Unemployment and Weight Gain

There are a lot of not-so-great things one can associate with unemployment and job searching. There's the lack of money, feelings of worthlessness, general hassle of always "looking," anxiety from waiting to hear from a job, never feeling completely settled, and having to explain to people that you still, yes still, do not have a job. But the one that seems to really stick (even in a literal sense) is the weight gain. Of course, not everyone deals with this one negative. I have heard that there are people, some who I know closely, who actually lose weight when stressed. Unfortunately, even when my stomach is upset I can still manage to force down ice cream. I am one of those lucky people who can be described as a stress eater.

Those of you who know me well, or at least check my facebook statuses, know that I'm pretty active. Here's me just this past memorial day finishing a marathon, for heaven's sake:


Now, you'll note that I'm not exactly tiny in that picture. I have never been a small person. Even after I lost a bunch of weight about seven years ago I wasn't a size four or anything. I have always been curvy and ever since I started doing crazy things like running marathons, I've had a lot of muscle mass. (I mean, just look at that thigh!) So sometimes it's difficult for me to notice when I've started to put on the not-so-great weight. I had noticed that some of my pants were awfully tight. But that wasn't a big deal since I have other pairs of pants. However, it did send some warning signals. And I also have been feeling, well, heavier during my exercise classes. So I had some idea of what was coming my way before stepping on the scale this morning. I just didn't realize to what extent I had gone over the deep edge. Whoops.

This isn't exactly new territory for me as I have lost weight before. But myself at 29 is a little different from myself at 22. For one, I have a lot more muscle than I did back then, so I know a lot of my weight isn't really bad. I also am now teaching and have noticed that reducing calories turns me into Miss Viola Swamp:

But probably the most important reason is that I now feel really comfortable in my body. Back when I was younger, I was able to lose a lot of weight because I berated myself on a daily basis. I hated my thighs and my arms. I was grossed out about any flab I had. It was a powerful motivator and helped me lose over 20 pounds. But I have a hard time believing that I was really helping myself in the long run.

These days, I have a really hard time buying into all the "Lose weight now!" and "Shed pounds and find your inner beauty" campaigns. Maybe I'm getting soft in my old (hah!) age, but I have decided that there is far too much focus on physical appearance in our culture. Why do I need to starve myself to fit an image that society tells me is right? Will it really help me to get so obsessed with food that I write down everything that I consume? Do I need to start hating my body in order to push myself to exercise until it looks like some ideal I have in my head?

My conclusion is that, yes, I should probably lose some of the fat I have gained. I have probably eaten way too many sweets lately and haven't really monitored myself. I'll cut back on the unnecessary stuff. It is easy to think that a hot chocolate or cupcake will make one feel better when facing so much rejection day to day. But overall, it just made me weigh more. So I'll eat less of that. But I'm not going to lose a lot of weight. I just can't bring myself to feel that way again.