Laying on the floor playing with my toddler, he noticed my shirt rolled up a bit, exposing my tummy.
"Mama, that's a big belly," he giggled as he flopped down on it for the hundredth time that day.
I winced, but for the first time it wasn't because of the commentary on the size of my body — it was just because my 30 pound, 2 1/2-year-old squished my intestines with brute force.
"I do buddy. It's pretty squishy, huh?"
He cracked up, said "yep," and that was that.
The truth is, my already fat belly has gotten quite a bit squishier over the past 10 months.
Being a full-time working mama of the most energetic toddler, my body went into immediate survival mode. And as a person who has historically not done well with no set schedule and facing daily unknowns, my body produced an unbelievable amount of stress and held on to every single ounce of weight it could to protect itself. Admittedly, the first few months were also very wine and cheese heavy, too.
Without a doubt I've gained 10 pounds, and every single one has stuck to me like glue.
When I first noticed the scale climbing up, I panicked.
Despite trying to focus on my health and not the number on my scale, I couldn't help but feel a twinge of worry over the rising number. I spiraled for a minute, thinking about how I was suddenly on some path that would mean an early and untimely demise since I was already a plus-size woman. I felt guilty for losing "control" over my size. Even though I have been working on body positivity and ultimately, body neutrality, I still felt that pang of "damn, I need to diet."
As it turns out, dieting actually isn't the answer.
According to Melissa Vasikauskas, a registered dietitian whose mission is to help women stop dieting "once and for all," going on a diet puts additional stress on and already stressed out body.
"Your body doesn't know when and if you are trying to lose weight on purpose," Vasikauskas told CafeMom. "Dieting is equivalent to a famine and when the body perceives a famine, a host of stress responses are deployed. Cortisol is released, hormones become out of balance, metabolism slows down, and an inevitable rebound binge can be expected. In a year that was already filled with lots of stress, your body doesn't need any more of it. Focus of eating enough and treating your body with respect. The New Year's dieting messages will pass in a few weeks. Mute them from social media if you have to."
Considering the absolutely tragedy of a year 2020 was, I'm even thankful for the weight gain.
Honestly? It means I'm alive. It means that in a year filled with sickness and sadly death, the "worst" thing that physically happened to me was I got fatter. Mentally and emotionally, I'm so exhausted I think I could outsleep Rip Van Winkle. But physically? I'm still here, many loved ones are too, so my body getting larger isn't quite the tragedy these "new year new you" pushers think it is.
I'm going to go ahead and cut myself a break. I hope you do too.
