Stress While Gaining Weight Guide

Let’s talk about a scary phrase: weight gain. It stands to reason that gaining weight might feel frightening, disheartening, and stressful. It is, however, the nature of the human body to fluctuate based on a variety of factors, so learning how to handle stress over gaining weight is part of learning how to live well in partnership with your body. 

Weight-gain stress: Totally normal, totally distressing 

Once you’ve experienced struggle with food, body image, and health, the number on the scale can mentally represent a lot more than just the size of your body, and losing weight can feel like the ultimate achievement.

If you’re titrating off your meds, weight gain can feel especially loaded. Letting go of those meds is scary, and it’s normal to feel hypervigilant about sliding on your progress. At the same time, your body is adjusting physically to operating without GLP-1 support, and as in any transition, it’s typical to experience some temporary fluctuation as you readjust. Put those two things together (a Big Fear and a reality-based trigger for that exact fear), and you may find yourself facing down a sizable stress storm if you gain a little weight.

If you’ve had any experience with toxic diet culture (which most of us have), you know that within that paradigm, the way we are taught to respond to weight gain is to panic and starve ourselves. But the human body doesn’t respond well to that kind of treatment—if those tactics worked, diets wouldn’t be so ineffective and traumatic for so many people.

To look accurately at metabolic health progress, take the long view

Weight is an easy-to-measure value that offers good insight into trends over time, but in the short-term (like days and weeks), weight changes in either direction aren’t necessarily indications of body mass changes. Just like we know that we aren’t heading into an unforeseen ice age when a cold front drops the temperature for a few days, we need to recognize that weight is limited in its ability to reflect nuanced reality. 

Still, if you’re steadily gaining weight, the first step is always to double down on your tracking and put on your body-scientist hat, using the data that you track to examine potential root causes for weight changes. And as you do this, here’s the thing: it’s okay. You haven’t lost your progress, you haven’t thrown anything away, and you still don’t need to panic. It’s time now to really trust the process, to lean into Calibrate values like tracking, mindfulness, and accountability, and to believe in you and your team’s ability to stay the course.

We’re obviously here with you at every step. If you’re in coaching, you and your coach will have 1:1 time to discuss how things are trending and actions you can take to help tighten the screws on your metabolic health habits. And no matter where in the program you are, our Medical Team has access to your data (again, this is why tracking is so important. It’s the way they see how things are going), and they’ll be able to determine if adjustments need to be made to your medications (or, if you’ve titrated off, whether you might need to go back on for a period of time).

Gaining a bit of weight in the process of losing ten percent of your body weight is like charging something to your credit card while you’re trying to get out of debt. Big picture, it’s not the direction you’re trying to move in, but it is neither catastrophic nor unexpected. You can continue moving, with calm confidence, in the direction of your long-term goals, knowing that progress is rarely seen in a straight line. With Calibrate, you can rely on the power of science (we know this works—we’ve researched and proven it) and the safety of a team; we’ve got your back, and we won’t let you slip through the cracks.

Tips and tricks for managing weight-gain stress

The first thing to do about weight-gain stress is to know that it’s normal, and everyone gets past it.

Starting from a place of acceptance that you will, from time to time, experience minor weight gain and that you will sometimes experience stress around it is honest, realistic, and grounds you in a fair expectation of what’s to come. From that stance, you can try out these practical tactics for how to reframe your thinking, take action to manage your stress, and focus on the very real progress that you’ve already made. 

Reframes for weight gain

o   Be a scientist: Instead of thinking of weight gain as failure, think of it as information. As the scientist of your body, what does this weight gain tell you? What will you do with this information?

o   Thought experiment: How would you respond if you 100% trusted the process and knew in your bones that weight fluctuations can be part of succeeding? How is your anxiety serving you, and how is it holding you back?

Stress management actions

o   Move a muscle to change a thought: Movement is an immediate and powerful antidote to stress. Get out of your head and into your body by spending a few minutes in the form of movement that brings you genuine joy—walking, dancing a little to a song you like, or playing with your dog or kiddos. 

o   Get into gratitude: Gratitude is a fast and introspective way to shift how you feel about any situation—even if you can’t yet change the situation itself. Start by making a list of the ways your body has changed for the better since you started working on your metabolic health, and be super specific. If you love being able to get out of your favorite chair without your back hurting, put that on the list along with improved cardiac health.

Reality-revealing practices 

o   Turn to tracking: To reassure yourself that you’re trending in the right direction, long-term, look at your weight tracking data. Notice what’s changed, drawing a straight line from your starting numbers to today. Disregarding the smaller hills and valleys, notice how you’re moving toward your big-picture goals.

o   Look at the data: If you’re worried that you’re going off the rails, look at the cold hard facts (as represented in your tracking data). Have your red foods gone up recently? Have you been struggling with sudden insomnia? Knowing the source of the change can ease anxiety by giving you a concrete area to focus on.

We’ve got you

Calibrate is a partnership between you, your team, and your body. The work we ask you to do—changing your behaviors, shifting your thought patterns, learning new tools—is tough and worthy. When it comes to weight-gain stress, remember that our end of the partnership is education, support, and an assurance that if you do the work, you’ll lose at least ten percent of your body weight. We’re not just cheering for you, we’re supporting you with real research and real results, every step of the way. So, if you don’t see exactly what you want when you look at the scale, don’t you dare despair. Look to yourself, and us, and look forward; we’ve still got a lot to do together.