My Clothes Don’t Fit

Musings on whether late night snacking is self love or self sabotage

Chips and yogurt in front of the TV at 9pm on a Tuesday is what cigarettes were in my 20s — an act of rebellion, a declaration of independence, a chosen vice amidst an otherwise healthy lifestyle. My addiction to Beanfields chips (Nacho flavor obvi) is a middle finger to always doing the right thing, being responsible, being “good,” being disciplined. Pretty much every minute of my day is accounted for. My color coded calendar differentiates where I am supposed to be for my career, for my relationship, for kids and for myself. I do get “me” time and workout time and intellectually stimulating time. I have help and I have resources and I have an involved co-parent. I eat mostly organic, drink water and call my parents. I’ve got normal stress stuff like everyone else — weird family dynamics, ill loved ones, and finding the words to explain a tampon to my four year old son. I spend a lot of energy thinking, managing, feeling — then thinking about and managing my feelings.

This wasn’t even supposed to be about chips and yogurt.

It’s about the fact that my clothes don’t fit and it feels shitty and it’s doing something unsettling to my mind and my emotions, and in turn I think my mind and my emotions are doing something unsettling to my body.

Gaining weight postpartum or during a pandemic (or postpartum during a pandemic) isn’t particularly a unique problem, but that doesn’t make it any more comfortable. I finally made peace with buying some new jeans that didn’t cut off my circulation, but alas, even those are becoming too snug, a mere four weeks after I finally broke down and bought them. And so I had to sit down and really process what’s been going on with me these past few months, and figure out what this is really about. Because that’s the way I deal with stuff, and the only way I’ve ever known to reset, rebalance and realign.

I was never skinny or petite, but I also never felt bigger than what was right for me. I mean, my 10 year old body looked very different when I stretched alongside tiny things in leotards in gymnastics or ballet class — and I obsessed over my body for what feels an appropriate amount for a teenager raised in an image obsessed culture — but I never felt unhealthy.

I can distinctly pinpoint the handful of times I’ve gained significant weight. There was the first time I left home — indulging in daily baguettes and Nutella and oh my god so much cheese, while at a summer program in Switzerland. Then when I did a semester abroad in Paris. I knew that eating a footlong bolognese panini (have you ever even heard of a thing? It was incredible) every couple days from the bakery around the corner from school, didn’t leave me feeling so great — but hey, I was living in France and who knew when that would happen again. I remember my host mom mumbling “les crêpes, ils font grossir” when I’d come home with a giant Nutella and banana crepe — and my silent response, “let me live my life, woman.” But I eventually came home, ate healthy and worked out, and within a few weeks everything fit the way it was supposed to again.

Then there was the half year I spent living in Paris and traveling Europe, before starting grad school. I had a part-time volunteer position, but my days were generally unstructured and there was an immense sense of freedom, that I sometimes think I’ve been chasing ever since. It feels like a tangent, but it’s not. During those few months, I had almost zero responsibilities, had the time, space and interest to read, stumble into a gallery and get lost for the afternoon, or struggle through a film without subtitles that was starting just as I happened to be walking by the theater. I actually didn’t gain weight those few months. Unlike the gastronomical hoarding we often do on vacations, (Tacos in Mexico! Plantains in Brazil! Croissants in France! Pasta in Italy!), there was a sense of calm and the knowing that while my time traveling would eventually come to an end, I had many days, actually weeks, to fully experience whatever I was meant to. No one rushing me, no one negotiating with me, no one guilting me. I was active, but not in the typical setting I was used to. My workouts overlapped with people watching, sight seeing and linguistic lessons. I traded the Santa Monica Stairs for the steps leading to Sacré Coeur, and yoga classes for laps around Jardin de Luxemburg. I also had bouts of homesickness, loneliness, doubt and heartbreak. But all in, I felt I was fully living and fully feeling.

So back to the chips and yogurt. In my current adulting reality, there is much less freedom and much, much more responsibility. The type of responsibility I can’t quit like a job that wasn’t the right fit. And I always temper that comment with the acknowledgement that I am extremely privileged. I have parents and in-laws who will take the kids for a night or two, when we have an event or need a getaway. I have the resources for childcare I trust and my children feel comfortable with. I have a partner that is very involved in the day-to-day of parenting. I have a career that is flexible and fulfilling. I have enough close friends who get me and make me feel loved. And so sometimes I feel shitty venting about the sudden loss of freedom and spontaneity that has accompanied my journey into parenthood.

Snacking and eating in general has increasingly felt like a weak imitation of joy, freedom, spontaneity and fun.

And for a few months, I thought I had immense allowance for that. I’ve carried and birthed two children, raising one newborn during a pandemic. Eating stuff that doesn’t necessarily “serve me” still felt like it was serving some sort of purpose, and I refused to feel bad about that or restrict myself. That gave way to a whole internal monologue about body positivity and allowance for the natural, inevitable changes we experience as we age and our bodies look, feel and function differently than they did in each of the previous decades of our lives. I found myself repeating the same thing to different friends at a dinner with girlfriends, a mom’s night out, or pickup after a playdate:

“We don’t expect a 14-year-old girl to fit into her 9-year-old jeans — why do we expect our near 40-year-old postpartum pre-menopausal asses to still look good in our favorite pair of college jeans?”

And anyway, how do we define self love? Does loving yourself mean abstaining from the glass of wine because it doesn’t make you feel all that good, and seems to be a socially acceptable crutch that we’ve come to accept as having fun? Or is it having the damn glass of wine, even if you’re in your second trimester and the waiter is raising an eyebrow, because I’m a grown-ass woman, damn it, and I love myself enough to indulge in moderation and not be swayed by anyone’s judgment of it? Can I hold space for both and acknowledge that self love looks different at any given moment?

I shared with a friend that I couldn’t decide if I should buckle down, commit to weight loss and squeeze back in my clothes or accept that this is my new body and fill my wardrobe with things that actually fit. She challenged me that I could and should do both. Love myself enough to have allowance for what my body looks and feels like right now (and dress it up in cute clothes,) while loving myself enough to recommit to my health and envision whatever that looked like for me. And to hold on to my precious size 27 jeans, because having goals is just as valid as body positivity, at any size.

I think I can make peace with that and feel good about a reality where I am near my optimum health for this period of my life. But that’s not where I’m at. Natural changes aside, the truth is I’ve been binging. The label didn’t seem fitting, until I reread the definition and realized that I am indeed binge eating on my couch between the hours of 7:30pm and 11pm. There is no time to binge when I’m having fun. When I trade our 5:30pm family dinner, for an adult dinner at 8pm, somewhere they don’t have a kids menu. When I’m getting dressed for a party. When I’m traveling. When I’m going to an art show. When I have a networking event. When I’m in a Kundalini yoga class or Rumi poetry class. When I’m watching a foreign film in a theater.

And so here I am focused on reintroducing fun to my daily routine, within the confines of pandemic living, and building out pockets of time that can feel spontaneous (even if it requires booking a babysitter in advance.) But I’m also hesitant, concerned that I am continuing to fill some void, just swapping food for activities, perhaps distracting myself from the tough work of truly, deeply grieving a sense of loss for an identity that simply ceased to exist once I created a family. A family that I love, that nourishes me, that pushes me to grow in ways I couldn’t when it was just about me.

But still. I miss the old me and my old life.

How do we mourn that in a way that allows us to fully move on, to redefine joy and fun?

Maybe being honest about it is the first piece.