I’ve spent so much of this quarantine walking past the mirror, feeling so down on myself. It feels like everywhere I look online, I’m bombarded with the same type of posts. Posts on making sure you lose weight in quarantine, working-out for hours during quarantine, and fearing the “Quarantine Fifteen”. God-forbid you gain a couple pounds, because that’s the end of the world and not the global pandemic happening outside our windows. I understand (and encourage) exercising for your own mental health and to feel connected and good about our bodies, I do it too! However, this fear and shame being injected into women to make them terrified to come out of quarantine looking a couple pounds heavier, or not having lost any weight is ridiculous.
We as women feel as though we owe other people our pretty. It seems like if we are not constantly changing, altering our appearances, and leveling up externally, we are not fulfilling our purpose. We forget that we don’t owe anyone our appearance, and especially not right now. Your body is beautiful the way it is. Take this time spent indoors with yourself to learn about it, look at it, and get comfortable with it. There is so much pressure to come out of this looking the best we’ve ever looked and to have some kind of “glow-up”. Obsessing over our physical appearance isn’t the goal right now, we’re just working on surviving.
Don’t shame yourself or beat yourself up over needing to come out of quarantine looking like you went through a Princess Diaries level makeover. You don’t need to obsess over what you’re eating and how many calories you’re burning to the point where you feel ashamed. These are trying times, and gaining a couple pounds, or not, is okay. You’ll get through this.