Want to lose weight for your wedding? Don’t. You already look great.
On one hand, you want to look great on your big day. You can start your married life in the best shape of your life. You’ll look amazing in your wedding dress, it’ll be the best day of your life.
On the other hand, here are eight reasons why you shouldn’t lose weight for your wedding.
1. Why Does Losing Weight Equal ‘Looking Great?’
It does not. You may possess fat (we all do, even slim people have fat), but that does not mean you suddenly stop looking great. The media and our socials still perpetuate the myth that slim is attractive, but truly, it is not.
The best thing you can lose is the weight of other’s opinions. Stop following influencers who sell skinny, and focus on being the best version of you.
The wedding industry is particularly fat-aversive and it seems like anyone with fat doesn’t exist in the glossy wedding magazines. It’s like women with fat are shamed, erased, and deemed unacceptable. Don’t fall for this.
2. Your Spouse-To-Be Thinks You’re Hot Already
Otherwise, they wouldn’t be planning to spend the rest of their lives with you. If they love you, they love your rolls and curves and lumps too.
3. Diets Don’t Work
Diets don’t work. You might lose weight for the wedding, but unless you’re planning a lifestyle change forever, it’s too hard to maintain. Experts estimate that 80 to 95% of dieters gain all the weight back afterwards (and could even gain more).
The reasons why are complex and are only just beginning to be understood. We do know that people have different setpoints of weight – why some families are skinny while others carry more weight (and even how the weight is carried). This includes eating habits, genes and ethnic composition, and environment. Also, PCOS, hypothyroidism, and a range of other illnesses or medications can make it incredibly difficult to lose weight.
4. The ‘New You’ Is Not… You
You are you. All your family and friends are expecting to see you get married. Not someone else. In much the same way that a person who never wears makeup might look nothing like themselves caked in makeup, a person who has always had curves won’t be themselves if they are skinny. Everyone is expecting you to show up to your wedding— and they love you the way you are.
5. Fat Isn’t Unhealthy
This isn’t the standard line you’ll hear, but scientifically, it’s accurate.
Fat doesn’t make you unhealthy. What makes you unhealthy and prone to lifestyle diseases in poor fitness. And you only have to look at Lizzo to know that fat and fit can exist in the same person; she exercises, does skipping, she’s got great cardio fitness, and has fat.
A study in 2016 found that skinny, unfit people were twice as likely to get type 2 diabetes than a fit fat person.
If you want to start getting fit, then, cool, you should definitely get fit. Even going for a walk every day is a great. But don’t do it to lose weight.
6. Do You Need the Extra Stress?
Wedding planning can be difficult and stressful. There are extra financial considerations, often a bunch of family drama, and it all just takes time. Do you need the added stress of meal planning, and do you have enough capacity for the added brain space that dieting takes up?
7. Wedding Dresses Come in Different Sizes
People come in different sizes too. Smaller sizes are more prominent in the fashion industry because they refuse to acknowledge that the average dress size in New Zealand is 16 (in the USA, the average size is equivalent to a NZ size 20). So, you might have to order your dress in, or try on a few more dresses, but it should come in your size (and if it doesn’t, then the brand aren’t worth your money).
Just make sure the wedding dress is tailored to fit. It not only makes it more comfortable on the day, but it will work with your figure, not try to make you something you’re not.
8. You’re Beautiful Already
You might not always feel it—no one feels attractive all the time—but when you walk towards your new husband or wife, and they see you for the first time in your wedding outfit… you’ll know that you are enough. You are beautiful, loved, and accepted, and none of that should be conditional on how much fat your body has.
In 50 years, you’ll look back and remember the most important thing; the day you married your forever person. And that is all that matters.
