Maude tells the back story of the Big Twenty.
The First Three Months
In March of 2020, I had lost forty-two pounds and two dress sizes in a year. I’d lost most of it just in the previous five months, after testing a Type 2 diabetes level A1C that fall. Between October and January, I’d lost sixteen pounds and brought my A1C down to normal level just walking, body weight strength training, counting carbs and calories, and using MyFitnessPal and MapMyWalk to log everything (religiously). This all showed me real time results, kept me motivated, and helped me develop healthy habits. I became a well-oiled weight loss machine. By March, keeping all that up, I’d lost fourteen more pounds. I was hoping to lose just four more, which would have: put me in the center of the weight range my doctor wanted, allowed me to stop taking medication, and given me the freedom to indulge every once in a while. I felt (and looked) fabulous!
Then came COVID-19.
Shortly after things rapidly began shutting down, I got furloughed from my job. My kids, having left schools we loved for Spring Break, never returned. My church halted in-person services. Scout meetings and dance classes, gone. Necessary grocery trips became scary, risky journeys full of paranoia and empty shelves. Socially distanced trips to the park became our only other outings. It took about a week before most of our busy life was reduced to Zoom meetings from our apartment.
Then it occurred to me I only had two months left on my lease, the management required two months’ move-out notice, and I had no idea when things were going back to normal. And it wasn’t looking good. There was no talk yet of stimulus money; I didn’t even know how much I’d get on unemployment. And our home of three and a half years was the most affordable place I’d been able to find in a city that was growing more expensive by the day. So I had to make a fast decision about how I was going to live. And as expected, (and as you know) things did not improve. So the spring of 2020 continued, and I started planning a heartbreaking move.
I spent the next several weeks mostly in yoga pants in my apartment with my kids, watching videos, Facebooking, taking and supervising online classes, exercising less, indulging in sweets, alcohol, and take-out (the only times we got to see people looking somewhat happy), also trying to pack, and naturally, getting depressed.
By the time I formally resigned from my job, moved out of my urban apartment, and packed my kids back to my small-town childhood home, I had gained back six pounds.
We set about trying to acclimate to our new life. I tried a few times to drag my kids on trail walks (they weren’t fans). I ate delicious, comforting dinners made by my mom. I drank more wine. I ate more sweets. The pandemic waves dragged on. Then, events in the news took another dark turn. By mid-June, seven pounds . . .
The Next Three Months
In June, the main order of business was: start putting together our future. Everything for which I’d worked so hard, for so many years, was gone, except myself and my kids, the basis for it all. I had an undetermined amount of pandemic time on my hands, and I had my goals. With the help of my parents, who’d re-opened their quiet, empty nest, I intended to get my kids enrolled in the schools that best matched their old ones, get myself into an alternate teacher certification program, save money and pay down debt, and put myself in position to purchase a home when all of this mess would be over.
So I set about doing exactly that. But the steps were slow and usually required a lot of waiting–waiting for one school district to communicate with another, while they also figured out how to start a new year with COVID, waiting for test dates, waiting for exam results–waiting for our new life just to start getting started. And American news, as you’ll remember, was emotionally toxic. (Incidentally, for me that resulted in writing.)
While I walked fairly frequently, anywhere from twenty minutes around the neighborhood to my most loved four or five miles down the trail, I didn’t really monitor calories, or carbs, or pounds. Walking was an emotional outlet. But so was food, and dessert, and wine.
In July, not having found a new doctor, I returned to the city to see my old one. And my first A1C test in six months revealed a little bit of a climb back toward prediabetes.
By mid-August, I was about as miserable as I’d been all year. But finally, things started moving. I got the test results I needed to apply to my program, I was accepted, and that took off immediately. My children met their teachers in a drive-by back-to-school event and started (virtual) school. Finally, we regained a sense of purpose and routine, something I just don’t do well without. Finally, we had something that demanded energy, and we found that we still had it. And in September, I started writing daily as well. The pandemic, of course, dragged on.
By mid-September, thirteen pounds . . .
The Last Six Months
September 2020-March 2021