You’re Afraid to Gain Weight–A Love Letter to You, Girl

I’m not a touchy-feely person, but if any statement could make me want to jump across the interwebs to give you a hug, it would be this one. 

You’ve worked so hard.

You spent months, YEARS toning that body. You’ve eaten the right foods. You’ve tried to wrangle in the right amount of sleep. You don’t want to be told that now you have to do things to gain weight. The idea couldn’t be any more disgusting to you than if someone had also told you to eat a worm with it. So much of your personality has become defined by going to the gym, being thin, and eating how you eat. You’ve BUILT THIS, and you don’t want to let it go. 

You don’t want to be ugly.

Morbid obesity looms in your mind. Bigger people have a harder life. They struggle to find clothes, move, enjoy the outdoors…You don’t want a life for yourself that brings inactivity and extra weight that keeps you down. You feel that being thin and fit has brought you admiration and positive attention. Gaining weight, in your mind, means that you have to sacrifice being attractive. You started on this journey to become attractive. You want to STAY attractive. 

You’ve cared about your health so much.

You didn’t get into this place of not having a period because you didn’t care about your health. You got to this place because you cared SO MUCH. By being told to gain weight, you feel as if you have to sacrifice caring about your health. Nobody out there in the magazines or on TV ever says to gain weight! “Why would gaining weight ever be a good thing?” you ask yourself. You’re worried about going backwards and about hurting your body. Right now, you’ve done as much as you can to focus on your body to make it the best it can be. 

You have so many things you want to do with your fitness.

Are you working on a new PR, a personal record or best? Trying to get that fastest time? Trying to squat that new high or bench more than your spotter at the gym? Did you want to start biking to work? You like to walk everywhere you go. You like to do your morning workouts. You and your partner are tied by the way you challenge each other. Gaining weight feels like you have to say goodbye to all of this and you want no part of it. 

You finally like your clothes.

Maybe you were like me. Before, you dressed in clothes that you felt “suited” your body, but it wasn’t the style you wanted. Now with this super thin body, you feel like you can wear whatever you want. Gaining weight says goodbye to that little perk as well? No wonder the idea is so unattractive to you.

And lastly, you’ve gotten rid of certain foods and beverages for a reason. 

You’re afraid to introduce any of them again. Bread made you bloat. Meat makes you feel heavy and greasy. The greens were the only way you felt light enough to do what you wanted/needed to do as an athlete, dietician, teacher, fitness mogul, etc. Everybody tells you to eat as many vegetables as you can, so that’s what you do. You know what fruits are high in sugars, so you avoid putting those in your diet. Sometimes you really let yourself indulge in cookies, cake, or candy and you feel sick afterwards anyways. Alcohol? You know it's bad for you. In fact, you have relatives that have gone through Weight Watchers and Alcoholics Anonymous. You don’t want to get anywhere close to that. You’ve protected yourself in the best way you can. You don’t want to be like this person you know named _______________.

But someone has told you that you need to gain weight, haven’t they? It might have been your mom, your bestie, or maybe even your coach. Is it you? Do you have a nagging bit of intuition telling you that you’ve gone too far? Maybe you went to a doctor, and after their five-minute look at you, they said you needed to gain weight over their shoulder as they rushed out the door. Nah, they probably didn’t care to tell you that; they just put you on birth control assuming you’d refuse to change. I hate assumptions. I can do anything I put my mind to and so can you. They don’t get it, do they? They don’t get YOU. They don’t understand all of those thoughts we went through before. They don’t understand your fear or how hard you’ve worked. You want a period, but you’re also not so sure that this gaining weight thing will even work. You’d be giving up so much, and you’re not even positive it would bring back your period or help you get pregnant at all. 

I was you. 

And while I can’t work with you if we don’t actually get to talk, I will tell you what I told myself. 

You figured out how to lose weight—You could do it again. 

You figured out how to workout and meet goals you didn’t think were possible—You could go back and do it again. 

You can figure out how to gain appropriately if you know so much about food and exercise already.

You could figure out how to have complete health if you also gain fertility which would feel pretty dang good, wouldn’t it?

You did those other things. You could do it again. If this doesn’t work, couldn’t you just go back to what you are doing right now?

But what you want…a period? A baby? A new level? Freedom?...it could be on the other side of gaining that weight like they’ve said. So try it. See what happens. You can always go back to square one if that’s really what you want. 

You’ve got this. 

Love, Abby