“The man who says his wife can’t take a joke, forgets his wife took him.” Oscar Wilde
I have spent a lifetime in my professional work studying and helping people with two of life’s most intractable problems:
- How to live happily in an unhappy relationship, and
- How to manage weight and actually keep it off for a lifetime.
Spoiler alert!!!! My degree at Columbia and my postgraduate work gave me credentials, but my precious clients – from Shanghai to Hollywood have truly been my greatest teachers. Those who have found happiness in the face of great personal unhappiness in their relationships and learned how to reclaim power over rogue artisanal donuts and late-night cravings.
One point of observation, especially in the field of weight control is that people take themselves way too seriously. The mood has become somber and grim. Are we holding a funeral for carbs? Society has become the perpetually offended, constantly on edge, ready to cancel someone without context, or are unable to discern nuance. Do you know what the world needs now? A big belly laugh. Laugh more at ourselves, our situations and situationships, life in all its ridiculous, messy, higgledy-piggledy glory.
So – It’s Okay To Laugh?
Yes, and laugh a lot, laugh out loud, and long. However, let’s draw a clear line right here, right now: Humor has not place in fat-shaming. Ever! Laughing with someone is connection. Laughing at someone’s body and struggle is cruelty. I have zero tolerance for that in my office, my writing, or my worldview.
The kind of humor I’m talking about is the healing, connective kind. The “Yah, I just ate peanut butter straight from the jar with a spork” kind. The “I joined a gym and then ghosted it harder than my last date: kind. Humor that says, “I see you. I’ve been there too.”
What Laughter Does To Your Body
Guess what? Science backs me up. According to researchers:
- A good laugh increases oxygen intake
- It stimulates your heart, lungs, and muscles
- It activates and releases your stress response
- It soothes tension
- It can make it easier to cope with difficult situations and connect you with other people.
And let’s face it, humor is the secret ingredient that is exactly what you need when your “food pusher”, disguising herself as your coworker, shows up with homemade Mississippi mud cake, your weakness and trigger, on day 2 of your no-sugar challenge.
Taking Back Control (From The Cookie, The Chip, The Cake, The French Fry)
Every client who walks into my Upper East Side office already knows that a french fry is fattening and that french fries were not originally cooked in France, but in Greece. My clients can write a diet book with their knowledge. But what they are really searching for is a way to regain control in their life with food. They want to stop being bossed around by a chocolate chip cookie or bullied by a peanut and they are taking back the driver’s seat of their life from the ice cream cone.
So, I tell them something that always gets a laugh – and it always shifts the energy:
In that moment of laughter, any shame or embarrassment loosens its grip, the food loses some of its power and is put in its place. I tell them to repeat this mantra when they see, if it is their trigger, that scheming Italian pasta.
So, What’s The Bottom Line
We’ve got to bring laughter back. Into our lives, into our homes, into our weight loss journeys. Not the mean girl’s kind, not the dismissive or sarcastic, undermining kind. But the warm, human, “we’re all a little weird” kind.
Laugh deep. Laugh often. Laugh until your stomach hurts – by the way that counts as a mini ab workout. Humor doesn’t erase pain, but it makes it bearable. It doesn’t burn calories (yet), but it can melt temptation when you see that tiramisu flirting with you from the dessert table and you say to it and yourself: “Back off babe. I’ve already been ghosted by breadsticks and led on by lasagna. I’m not falling for your creamy layer and cocoa lies today, Try the guy by the bread pudding, he’s emotionally available.”
Humor doesn’t make cookies disappear, but it can make your willpower stronger. So go ahead – snort, giggle, belly laugh. Life is too short and too bizarre to do anything else. Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to break up a fight between a client and a cinnamon roll and remember: “If you can’t laugh at yourself, you’re probably missing the best joke of the day.”