*Disclaimer: I know weight loss, calories, and body image can be triggering for people, if this is you then I’d recommend skipping this post. If you have an eating disorder or are undergoing medical treatment for weight gain or loss, the below doesn’t apply to you.
Losing weight was one of the worst things that could happen to my mental health.
To my productivity. To my creativity. To my confidence. To my self-worth. To my need for external validation. To me as a person.
I grew up a “healthy" child (you have to say this in the desi aunty tone). From early on as a toddler till very recently, there was not a season of my life where I was conventionally thin based on Western media standards. It never mattered to me and I didn’t really care — I had all the confidence I needed in the world to go out there and do my thing. Sure, there were times both in college and in my post-college life, especially after the freshman 15 became a very real thing where I flirted with weight loss & diet culture. I dabbled in calorie counting and restricting myself from foods which ultimately led to losing weight, only to slowly normalize back to my baseline body in a few months. Sometimes this cycle continued.
In my wedding year I remember, unlike most brides, I didn’t care to lose weight or for the big week. It just wasn’t a priority for me, there is no right or wrong here but I just was clear on what I wanted to do. I remember ordering Sakara Life’s bridal program 2 weeks before my wedding because a few coworkers were doing the same before their weddings. Only to end up not eating 60% of the meals because they weren’t satiating and honestly, felt like eating nothing with a couple microgreens sprinkled on top for fun.
Of course the pre-wedding stress did its own thing on my body with a bit of weight loss here and there. I loved how I looked in my wedding pictures and never found myself thinking otherwise. I recognized myself and never once felt the “I wish I looked like that again.”
Now, by no means did I not struggle with my own version of body image issues. A universal shared experience for women is looking into the mirror and seeing things we don’t like. Sure, I wished my hips were a little less wide. Or my round face was a little less chubby. But for the most part, I walked into every room with a sense of self-worth that makes me cry today because I’m so proud of that girl who didn’t quite literally give a shit.
Then came COVID where there was some added weight gain because the world a dumpster fire and cake came to my rescue. Once we were out of the darkest COVID waters, I learned that moving my body actually made me feel better. Especially after being stuck at home all day staring at a laptop. I started to eat more protein and work with a nutritionist. I did the occasional detox cleanse. I moved my body more which led to dropping a couple of those extra pounds. Still I was just me, the same old Arpita that I’ve always known.
If you’ve been here, you know that 2022 marked the start of a hell-ish health year for me with a case of digestive issues, pains, and unfortunate events (more on this here). While I’m so incredibly grateful that this part of my life has sailed into the sunset, it left with me deeper wounds than shifted who I was at the very core.
I lost 25 pounds over the course of 14 months — because I went from eating my regular diet to disordered restrictive eating because I was so scared of what would happen and the pain I’d feel if I ate anything that contained dairy, gluten or sugar. By no means was it sustainable but I needed to do what I needed to do at that point. I was in survival mode. Anyone who knew me was shocked that I’d walk into a restaurant and order a gluten-free pizza with no cheese and just veggies or say no a chocolate-chip cookie, but I could not think past the pain.
It’s human nature to equate weight loss with looking good or better. It’s a saddened reality because I wish this wasn’t the case, especially as I think about the little girls growing up today in the era of Ozempic and Kardashian waist-lines.
Even though I felt broken on the inside, the external validation from the world became addictive, along with a new experience of now all of a sudden looking like the images of what I grew up seeing in magazines. Everywhere I went friends, family, & social media followers commented on how “good” I looked. They were presented with a version of me they had never met before. It was a “new me” on the outside. One that had hollow cheeks, hips that didn’t curve out in jeans, and a flat stomach.
Because the pain of my fissures was so brutal, I used the external validation as something to look forward to. I leaned in. I let it become all consuming and became a version of myself that I didn’t recognize. Prior to this I rarely even stepped on a weighing scale, I can’t even remember if I ever stepped on one growing up. But from Jan 2022 - May 2023, I would check my weight constantly. I’d watch it go down and get so excited. When it fluctuated or went up, I’d obsess over it in my head. I would allow it the power to ruin my day and mood.
This weight loss led to a compulsive obsession with keeping my body “the same”, and became increasingly tougher after I had recovered from my surgery and felt better. None of this made any sense to me and I spent all of last year fighting myself internally to “go back” to where I was. There was no way to sustain a weight loss this drastic when I was eating probably under 1000 calories daily which was unhealthy. I fought myself every step of the way and reached a point where nothing made sense anymore. I wasn’t able to understand why I felt so misaligned both physically but more importantly, mentally. I lost interest in almost all of the things I liked doing. My anxiety skyrocketed. My confidence continued to tanked. Nothing I did felt like a win because I was “gaining weight.”
I knew how miserable, unhappy, and sad I felt that year I lost the weight. It was the darkest of times yet I wanted to be back there? It made no sense.
Today, I’m writing this as someone who has been on a silent healing journey for the past few months. I’ve processed what I’ve needed to. I’ve had really tough conversations with myself. I’ve analyzed and dissected every thought, every feeling, every emotion. I’ve spent countless hours talking to my friends or reading articles and books. I’ve set mental boundaries around conversations about weight, and gone from being triggered by anyone & everything to knowing that there is no escaping weight loss and diet culture, and being ok with it because it is a part of our every day realities.
The drastic weight loss created a monster in me.
Someone I did not recognize. I’ve had to pull myself out of a hole of fixating over pictures or things I wore during that time. And it’s because, up until 2022, I never once felt misaligned with who I was. The world can be an ugly place and it did a number on me, I fell into a trap that has been set up for all of us. One that equates a certain body type with happiness and fulfillment. But what most people don’t talk about is in most cases this means emptiness.
Today, I’m celebrating the happiness I feel, that truthfully felt lost last year. Food is such an integral part of my life and I’ve had to work really hard to get to a place where I can enjoy it without the voices in my head telling me “this is bad.” This doesn’t mean I wake up every single day loving my body. Nor does this mean I’ll never want to lose weight (in a healthy way) ever again. But it means that I’m feeling like myself again, which is something I hold in the utmost importance. Nothing is perfect ever, but I’d never have known this if I hadn’t reached this point. I feel like I’m slowly going back to who I was prior to 2022 — in most cases, we rush to grow up, but in this case, I’m on a mission to learn from the younger version of me who was more comfortable in her own skin.
What I’ve learned?
Losing your sense of self is far more painful than anything else. A few months ago I couldn’t even look into the mirror because I didn’t understand who I was and why so much of my energy was spent fixating on things that were not important in the grand scheme of life. And the switch only flipped when I started to put myself first and understand what I wanted — deep down I didn’t care about losing weight, I was doing it to go back to a place that I felt celebrated in or because it “felt right.”
Do things for you. Whether it’s going on a weight loss or gain journey. Working out. Moving your body. Taking a medication. Whatever it is, it should be your choice and it should make you feel good. You have to do it for yourself and not for the crowd.
If you’re currently in a place of feeling any of this, just know there is far more power in learning to love your body for you and no one else. This isn’t an overnight lesson but one that continues to take shape as the years go on.
We’re all in this together.
Thanks for being here and reading. If you like what you read, please share TMM with someone in your life.
PS - This is a one-woman show, please excuse any minor typos.