Everyone Else is Doing It
My theory as to why you should DEFINITELY gain weight this season
I know it sounds facetious, but it isn’t.
I’m drinking a quart of home made eggnog every night, and no one can stop me.
I’m also DEFINITELY not working out.
In the delightful carnival of celebratory gatherings this month, we have been filling our bellies with all manner of roast meat, yummy bready baked goods, caramelized slow cooked veggies, and thick heavy deserts. I eat past the feeling of full because it feels good and I want to. We get into bed around 7, or sometimes earlier, as we live mostly by candlelight and don’t own a couch, and we sit and craft or snuggle and sleep. We drink heavy cream and chaga, hot chocolate, bake cookies, and move very, very slowly.
We rest. And eat. And rest. And eat. And rest.
And yes, of course, my body is healing, restoring, relaxing, gathering nutrients and energy and abundance into itself. I’m softening, rounding out. I’m *gasp* GAINING WEIGHT. *screams in horror*
Almost a full decade into recovery from every eating disorder under the sun, including “Paleo”, “Ancestral”, and “Clean Eating”, somehow the little demonic voices still try possessing me. It begins with little whispers…
“Hmmm… a little pudgy around the waist…. maybe you need to start working out, stop eating as much…”
“Yep, I can see you’re getting chubby… tomorrow you need to get back on track…”
“You need to make sure you wear loose clothing for any pictures… you don’t want people to see how disgusting you’ve gotten,,,”
It is terrible, once you bring it into the light. How abusive these demons are. How many of us have some version of these voices speaking violence to us in the background, especially during this time of the year? How many of us grew up going to family gatherings where our grandmas and mothers and aunties all punctuated every meal with side quips of “After the new year I’m gonna start dieting again” or “Oh I know I’ve gained so much weight, I need to get on back on the treadmill”. How many times did you sit down to a gorgeous meal of magickal beauty, about to dive into glorious feasting, and hear one of the older women say something like “I really shouldn’t be eating this! It’s gonna go straight to my butt.”?
It seems to be an accepted part of dominant culture that the women are supposed to shame themselves publicly for eating normally, and then announce to the family not to worry, because they will work hard to be “good” again.
I get angry to think of it now, how my little girl self was so pure, with no awareness of my body or how it looked at all, until the older women planted a deep, all consuming fear of fat and weight gain inside of me. Of course I can have compassion for them, knowing the prison that they lived in of yo-yo dieting and self loathing and insecurity. I lived it too, because they passed it on to me. I remember clearly becoming hyper aware, that I too, should be watching my weight. That I too, should “not be eating” the lovely, delectable, heavenly deserts. That I, too, should start dieting after the new year, and that everyone around me probably saw how fat I was.
We should have been blessing our food, giving thanks to the nourishment it provides, should have been feasting on Love and Joy and Celebration. Our energies could have been given up to the divine rituals of these holy days. Instead, I learned to infuse every bite with guilt and shame, and then later punish myself by dieting and exercising into oblivion.
I’ve worked really hard this last decade to banish that conditioning from my life. I rarely ever have the body shame voices anymore (they aren’t my thoughts, they are demonic entities from the over-culture). I never, ever restrict food. I’m completely, totally recovered. And yet, I’ve been hearing these faint little whispers trying to convince me otherwise…
So I’m here to shout from the Christmas-light covered rooftops: GAIN THE FUCKING WEIGHT.
