I’m struggling with weight a lot more this lockdown. Currently the scales are telling me I’ve racked up almost 10lbs since first lockdown. My weight is the highest it’s ever been. I am definitely at my biggest.
I’ve been exercising more this year and am on week 8 of a 12-week, strength-based YouTube training program which I’ve pretty much substituted all cardio in favour of. There are only so many hours in the day (even when there’s nothing much else to do) and only so much energy and enthusiasm to put into those hours. Now that the strength training is part of my routine, I’m re-introducing running alongside and now the weather is improving, I’ll be able to get back on my bike.
The weight gain has been getting me down. I try not to let it but I find I can only manage the ‘I love my tummy’ attitude part-time and the rest of the time my integrated “ideal woman” criticise-o-meter is fully charged and ready to work its magic. It hits me every time I get dressed in the morning and ‘the grey jumper’ has become a running joke in my household as that and a pair of leggings are the only thing I really feel comfortable in at the moment.
I’ve done a lot of thinking about how and why the weight is clinging to me. More thinking than I’d like, to be honest. I hate the way this stuff dominates my thoughts (life!). I wish I knew how to rid myself of it all for good but I don’t have the key to unpicking an entire lifetime of absorbing information specifically designed to programme my brain to compare and criticise. If anyone does have a better answer, please let me know, but for me, understanding something is usually the quickest way to accept something and only then am I able to work on changing that something.
There are a million different reasons why weight clings to each of us differently. I’m not a scientist, but I have been conducting a fairly intensive study of my own body for 38 years and I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s particularly efficient. The many mind-boggling processes that it can perform are doing their jobs well. At the moment life is cold, dark, stressful and uncertain. My body is very effectively storing energy (in the form of sexy curves and a pot belly) so that if my situation worsens, I’ll survive. I will stay warm; I will retain the ability to run away from danger and it will take some considerable time for me to waste away.
We have been locked down for 8 weeks now (and counting). This means we are far more sedentary than when we go about our normal lives. My previous commute to work involved an hour of walking each day; broken up into 15 minute chunks that I never really processed as I made my way to and from the train. If I was to cycle, that was an hour either one way or both ways. The office I worked in was pretty large and I sat at the opposite end from the toilets, kitchen and main entrance so there are numerous steps that now don’t have an equivalent as I move between the 3 rooms in my flat. To get lunch at work I would often go for a walk locally to pick something up, now I only have to cross from the sofa to the kitchen and they’re both in the same room. And then after work there would often be a spin class or social activity, which probably involved walking to and from and perhaps such hardships as standing up for a few hours.
And now it’s winter. It’s cold and dark and almost certainly going to rain. Last year was filled with an absolute butt-tonne of walking. We walked miles every day. Any excuse to get out of the house and explore a bit, often accompanied by the hope of finding the holy grail: a takeaway pint. The hole in the wall pubs serving milk cartons of freshly pulled beer through a hatch became the 2020 equivalent of a speakeasy and I lost count of how many times we were asked ‘Excuse me mate, but where did you get that pint?’.
But it’s cold and dark and rainy now and we’ve walked everywhere. London? Completed it, mate. It’s too busy at the weekends to walk anywhere interesting or green as the millions of Londoners crammed into tiny flat-shares with no outdoor space spill out onto the pavements and into the parks, so we’re resigned to trudging round the no-nonsense back roads and often forced to make a hasty retreat back inside.
I’m no mathematician but we’re supposed to burn about 1,500 – 2,000 calories a day just existing. Our bodies should get through that just keeping us alive and allowing us to move around in our normal routines. On Friday last week the step counter on my phone registered 19 steps in the whole day which equates to 1 calorie of energy. That step counter doesn’t take into account the 35 minute high-intensity strength workout I did that morning or the times I moved around the flat without carrying my phone but it still seems obvious that the maths doesn’t work. I’m definitely putting in more than I’m burning off.
I love food. I love eating and drinking. I love cooking delicious food at home; I love ordering food in; I used to love going out for dinner, when that was a thing we could do; I love treats and cocktails, wine, beer as well as fruit, veg and bread. The whole kit and kaboodle – count me in. I definitely eat more than my body needs to survive. I am definitely eating more than first lockdown. Not a worrying amount more, but definitely more and for numerous reasons:
- It’s cold and dark. Salad becomes less appealing when it’s cold and dark. See also: my body uses more fuel keeping me warm and happy and alert when it’s cold and dark and that makes me want to put more in.
- I’m in a pair now and not flying solo. That means treating each other, always having a drinking buddy and a competitive jealousy over men being able to have bigger portions than women. See also: my boyfriend is one of those permanently svelte people that can eat chips for 3 meals a day and still wear jeans so skinny I wouldn’t be able to get them past my calves, let alone over my thighs and up onto my hips. If he’s ordering KFC, I’m not likely to stick to my fish, brown rice and broccoli.
- We’ve been at this limited life of lockdowns for a long time now. Food and drink is basically the only joy we can plan. Getting a special dinner in or making a cocktail is the only way to differentiate between the working week and the weekend. See also: we’re bored.
I understand all The Reasons and I acknowledge that it’s an absolute waste of time, energy and emotive strength to care about this right now. The fact that it gets me down gets me down.
Is it possible just to switch this all off? Can one simply make the decision to stop caring about it? Are there people that simply look in the mirror each day and think ‘yup, that’ll do’ without questioning? How does one achieve that and can it genuinely be achieved or can we only learn to accept the nagging thoughts and subsequently send them packing? Answers on a postcard, or preferably in the comments.
For me, I don’t think I’ll ever be fully rid of the hang ups I sometimes (because it’s not all the time – a lot of the time I think I’m a scorching hot badass) have with my body and I hate that. But I am willing to give it the time it needs to heal, change and support me, however it feels necessary.
From what I’ve observed about myself I believe that things will naturally change again when the world opens up and the weather brightens. We’ll leave the house more, we’ll walk more, we’ll want to eat less and drown our sorrows or soothe our anxieties less frequently. I like to think that my body is trying to take care of me right now. It’s giving me a stable, cuddly surrounding to protect me from the emotional upheaval of not being around my usual stable, cuddly surroundings. It should be impossible to be grumpy or disappointed with my body when it’s being this efficient. If there’s one thing I love in this world, it’s efficiency so yup, that’ll do.
** I wrote this piece a week before posting it and when I read it back through it was on a day where I felt completely differently about my body. So take this piece away with you with this caveat: this is a snapshot of MY thinking about MYself, SOME of the time.
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