On March 12th, 2020, my City declared a State of Emergency and we were all sent home with laptops to try to work from home. My child's school was closed with no plans of reopening for the rest of the year and my youngest's daycare closed. I was tasked with homeschooling, watching my 3 year old, and working from home. My husband was deemed essential and continued to go into work.
We would make it to about Thursday before we were all ready to have a breakdown. There were a lot of tears, a lot of frustration, and complete isolation.
We took lunch walks and tried to dance to Go Noodle, but the stress of my job was too much and it wasn't working.
I was able to tap into the Federal COVID sick leave. This was leave that didn't come out of my sick leave balance. I took 3 hours a day so that I could try to get a handle on our new normal. I would work 7am-10am, then we'd do school and take walks, and then I'd work again from 3-5 while the kids chilled out and were allowed screen time. (who am I kidding, every day was FILLED with screen time). It worked for a while and then my job called me back into the office.
While at home, I was able to complete my monthly bariatric appointments over the laptop. This was a good thing because the other downside to quarantine is that I was eating everything in my house, drinking more alcohol than I even had before, and rapidly gaining weight. I had a new high.
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At the end of quarantine I weighed TWO FORTY NINE.
I had to figure out something fast or I was going to get denied for my surgery. My office called me back into the office on June 1st and I decided I was going to go down to the gym to see if I can get some exercise into my day. Yes, my work has this free, beautiful gym ON SITE, that I never took advantage of because of excuses, laziness, and knowing it was going to be hard.
I started by just walking 20 minutes a day on the treadmill at 2.8, no incline. (please remember that my legs are short, so if I'm much higher than that, I'm jogging)
I went every day and gave myself the weekends off. Outside of maybe 2-3 times due to work issues, or errands, I have been down in the gym every day since June 1st. I now do 10 to 15 minutes on the treadmill in the morning before I get into work, then go at my lunch and walk for 15 minutes- at 3.2 or higher, and with inclines, and do a tabata routine on the elliptical and stationary bike, then back on the treadmill to cool down for 10-15 minutes depending on how much time I have left.
I dropped the 9 lbs quarantine weight pretty quick, but I was working out and the scale wasn't moving, but I could tell my clothes were fitting differently.
I lost 15 pounds and I was down to 234. I felt great. My body was craving the workouts and I was now working out on the weekends and being generally more active.
I also made food changes starting June 1st. I started replacing my breakfast with a protein shake. I could tell that protein shakes were going to be a HUGE part of this journey, so I better get on board. First time I tried one, I about gagged. Then, as I continued to drink them, they got better, and now, I actually like them! I also stopped packing my lunch because I tended to pack huge portions. I stopped eating out (covid helped deter that), and started buying frozen meals.
While these frozen meals weren't necessarily healthy or low card, they were smaller portions and if I ate those, that is all I ate. I stuck to the higher end frozen foods that were organic, or antibiotic free because I can't handle weird meat, or the plastic taste of the Lean Cuisines. My favorites were Amy's, Evol, Saffron Road, to name a few.
I had turkey sausage sticks in case I got hungry. I tended to get a nasty sugar craving about 3pm. Due to the pandemic, our break room has been cleared of the usual cookies and bars, so that was a huge help.
I ate my normal dinner and usually had a few cocktails. Mind you, normal at this point is an enormous portion, which is how I got here in the first place.
The scale was moving, but slowly, probably because of my evenings. But I wasn't gaining any weight and the exercise was doing wonders for my psyche.
My son was able to safely do in person summer school, or stay with my sister in law's and my daughter's day care reopened. We were far from normal, but heading there.
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