How to Deal with Weight Gain After COVID

“Help! I thought I was ok with this change in body and food was a comfort, exercise was off the table, and I figured that nearly everyone was doing it, but now I’m feeling insecure and nervous in my own skin!” Does this sound like a recent thought you may have had? You may also be feeling confused and unsure of where to go from here. Well, I have good news, you are not alone. No matter what our own unique experiences were like during COVID, many of us went through something difficult and found ourselves finding new ways to cope. There are no coping tools that are inherently good or bad and they all serve the purpose of getting us through a tough situation. It is only after long-term use that we can determine if a coping tool is creating the life that we hope to have in the long run. So please, please, please, do not beat yourself up. Every coping tool that we use, whether maladaptive or productive, deserves a “thank you” at some point for helping us get through an unpleasant emotion or situation.  

During quarantine, our options were extremely limited and many of us had to use what was available to us, which was often food. When our bodies and brains experience trauma, especially chronic trauma such as COVID, we turn towards vices that help us with emotional survival. You may have used food while someone else used alcohol, knitting, running, making videos, gaming, or a mix of things.  If your emotions were all over the place, and may still be, while also experiencing fear and uncertainty, the brain will do anything to get its mind off this and ease the body. If your mind chose food and rest/limited movement to help you with your emotional survival…yey, this is wonderful news. Without this who knows where you would be today and how much worse things might be for you. During COVID your body and mind asked, and sometimes demanded, food and rest to relax and you listened. You may not have been capable to use any other coping tool or had the mental capacity to even fathom doing something else, and that is ok.

Whether your body is larger, smaller, or the same you are still the same person. Only now you are someone who has survived a trauma larger than any of us could have ever imagined. Perhaps it is unfair and even irrational to blame or shame ourselves for using a coping tool that got us through a collective trauma where nearly everyone in the WORLD was scared for their survival. Instead of beating ourselves up, we might use this time to say thank you to our mind for keeping us alive. Today is a new day and tomorrow will be a new day as well and so on. Just like your body and mind adapted during COVID and took the actions it needed to take, it will also take the actions it needs to take today and moving forward. Our bodies are incredibly adaptive, and it is ok to trust them. Maybe weight loss is not the answer, and we might stop to think about what we perhaps had to sacrifice before COVID to maintain the weight we were at. Were you sacrificing your hunger needs, friendships, socializing, a slave to working out, damaging organs, obsessively thinking about food, body checking, having irritability and trouble sleeping, skipping events because of food, or negative self-talk? If your answer is yes to any of these then you may consider keeping some of the relaxed mindset that helped during COVID. If this is not your experience, then it is ok to trust yourself and to trust that your body knows what it is doing. Our minds know that our physical, emotional, and mental needs are forever changing, which is awesome! The most important thing is to not deprive your body of the nutrients it needs to perform at its best so you can lead a life that feels nurturing, supportive, and loving to you. Lastly, maybe hug yourself, it has probably been a while. 😊

Your Therapy Corner (Online!)

Can it work for me? I have good news, most likely yes! The pandemic has made many of us consider if online therapy is right for me. In the beginning, I too was wondering if doing online therapy with clients would be effective for them. Luckily, I have found that if you are open to the idea of online therapy, then you are already a good candidate. However, if you know you are someone who has struggled to open up, for any reason, then having the safe space of being in person and feeling that connection, might the best option for you. With time, your comfort with online therapy may improve but it is important to follow your heart and do what feels right. As a clinician, I enjoy doing both!

For those who decide to go the online route, I have seen great results. I have found that the online route can also help people to be more vulnerable than they may in person, perhaps due to the safe space that a screen can create? This option is also beneficial for those who have busy schedules, live far away, have trouble leaving the home, and more. What I can say for sure is that I have seen people grow and develop in amazing ways both in-person and online. I am so happy about this because it opens therapy options for so many people, and we all deserve to get support when we need it!

