'Just self isolating with my pot belly!' Lena Dunham slips into a bikini as she reveals COVID-19 pandemic has brought back 'feelings of self-loathing' over her body

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Lena Dunham slipped into a bikini as she declared she was 'self-isolating with my pot belly' in a candid Instagram post on Monday.

The former Girls actress, 34, showed off her cleavage and numerous tattoos in the black two-piece for the make-up free snap, with the star admitting the pandemic had brought back 'feelings of self loathing towards her body.' 

She wrote: 'Oh hey, just self-isolating with my pod, aka my pot belly and my sunglasses. 

Candid: Lena Dunham slipped into a bikini as she declared she was 'self-isolating with my pot belly' in a candid Instagram post on Monday

'You know I’ve been thinking a lot about my pot belly in quarantine- especially as I notice an unusual amount of articles with titles like “how I lost the weight” and “diet is everything.” 

'Are there more of them or do I just have more time to notice? Somehow, headlines that used to roll off my flesh rolls sting in a new way- not because I think that’s the body I’m meant to have, but because it feels like it’s adding yet another item to the epic to-do list we are all creating for ourselves in Covid- you know the one:

“Now that I can’t be in the world, maybe I’ll finally... take up karate... build my own furniture... grow geraniums...” But for most people pandemic life has not proven to be a break from the world or themselves. 

'And so the list grows, the items remain unchecked, and the suggestion of a revamped clean eating plan in my newsfeed somehow feels like a personal assault. 

Feelings: The star admitted the pandemic had brought back 'feelings of self loathing towards her body'

The star added that she had grown comfortable and confident in her body over the years as she 'realised what it was capable of' before COVID-19 lockdown made her think differently. 

She said: 'Growing up chubby, fat, thicc, whatever you wanna call it- I always felt my body was a sign that read “I’m lazy and I have done less.” 

'Like if I just found the will to invest 30% more I could be okay. Over the years, as my body guided me through my career and illness and disability, I started to appreciate what it was capable of. 

'But somehow, this pandemic time has brought back some of those old feelings of self-loathing and I think it all comes back to that damned to-do list, the one that started when we went into lockdown. 

Message: The star added that she had grown comfortable and confident in her body over the years as she 'realised what it was capable of' before COVID-19 lockdown made her think differently

'Should I be revamping my fridge with veggies and showing off before/after pics, emerging from quarantine with a revenge body? And why, after all these years spent fostering self love, do I still feel like weight loss is an item for my to-do? 

'When I could be adding “learn Spanish?” or “fall in love with a firefighter?” Like, what if I checked that one off *forever forever* (by doing it never never)?

' But I’m so curious- what has this period brought up for you as you’ve sat with the body you were given, no matter where self isolation has taken it? 

'Please share with me in the comments- I’ll be reading faithfully from right here in this bikini top.'   

Lena recently opened up about her painful battle with infertility, feeling betrayed by her body and accepting she will 'never be a biological mother.' 

Speaking up: Lena recently opened up about her painful battle with infertility, feeling betrayed by her body and accepting she will 'never be a biological mother' (seen in 2019)

While reflecting on having her cervix, uterus and an ovary removed due to chronic endometriosis in 2017, the actress admitted she became 'obsessed' with becoming a mother in her candid essay for the December issue of Harper's Magazine.

'The moment I lost my fertility I started searching for a baby,' she began her article, noting, she was only 31-years-old when she underwent a total hysterectomy.   

Three years later, the Girls creator revealed she was exploring adoption when a doctor said she 'might have a chance of harvesting eggs' with her remaining ovary. 

'It turned out that after everything I’d been through—the chemical menopause, surgeries by the dozen, the carelessness of drug addiction—my one remaining ovary was still producing eggs,' she recalled of her initial excitement. 

If her eggs were successfully harvested, she explained to readers that they would 'be fertilized with donor sperm and carried to term by a surrogate.'   

Painful journey: While reflecting on having her cervix, uterus and an ovary removed due to chronic endometriosis in 2017, the actress admits she became 'obsessed' with becoming a mother in her candid essay for the December issue of Harper's Magazine 

Despite her then-boyfriend offering his sperm, she selected 'an accomplished gay friend of child-rearing age' and went to the fertility doctor with her father. 

The process, however, did not work and Dunham recalled learning that none of her 'eggs were viable on Memorial Day, in the midst of a global pandemic.'

'I hadn’t been expecting the fertilization procedure to take place for another few weeks. My donor and I were still working on our agreement with a family lawyer,' she noted of getting the devastating call. 

At the same time, she was navigating three of her close friends becoming pregnant, leaving her to wonder about 'how far you can drift from yourself in the process of trying to get what you want.' 

What started as wanting to carry the child of the man I loved became wanting to have a child with a man who was willing to help me have one,' the director admitted.

'It turned out that after everything I’d been through—the chemical menopause, surgeries by the dozen, the carelessness of drug addiction—my one remaining ovary was still producing eggs,' she recalled of her initial excitement

'There is a lot you can correct in life—you can end a relationship, get sober, get serious, say sorry—but you can’t force the universe to give you a baby that your body has told you all along was an impossibility,' she said.   

Throughout the essay, she also spoke of her sobriety and how getting treatment affected her pregnancy plans. 

'Rehab really puts the brakes on baby plans. To start with, it’s an awkward place from which to ask for adoption recommendations,' she joked. 

But on a more serious note, getting clean allowed her to see how 'sick' she really was. 

'The sight of pregnant women began to make me ill. Their bodies made me think of the stretch and tug of the false labor doctors had induced before my hysterectomy,' she explained.  

Now, Dunham explained she is rethinking 'what motherhood will look' for her and deciding IVF will no longer be her road to having a child. 

'IVF destroyed my body,' she told People. 'Because of what my body has been through, subjecting it to such excruciating pain, only to come to the end and learn those eggs were not viable after working so hard through illness and discomfort and going through anxiety and depression, it is just clearly not something I can ever repeat." 

The Golden Globe winner continued: 'I had hopes it would, but to be honest, I'd already made my peace about becoming an adoptive mother.

'When everyone got so excited about there being this possibility that my one ovary could produce eggs, and with IVF and surrogacy, I could maybe still have a biological child, it pulled me away from what I think I already instinctively knew,' she reflected. 

'My turn on the IVF ride was wrapped up in self-hatred, addiction and fear of the unknown- who was I if not a mother?I' she concluded on Instagram; seen last October