Oct 8, 2026 · 16 min · 5 segments
Have you ever gained five pounds and felt like you failed as a human being? Not just that you didn't like how your clothes fit, but genuinely ashamed, as if you lacked discipline, self-control, or…
[laughs] It's almost automatically is seen as bad, and losing weight is seen as positive.
We can know people who have lost a lot of weight because they were really sick or they were going through a terrible divorce, and automatically we see people complimenting them, "Oh my gosh, you look so great.
You lost weight." And meanwhile, they're really unhealthy or deeply suffering.
Like, "Oh no, they've let themselves go." And yet they could actually be healing.
And when we are seeing weight this way, it really starts to impact our behavior and how we view ourselves, and not always in the best way.
Because if you are afraid of gaining weight, then you are gonna not let yourself do things that you think might make you gain weight, like enjoying that cake on a birthday or relaxing, and instead you might force yourself to work out or eat something that you don't actually really wanna eat because, you know, it's less calories or whatever it may be.
So I really wanna look at how weight has become totally tied up in morality and our sense of character and who we are as a person.
Weight gain or weight loss in and of itself doesn't mean anything about who you are as a person.
Like I already just said, you could be sick, or for other people, finally being able to be healthy could result in weight loss.
But if we believe that gaining weight means something negative about us, then we aren't actually going to be able to fully listen to our bodies, listen to our desires, and ultimately do what's healthy for us because we are so afraid of being seen or feeling like we're less than as a person, like, as a human being.
But depending on how we look at it, it will either be seen as positive or a negative.
So if it's raining and you were gonna have a picnic, well, that's seen as negative.
[laughs] It's almost automatically is seen as bad, and losing weight is seen as positive.
We can know people who have lost a lot of weight because they were really sick or they were going through a terrible divorce, and automatically we see people complimenting them, "Oh my gosh, you look so great.
You lost weight." And meanwhile, they're really unhealthy or deeply suffering.
Like, "Oh no, they've let themselves go." And yet they could actually be healing.
And when we are seeing weight this way, it really starts to impact our behavior and how we view ourselves, and not always in the best way.
Because if you are afraid of gaining weight, then you are gonna not let yourself do things that you think might make you gain weight, like enjoying that cake on a birthday or relaxing, and instead you might force yourself to work out or eat something that you don't actually really wanna eat because, you know, it's less calories or whatever it may be.
So I really wanna look at how weight has become totally tied up in morality and our sense of character and who we are as a person.
Weight gain or weight loss in and of itself doesn't mean anything about who you are as a person.
Like I already just said, you could be sick, or for other people, finally being able to be healthy could result in weight loss.
But if we believe that gaining weight means something negative about us, then we aren't actually going to be able to fully listen to our bodies, listen to our desires, and ultimately do what's healthy for us because we are so afraid of being seen or feeling like we're less than as a person, like, as a human being.
But depending on how we look at it, it will either be seen as positive or a negative.
So if it's raining and you were gonna have a picnic, well, that's seen as negative.
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