Lena Dunham claims that despite gaining 24 pounds, she feels fantastic.
The actress, author, and director shared a photo on Instagram on Tuesday that contrasted a shot from April 2017 with one from the previous day.
Dunham captioned the photo, “On the left: 138 pounds, complimented all day, pursued by guys, and on the cover of a tabloid about diets that work.” Additionally, suffering from both tissue and mental illness and surviving solely on little sugar, a tonne of coffee, and a purse pharmacy. The Girls writer and performer at the time had undergone a number of procedures to address her endometriosis and persistent pain.
“On the right: 162 pounds, happy, joyful, and free; complemented solely by people who matter for reasons that matter; surviving on a steady stream of fun/healthy snacks, apps, and dinners; strong from uplifting dogs and spirits.” she says. Even I, the original proponent of body positivity, occasionally find myself pining for the image on the left before I recall the excruciating suffering that forced me to my proverbial knees. I can feel the fat in my back creeping up between my shoulder blades as I type. I slant in.
Dunham, who has previously been candid about her struggles with endometriosis and OCD, has intensified her workout regimen in recent years after learning that it helps her control her anxiety. She started practising yoga and going to Tracy Anderson’s lessons.
At the debut of Tracy Anderson’s new flagship studio on the Upper East Side of New York City, she told PEOPLE, “I think for me the key thing was that Tracy simply very obviously wasn’t trying to transform my physique.” I approached her and said, “I have endometriosis, I have chronic physical pain, I just want to feel better, I just want to have a stronger core, how can I get there?”
Anderson also told PEOPLE that Dunham visited her not to change how she looked but rather to make her feel better.
For me, when people come to me from the vanity thread, I know that they have a lot of balance work to do in their bodies, Anderson said. “She came to me and was very vocal about how my programme helped her with her OCD. Therefore, that is where it needs to come from when someone says to me, “My health matters first, I simply want to feel good in my skin, I want to be healthy. Because there isn’t just one single definition of beauty, we must shift the paradigm in favour of that.
The 32-year-old shared on The Ellen DeGeneres Show last year how fat shaming in Hollywood affected her. As a woman in Hollywood, Dunham said, “it truly was evidence that you just can’t win.” She was frustrated by it.
It’s simply crazy since I spent the first six years of my career getting internet slurs like “bucket of milk,” “baby cow,” and “aged cow.” Dunham acknowledged that she doesn’t give a damn what people think about her own physique. She remarked, “I wasn’t very keen to impress someone who’s going to take the time to say something bad about my weight on the internet.