Getting Engaged Triggered Disordered Eating Thoughts & Made Me Feel Awful About My Body

Mandy Velez

Content Warning: This article discusses disordered eating and may be triggering to some.

The first time I stepped into a gym since pre-pandemic, the trainer doing intake asked me the last time I felt like I was in shape. I laughed but had an answer: 2017. That was the year that fitness star Kayla Itsines’ workout app was starting to take over the Instagram algorithm with photos of “before” and “after” collages of women who had done her program. I just started a new relationship and was eating out a lot and gained some weight, so I joined. And it worked. I toned up, big-time, and felt super confident.

But over the next few years, I drifted away from that app and fell into a workout rhythm that worked best for me. I vowed to never post a “before” and “after” pic again and I always had room for dessert. I was comfortable with my health and my body.

This is where the essay lede should say, “Then the pandemic hit.” But that really wasn’t the catalyst for the body panic I’ve experienced the last two months. Something else major happened that triggered this anxiety: I got engaged.

I’ve always known that the self-image culture in the wedding world is toxic.

There’s the phrase that some annoying trainer likely came up with, “Sweating for the wedding,” and TV shows like TLC’s beloved *Say Yes to the Dress do not hesitate to highlight the brides who can’t decide on a dress because she’s not confident with her body. But it’s actually worse than I thought. A friend told me the other day that her college town’s barre studio once had a promotion where engaged women could get perks and class discounts — if they could prove it.

Diet culture sucks in general, so I have to admit that I thought that the focus on women’s bodies for their weddings was just another part of living in a fat-phobic world.

I thought I was immune. After all, I had come so far on my own body acceptance journey (that’s what I subscribe to, but have nothing against body positivity!). Why would getting married make that any different? But oh, dear reader, it was different. The minute my fiancé put a ring on my finger, I knew all eyes were on me and my body. After all, my body is me, and I immediately began to wonder what exactly people were thinking about it.

When thinking about all that was to come — the dress fitting, the engagement photos that everyone would see, the actual wedding where I want people to actually look at me — the insecurities I had when I was younger all started to come back.

So did the disordered thoughts around food and my body: obsessive calorie counting, the compulsion to work out until I worked off a meal, the constant body checking, and even fear of getting weighed at the doctor. The funny thing is, I remember exactly when those feelings in me were triggered for the very first time. At 8 years old, I noticed people looking at me. Distant family members felt entitled to comment on my changing body. I’d cross my arms over my chest and pull pillows in my lap to cover any tummy rolls.

When I got engaged, the attention I got, and the attention that I knew was to come, made me assess my body once again. And I feared the comments I’d gotten when I was 8 would come back with it. But as a future bride, there is no pillow to hide behind this time. That made me panic more. I felt sick while booking my first wedding dress appointment. I rejoined that Kayla Istine app, started to weigh myself every day again, and made vows (not yet to my future husband but to my disordered thoughts) that I would fit into my clothes again.

I felt myself falling back into that place, until I went regular clothes shopping with a friend.

I hadn’t planned on buying anything, let alone try anything on. I still felt I (er, my body) wasn’t ready for that. But I saw a cute dress that only came in one size. A size that would likely be the size I’m more comfortable in now, even if it was one up from the one I used to be years ago.

It was the only dress left, though, and I really liked it, so I put it on bracing for a self-esteem blow. But that didn’t happen. Something really cool did, though. The dress looked amazing on me. It reminded me of a meme a friend had sent a few days before. It read something like, “We don’t have to fit clothes, clothes should fit us.” That dress fit me.

I still am trying to live a healthier life, but knowing that I can still feel beautiful at any size, in any kind of outfit, has made wedding planning much more enjoyable.

Instead of panicking or worrying about the judgment, I try to focus on how happy I feel. I will go to my dress fittings and try on the dresses that fit me, and I’m still going to look beautiful. Nothing will change that. And there won’t be any before and after photos, either. Just ones of my fiancé and me, as I am — just as a bride — and loving every minute of it.