One Year In: Lessons From a Year of Covid

The last year has brought a thousand ups and downs that have made us feel overwhelmed, frustrated, defeated, and stressed about the future. Things have changed, and then changed again, and then again due to the pandemic. Although we’ve spent the year doing a lot of waiting for a return to “normal” (something we’re still waiting for), we have also learned a lot during this time. Let’s take a moment to pause and consider some valuable lessons from the time of Covid.

THE VALUE OF SELF-CARE

Self-care has been a buzzword for several years now. The idea is to check in with and take care of ourselves. This springs from a two-fold motive: we recognize our worth and we know we have limits. Self-care can look like setting healthy boundaries, seeking therapy for mental health concerns, taking a walk or a nice bath (or both!), and a whole host of other options. The practice of self-care is akin to the instruction flight attendants give during the safety talk before take-off: in the event of a change in cabin pressure, put your own mask on before helping others. 

This era has taught many of us lessons about the value of self-care. The pandemic increased feelings of uncertainty, loneliness, stress, anxiety, and depression in people all across the country. Self-care provides an important refuge from those stressors, creating space for us to identify what we need to get through the hardest days.

HOW TO WORK REMOTELY

Many people dreamed of working from home before the pandemic, but it was never an option for most of us. When COVID-19 first struck the country, many companies had to figure out how to function with the new restrictions. For a lot of people, this meant working from home.

This was new territory for so many of us. Working from home is different than working in an office in many ways, and we had to figure out how to do our best work in these new circumstances. We needed to modify or develop new organization, discipline, and time-management habits to make this happen. Many of us had lots of trial and error as we worked this out in our homes. 

What we think of as traditional “office work” may never be the same again. Many companies have shifted their ideas about remote work and best practices over the last year. Some have decided they’re never going back to the office — or at least not requiring their employees to do so. 

STAYING CONNECTED WHILE DISTANT

Social distancing during the coronavirus pandemic has been hard. Staying connected while staying distant seemed too contradictory to work. In the midst of isolation, many people found new ways to stay connected to our friends, families, and communities. Video-chat hangouts, socially distanced book clubs in back yards, watch parties — we figured it out because relationships matter. 

HOW TO TAKE CARE OF OUR MENTAL HEALTH

The mental health of millions of people took a dive at the start of the coronavirus. Faced with many uncertainties, the rates of depression and anxiety increased substantially in the United States. We’ve had to find ways to take care of our mental health despite restrictions. This led to the huge adoption of teletherapy (also known as telehealth, telemental health, and virtual therapy). We’ve discovered new and exciting ways to take care of our mental health — and our providers implemented those alternatives so they could continue providing much-needed support to clients.

RESILIENCE

The coronavirus pandemic threatened to shake all of us to our core at one point or another. Life changed for everyone. For some, this was incredibly challenging and difficult, but we’ve made it this far. We’ve learned a lesson in resilience during the pandemic. 

We learned how to power through these difficult times together. This has looked like clapping for healthcare workers as they exited their shift, howling at 8 pm, supporting each other, and our patience holding strong as we wait for our turn to get the vaccine.

At the one-year mark, it’s safe to say another thing we’ve learned about resilience is that we have it. “The proof of the pudding is in the eating,” as the saying goes; the proof of our resilience is that we’ve made it through a whole year of these challenges and changes. Put this on your list of “Things I Can Handle If I Have To.” 

HOW TO BE PATIENT 

Through the trials and challenges of the coronavirus, we had to learn how to be patient. Patience is the only option in a pandemic with no end in sight. We’ve had to grow in patience with ourselves as we faced a one-in-a-lifetime situation with no rulebook. Lessons in patience with others have increased our tolerance of others navigating those same hardships (often not the way we would). We stretched our patience to accommodate the natural progression of this pandemic as Covid made its way through the world, scientists developed a vaccine, and people started developing herd immunity. 

EVEN IN TROUBLED TIMES, THERE IS GOOD

Despite all the hardships we’ve faced, we’ve reaped some valuable benefits from this pandemic. The lessons we’ve learned here — about taking care of ourselves, adapting to new circumstances, staying connected with those we love, getting the mental health care we need, fortitude, and patience — have the potential to benefit us for the rest of our lives. It’s a good reminder that even the hardest of times are not without hope.