Frightened of slim?

I have always tended to gain weight in periods of emotional difficulty and distress. When I am happy – or, even, just not excessively miserable / stressed / anxious, I maintain without even having to think about it. I’ve been doing a little bit of navel gazing recently because I am genuinely intrigued as to why this is. The brain makes very powerful connections that sometimes we’re not aware of until we start picking at them.

Firstly, and most obviously, “comfort eating” is a thing because of chemical reactions in the brain caused by certain types of food. And, equally, the reason most of us have particular foods that we turn to in times of need is because there is some sort of happy association – possibly with childhood. But I’ve recently started to wonder if, for me, there’s another element to it – which is, on some level I think that being overweight is a safer, happier place than being slim.

When I was growing up I was a plump, clever teenager. I was surrounded by a nice group of likeminded friends and a loving, supportive family. I was bookish and musical. I didn’t really have boyfriends or, indeed, much interest in boys at all until I was quite a bit older. I was happy and fulfilled; I never thought of myself as one of the pretty, popular set but it didn’t particularly bother me. Except, of course, the media (even back then) bombarded young girls with the idea that being slim is the only acceptable aesthetic and so, probably even without really thinking what the outcome would be or why that outcome would be desirable, I dieted. I got thin.

Here’s the kicker though – I don’t think that being thin (and when I was seventeen / eighteen I was actually thin rather than slim) ever made me any happier and, in fact, the constant restrictive eating and the battles with my concerned parents and teachers combined with A-levels and university entrance interviews made life really rather stressful. I started to regain weight.

A few years later, I lost it again. Now I was in my early twenties and at my first job fresh out of university. I worked in a warehouse office, answering phones to delivery drivers (oh, the glamour!). It was a very aggressively male environment. I was young, I was female, I had a habit of dressing slightly provocatively (you can take the girl out of Essex…) and for the first time in my life I found myself the serious object of male attention. Looking back, I think that I was terrified and utterly out of my depth. I constantly felt that I was playing at being the cheerleader when really I wanted to run back to the library and hide. Again, it was not a happy time for me. When I met D and settled down with him, the weight began to creep back on – and I do wonder if, in part, it was my subconscious’s way of saying that I was now “off the market”.

It’s surely no surprise that, if the two main periods in my life when I was slim were both unhappy ones, I might eat not just to make myself feel better in the moment but to maintain a status quo that, on some level, I think will bring me more happiness? I’ve never really thought of that before, but it does make sense.

So how to overcome this? I think my current approach of focusing on the health aspects rather than the aesthetic ones is the right course for now. I also think that I need to ensure that any goal setting is health related rather than predicated on an aspirational dress size. There will be no skinny jeans or bikini hung on the back of the wardrobe door (although, in all honesty, I think I could get down to 8 stone and you wouldn’t see me in a bikini. I have never been comfortable with the idea of essentially wandering round the beach in your underwear. And I never go to the beach. So…)

The most important thing is to be alert and aware. Back when I was doing CBT a few years ago, my absolute favourite phrase was “Hold your stories loosely”. It means that we are all capable of change, of rewriting our own truths. So what steps can I take now to convince my brain to disassociate being slim with being scared and miserable? Answers, as ever, on a postcard!