Sunday, August 2, 2020

Pandemic-proof: My journey in stress management

In May of 2019 I weighed 360lbs. Through some loose CICO and eliminating fast food (of which I consumed a LOT), I dropped down to 320 by September. As a teacher, it pretty much stayed there during the school year...until the pandemic.

March: Spring break exercise in the works, get outside, move around. Then spring break got extended, cool! Let’s keep it up! Then we go virtual, stress sets in. Too much time to read the news of this disaster while our district scrambled to figure how to proceed. Stress rising.

April: Get a handle on things (sort of), continue getting outside, go for daily walks around the neighborhood, stay active. Dropped down to 305, awesome.

May: Things aren’t getting better with school, no real plans to fix pandemic in place, stress eating ensues. Still active, though not as much. Jump back to 315.

June: Survived the school year, let’s get serious, find a diet that works (for once), weight loss is NOT the goal, health is, both physical and metabolic. Sticks to a strict mediterranean diet (including complete elimination of refined sugars and high PUFA oils), allows weigh-ins only twice a month - for my own discipline. Also starts cycling a LOT (side note: I bought a used hybrid bike off craigslist for $200, nothing fancy). Stress level down, pants start feeling looser.

July: Weigh-in at 290, first time below the 300 make in 10 years. Continue diet and cycling, add weight lifting on my non-cycling days.

August: Weigh-in at 270, holy crap this is working. Concern about school starting up again, making a plan to keep the exercise going (will have to be scaled down due to time restraints), good habits in place, all about having a plan.

Moral of the story: make HEALTH - not weight loss - the priority, Start slow, but START. The pandemic basically scared me into getting in shape since I checked the boxes for someone who was at high risk of death if they were to get the virus. I’m not sure why I was suddenly able to stick to a diet either, I’d never tried mediterranean before, but I’ve tried many others and failed miserably. I went this route because every medical journal entry I read about it had only positive things to say about what it did for overall health. My overall health is noticeably better, particularly in the areas of stress, sleep, and random body aches. It’s all related, eliminate the garbage, get active, and your body will thank you. I’m 36 years old and am just figuring this out, you can too. Make the change, a little bit goes a long way.

My cycling journey - it starts somewhere.

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