At this point, I feel like COVID has worked itself into almost everyone of my blog posts. I guess that reflects reality for many of us, given it has become part of our daily lives. What I want to talk about today is how lockdown and social distancing have affected my journey to lead a healthier life.
For my first 24 years on this Earth, I was small. I weighed just over 6lbs when I was born and I was tall and super-skinny for most of my early life. I can vividly remember being teased mercilessly for how thin I was. I was shaped like a pin; long arms, long legs, and just straight up skin and bones. I weighed 99lbs when I graduated high school. When I went to ship out for Army Basic Training, I was told I was underweight. The minimum weight for my height was 100lbs. They made me drink water and I wasn’t allowed to pee, but the scale never moved. I was finally granted a waiver for being underweight and I was finally allowed to head off to Fort Jackson, SC. That summer that I was gone, I gained 30lbs of pure muscle. I blame it on constantly being “smoked” by my Drill Sergeants, lots of pushups, flutter kicks and road marches with a rucksack that was as big as I was. When my mom came down for my graduation, I marched right past her and she didn’t even know it was me. I was in the best shape of my life.
I managed to stay relatively slim for years after that. Once I had kids and passed 30 years old, that all changed. The days of having to worry about what I eat or not gaining weight are long over. My metabolism slowed down, I started working a job where I was sitting all of the time, traveling a lot and mindlessly eating. I went through a serious depression after my mother died, where I didn’t care about much, let alone my weight. Through the years, I tried many things to take some weight off. I’ve tried Pilates and personal trainers. I’ve tried Weight Watchers and SlimFast, Isogenix shakes and fasts and Beachbody workouts and shakes. Some things worked for a while and some things didn’t work at all for various reasons. It’s been a roller coaster. What I have learned is that you have to keep trying until you find something that sticks.
A few times last year, my sweet friend Melanie, who is a Beachbody coach, would reach out to me periodically to let me know about different challenge groups that she was running. I would just ignore them, until one day last year, I was ready to get control of my diet and exercise. I joined the No Excuse November challenge and signed up for 100 consecutive workouts. For me, this was not just about working out, it was about committing to something and finishing it. I was a beast on this program. I was eating clean and I was getting my workouts in at 6:45am every weekday morning and I was showered and ready to start my day by the time my kids got up for school. I was working out on the weekends, working out in hotel gyms. My diet wasn’t 100% on point so I didn’t lose as much weight as I wanted, but I was able to change my body shape and become stronger. I finished my 100th workout in early March and I was pumped! I was ready to keep going…
Then COVID hit…suddenly the kids didn’t have to catch the bus anymore so I’d get up with Matt at 5:40, see him off to work and go back to bed. With the world coming to a complete stop, I was sleeping more, eating more and not moving. I kept saying I was going to get back to it, but as my pants got tighter and the scale kept creeping up, I just didn’t want to do it. I’d lost my motivation and I didn’t care. I didn’t want to go on hikes with my kids. I didn’t want to even go on walks alone. I let my online gym subscription lapse, I had bags of shakes piling up because they were on auto shipment and I wasn’t drinking them. I was, however, drinking plenty of wine…daily. I was just in a funk.
Well, I decided to leave 2020 in my rear view. Last week, I signed up for a new challenge group and renewed my online gym subscription. I’m back to having my shakes daily, drinking half my bodyweight in water every day, getting up at 5:40 am and getting my workout in (I’m shooting for 5-7 workouts per week). Most importantly, I’m back to eating clean, which is not as hard as it sounds. I’ve swapped out the half-and-half in my coffee for vanilla almond milk. The keys to dialing in your nutrition are meal planning, meal prepping and portion control. Meal planning and prepping is a huge pain in the butt, even for someone like me who loves cooking. With that said, it is a necessary evil. The saying “If you fail to plan, you plan to fail” is definitely true here. If you are starving, you are going to grab what’s quick and easy. If you have your food prepped and portioned ahead of time, it’s just as easy to grab something healthy to eat instead of chips, candy or other junk. But you also can’t restrict yourself 100% of the time. I’m all about the 80/20 rule. I will still have a glass of wine here or there, but I’m going to choose water 80% of the time. Also, please don’t think I’m eating bland or gross food. There are literally thousands of recipes that are healthy, no matter if you are just generally eating clean, Paleo, Keto or whatever else (I will share a few of my favorites at the end of this post). Last night, I made an amazing meal that Matt and the kids loved…and it was totally healthy and clean. They had no idea that I have done anything different. The boys even went back for seconds!
So, what was the point of this whole post? It is not to endorse any fitness or nutrition program. It’s not to make anyone feel guilty or bad about themself. It IS about trying different things until you find what works for YOU. It’s about failing and trying again. It’s about forgetting what you didn’t do in 2020 and focusing on what you CAN do in 2021. Remember, even small changes add up in the long run. It’s never too late to create healthy habits and a healthier you, whatever that means.
Until next time…
Looking forward is always better than worrying about what’s already done. And if you slip a day, or even an afternoon, it’s okay because you just start up again. You’re right, you can’t deprive yourself or you won’t stick with it. I lost 30 lbs by just counting calories and have kept it off for over 2 years. There’s an app that I use to tally up calories and exercise. It works for me. Whatever works, keep at it. And I’m confident you can do that!