Relationships and Food
A Bad Breakup Made Me Gain Weight
3 questions I had to ask myself to lose it
If I’m honest I can’t blame my weight gain entirely on food. It was kind of a joint venture. Cabernet meets chips. Pinot Grigio meets peanut butter cups and Rose…I like to say Rose never met a stranger.
I used to be a party girl.
Before a bad breakup forced me into social hibernation.
The party girl didn’t date junk food on her nights out. She ate a yummy meal, talked too much to finish it, drank wine, and danced some of it off.
But the bad breakup up girl…
The one who no longer felt like partying. She thought a glass of wine at home seemed like a really good idea. By the second glass of wine, Cheetos sounded like an even better idea.
Healthy food looks so good in pics, doesn’t it?
Like the pretty Instagram images. But it takes a lot of effort. All that cutting up of vegetables and all. The kinda energy reserved for a party girl who likes to throw actual parties. Formerly known as me.
Popping open a bag of Tostitos is much less work. Easy peasy. Shove a chip in and force the emotion down further. Is it the best way to cope? Of course not. But a five-year breakup will drive a girl to do things she might not have normally done.
Only one day the Cheeto dust finally settled.
And it is getting harder to keep staring down the past few years in a mirror. It’s what I refer to as thirty pounds of ‘Ralph.’ Name changed to protect the not so innocent who converted me into a bad breakup girl.
The weight is a reminder of a time I have emotionally abandoned but oddly, have physically protected.
I want my outside to match my inside. The resurrected party girl is ready to cut up all those vegetables again. But hibernation pounds are not lost by produce alone.
One actually has to move their body.
I have good intentions. Just no follow-through. Gone are the four days a week, weight lifting, treadmill, bikini-wearing me of yesteryear.
Recently I was waiting near the elevators in my building. The annoying kind with mirrors that present your entire being back for your review. My beautiful young neighbor was standing beside me chatting about a great new exercise class.
I sheepishly admit to her I am carrying ‘thirty pounds of Ralph.’
A part of me doesn’t want to come out and play in this body. So I make excuses as to why I’m not going to the class. Certainly, there is nothing logical about what I am saying. And I know this.
“Oh, you gained happy weight,” she says.
Her words catch me off guard.
I am drawn in by her optimism.
She is correct. It is happy weight. I have my hard-fought freedom. My do-over. My new beginning.
As writers, we pride ourselves on being vulnerable. Writing about things other people only whisper about.
But even we have secrets.
The things we don’t want to write about and the pounds I gained are some of them.
I understood ‘happy weight.’
I had met it before.
When I went off to college and gained the freshman fifteen. When I got married and blissfully cooked my newlywed heart out. And when I was pregnant and about to meet the three great loves of my life.
I also understood ‘unhappy weight.’
The one that snuck up on me during a fashion year of leggings when I was only twenty-eight and lost my mom. And the kind that manifested not initially from an unhappy marriage but in the years I fought to free myself.
I needed to ask myself 3 questions to lose it.
- Why and when did it happen?
I didn’t strictly gain weight because of unhappiness. My weight had only fluctuated five to seven pounds in those years of marital struggles. I started gaining steadily in the years I could not get away from a man.
A five-year divorce where my world was upended and made chaotic.
Unhappiness didn’t make me pair Pinot and Peanut Butter Cups, a sense of being out of control did. I now knew the cause.
2. Why did my weight gain continue and why couldn’t I lose it?
Once I asked myself this question I knew the answer and it was simple.
I should have asked for more help.
But when you are going through a traumatic and extended breakup it’s hard to think between the stress and grief.
There were many people willing to assist me but a part of me thought I needed to figure it out on my own. I accepted some help and refused much more. I should have told my family and friends what I needed to gain some type of order back in my life.
I should have asked for help with a few healthy meals, an exercise buddy, help with legal paperwork, and more. They were all there willing. My world would have felt more predictable, less overwhelming, and more in my control.
3. Why did the weight make me feel so bad about myself?
The weight I gained was associated with one of the worst experiences of my life.
Every time I walked out into the world it felt as if I was advertising the depth of my pain. I had made a complete departure from who I was both internally and externally.
Somehow physically it made me feel less able to hide it. And ironically, while my life felt out of control, I lost control of the one thing I could have actually controlled. And the extra pounds only added to my misery.
Asking myself these three questions gave me clarity.
Enough to lose a few pounds of ‘Ralph.’
Because I don’t want to say his name anymore, even the fake one used to protect the not so innocent.
And I’ve sent the chips packing.
They are free to migrate on to other broken hearts and wine companions. To nurse another through emotional hibernation.
Because this party girl formerly known as me is resurrected.