isn’t flattering. But nope, you’re just expanding pal. Which is ironic because when you’re losing the weight, all you ever see is a fat person staring back at you. It really is very fucked up.