Guest Author

There are times in a woman’s life when, without necessarily eating anymore, their body seems to experience a fat spurt:  puberty, pregnancy and menopause.  And even though it’s expected for a woman to gain weight during pregnancy, it often feels very scarey for the body-conscious woman.  Ask me how I know???  When I had fell pregnant, my swelling belly both fascinated and petrified me, I was quite convinced I’d forever be the size of an elephant.

There are times in a woman’s life when, without necessarily eating anymore, their body seems to experience a fat spurt:  puberty, pregnancy and menopause.  And even though it’s expected for a woman to gain weight during pregnancy, it often feels very scarey for the body-conscious woman.  Ask me how I know???  When I had fell pregnant, my swelling belly both fascinated and petrified me, I was quite convinced I’d forever be the size of an elephant.

But recently I shared this entry with my web-based chat group (it’s free if you wish to join): 
“After years of being pretty much at one weight and still fitting into the same jeans I did 10-12 years ago, without eating any more or body-funning any less, I suddenly had a fat spurt……  I've also noticed hot flushes and night sweats, along with growing a walrus moustache and chin hairs too – (made only more prolific by my attempts to wax them because once again some advertisement conned me into doing what increases them so I’ll need their product more).... and my menstrual cycle is changing.”

Countless women write to me around the time of menopause worried because while their eating habits don’t seem to have changed, they seem to have had a sudden fat spurt. “What’s going on?”, they want to know?  “How can I lose this weight fast?” (Sadly, these questions always seem to be tinged with a sense of franticness).  What’s going on is that this is a time of life (just like at puberty) when our natural biology and our cultural expectations seem to be in opposition to each other.  Cultural expectations?  Yes, you don’t have to look far in order to find a 60-year old sex diva with the body of 30 year old and so we internalize that this is how we are meant to look!  Our body, eve n late in life, is something to be forever-monitored and worked on.  Gone are those cuddly granny-like figures with full bosoms and soft laps, now the glamour gran is ‘in’. It’s all too easy to forget that behind the images we see are thousands of dollars spent on nips and tucks and lifestyles where personal trainers and chefs are the norm.  We don’t seem to be able to accept that at menopause our biology is only doing what it does naturally.   With our sex hormones a-changing, bodily changes come about too.

This isn’t a time to become frantic and weigh yourself constantly.  Instead this is a time to sit back and watch.  It’s a time to become curious, look for other bodily changes as well and to ask yourself what your body is trying to tell you.  It’s a time to make sure you’re keeping fit, because fitness is a better health predictor than fatness. When you adopt this approach, what happens is that you feel calm instead of frantic.  The feeling of calm allows you to let the process unfold instead of being lured back into Diet City.  Don’t consider gaining weight a disaster –just think of it as being a message from your body.  Your self-loving action isn’t to go on diet – it’s to decipher what you body is trying to tell you about what’s happening to your biology.  As for me, I know that diets are the best route to fatness and I know that without a single doubt… I know that it’s much easier to make friends with my biology than to fight against it. 

Cari Corbet-Owen is the author of Mind over Fatter

And if you want free support to live diet free you can go to Overeaters Anonymous or www.mindoverfatter.co.za or http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Mindoverfatter/