Weight Gain During Covid

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Let’s just talk about the elephant in the room that everyone is either beating themselves up about or trying to hide at all cost.

YOU GAINED WEIGHT DURING COVID. Great, so did I! And its’ not a big deal.

Two months in I felt my pants getting tighter and noticed a little extra squish around my belly. And you know what? It’s not a big deal! No moral failure occurred. I am not weak. I am not a bad dietitian. I am a human responding accurately to a stressful situation.

COVID changed several lifestyle factors for everyone very quickly that all promote weight gain. Here are some that I am hearing from clients:

  • Increased Stress

  • Increased Alcohol Consumption

  • Emotional Eating

  • Cravings for Carbs

  • Poor or Reduce Sleep

  • Reduced or Adjusted Physical Activity

Did any of these changes happen to you?

At a very base level what is happening is that as we become stressed our body's release the hormone cortisol (stress hormone). Cortisol then tells the body to mobilize sugar into the blood stream for quick energy. But since we are stressed out just thinking out bodies don’t use the sugar.

Your body isn’t a fan of high blood sugar so it then takes it out of the bloodstream and puts it back in storage aka your fat cells, typically on your abdomen. A connection between stress and weight gain.

This increase in stress also encourages you to seek out carbs, emotionally eat, and reduces sleep quality. With poor sleep your body craves carbs and you also feel more emotional. To reduce stress we often reach for alcohol or high sugar/carb foods.

Starting to notice a loop here???

During this time I am sure that you were on social media comparing your body to everyone else, deciding in the middle of a pandemic that now you were going to “buckle down” with extra time and loose weight, or being bombarded with all of the weight loss adds that seemed to triple over night.

Now here you sit with in your stretchy pants afraid to put on real clothes again, all the while shaming yourself for a lack of willpower.

My advice to you:

  • Stop Shaming Yourself - Never in our lifetime have we had a pandemic that shut down the world. So you gained a little weight! I would say due to stress that is a normal response.

  • Recognize This Is Not About Willpower - We can clearly see that during times of stress we start a loop that perpetuates weight gain. The more you try to “buckle down” the more stressed you become which feeds the loop.

  • Realize Your Weight Is Not Connected to Your Worth - Your weight is just your weight. It does not tell anyone if you are a good person or worthy of love. It only tells us how many cells, microorganisms, and particles make up or are in you.

  • Come Back To The Basics - We all know what we need to be healthy happy humans! Sleep, movement, nutritious foods, and community. Start with one area and see how you can refocus your habits back to you feeling healthy

  • Stop Triggering Others - So many people on social media or in friend groups are shaming their bodies. Talking as if they have failed. When you do this you are not only hurting yourself but also potentially the person who is listening. Let’s spread some self acceptance.

I hope that by now you have realized that you are not a failure if you again weight during COVID. You had a normal stress response that can easily be redirected.

Let’s take the next few months to lift ourselves and others up. Let’s talk positive about our bodies instead of shaming! Because your weight does not determine your worth.