The Heartbreak Diet

The unexpected weight loss—and loss of self—that follows a breakup.

by Nia Mclean

Graphic by Melissa Lemieux

I was getting ready to go out to dinner with friends. I curled my hair, threw on some lashes, and pressed play on Glorilla's album — the one that wasn’t exactly new anymore, but still hit just right. For the first time in weeks, I almost felt like myself.

Then I reached for my favorite jeans... but they didn’t fit. There were huge gaps on either side of my waist.

I was annoyed — it threw off my whole outfit. So, I tried another pair. And then another. None of them fit. 

Frustrated, I opted for a dress and decided to FaceTime my mom to show her my outfit.

“Are you on Ozempic?” she asked, half-joking.

It wasn’t Ozempic. This weight loss solution was way cheaper. All it costs you is your self-esteem, some tears, and the person you thought was yours.

It’s the heartbreak diet.

A 2015 study found that women who didn’t initiate a breakup lost an average of five pounds within the first month.

Admittedly, this isn’t the most rigorous journalism—there’s a lack of direct attribution and hard evidence—but countless people online have reported losing even more.

I can vouch for that. It’s happened to me twice. But most recently, after my situationship ended (embarrassingly, it wasn’t even a real relationship), I lost nearly 10 pounds in just a month. There’s no reason a 138-pound person should shed that much weight that fast—except, of course, for the heartbreak diet.

Your body perceives a breakup as a stressful event and shifts into survival mode, activating the fight-or-flight response. In the process, it suppresses non-essential functions—like appetite—so you can focus on fighting the stressor.

The end of my situationship was why some days, my entire diet consisted of nothing but a single banana—even when my mom cooked my favorite meal. It was why my hair started breaking from lack of nutrients, why my skin became dry from dehydration, and why my favorite jeans no longer fit.

There's a myth that the greatest loss in a breakup is the other person. You think you’ve lost your soulmate, or maybe just the version of them they pretended to be at the start. Maybe you lost your best friend.

But the real loss wasn’t him—it was me. I lost myself.