The Divorce Diet: Why People Should Stop Complimenting Stress-Induced Weight-Loss
By Stephanie Dolgoff, REDBOOK
I can see the tabloid magazine story now: Jennifer Lopez or some other recently divorced celeb is pictured going to work or herding her kids into the car. The headline reads, "Looking good is the best revenge!" and a "source close to the star" is quoted as saying that the ex is eating his heart out with chopsticks over her new, slimmer-than-ever body but that she's too busy shopping for expensive clothes in absurdly tiny sizes to notice.
Yes, well. I'm here to tell you that that's not how it is. Like me, these women are on the divorce diet, and I do not recommend it.
I lost 10 pounds over the course of two months after my marriage collapsed into a heap of steaming rubble. The weight melted away not because I was taking great physical care of myself-quite the opposite. It wasn't willpower; grief and panic filled my stomach, leaving no room for cupcakes. I did the best I could to keep up my strength for myself and my daughters. I exercised to blow off anxiety and keep my mood stable, and I tried to eat. Crying yourself to sleep in lieu of dinner is hardly what a nutritionist would prescribe. But here's the thing: People could not stop telling me how great I looked.
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I found the thrilled, sometimes shrill chorus of body compliments and congratulations more than a little discomfiting. I was not overweight to begin with. I basically lost those tenacious 10 pounds that make the difference between "those jeans make your butt look good" and "your butt always looks good in jeans." Yet from the way people, mostly women, lauded my achievement, you would have thought I'd won the Pulitzer or the Powerball. Many of them had bald envy in their eyes, even as they smiled.
Acquaintances unaware of my personal turmoil wanted to know my secret. Was I training for a marathon? Did I do one of those insane cleanses involving a puke-worthy mix of cayenne pepper and lemonade? Was I eating 15 tiny meals a day scientifically calibrated for my blood type? Did I give up sweets? Wheat? Meat?
No, I'd reply-I'm going through a divorce. Then I'd wait for the commenter to shift gears, offer something like, Oh, that's horrible-I'm sorry. But shockingly often, the focus remained on my body. "Omigosh," said one woman. "You've lost, like, a ton! You're looking hot, anyway." Chatting about someone's body weight is much less awkward, apparently, than addressing the messy, painful parts of real life.
I get particularly peeved when someone already knows the real reason for my skinniness, yet weight is still the focus. If a person died, it would be considered in poor taste to say, Oh, you must be stoked that you got the beach house and the gold signet ring-that's something, right? Divorce is like a death: the end of both the life you were living and the hopes you'd had for the future.
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I know people didn't mean any harm, and when I was in the right mood, I could laugh at the absurdity of it. One colleague, when I told her why I'm thin, made a joke about how, hell, she'd divorce her husband if it meant she could lose 10 pounds-and I rolled with it. ("Ha ha! Yeah, beats counting points, but it's way more expensive than Weight Watchers.")
What I take issue with is the assumption that losing weight is a universal positive, a sign that all is right with a person's world. Slimming down isn't necessarily an achievement worthy of congratulations, or even a good thing. It most certainly is not always the outward manifestation of a fantastic, shiny new life, as ads for weight-loss products imply when the bikini-clad mom talks about how she can now keep up with her kids and she and her husband are going at it like horny teenagers again.
This weight obsession seems to have knocked loose a sensitivity chip in our brains. If it were up to me, I'd launch a campaign discouraging people from commenting upon one another's bodies, no matter the reason. If people stopped making a fuss when we're 10 pounds down, maybe it wouldn't feel so bad when we're 10 pounds up. And we'd all have an easier time keeping the conversation away from what matters least (how our butts look in jeans) and focusing on what matters most: offering true comfort and empathy when a person needs it.
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