I've wanted to make this post for a while.
I've never been too overweight, just gaining a bit and I didn't want to let it get out of control. So prior to everything hitting the fan, I was trying to get more on top of my diet and stop fixing things with chips.
Let's go back to February 2020. I'm in Australia, and had just gone past the Summer of No Air. I had blown a fair chunk of my bank account on literally the only air purifier I could get my hands on after the stores had been stripped clean during the blanket of smoke that enveloped the east of the country, I had stopped exercising in order to avoid an asthma exacerbation in the smoke, and I was ready to start regaining control of my life. I would start exercising again, I was going to eat right, I would take a well deserved holiday in the country in the Victorian alpine region - I was going to be part of the solution and get those suffering tourist towns some money back! Sure, things were a little weird. We had locked off the country to people from China, but things would calm down soon.
Then, suddenly, the Week that Never Ended hit.
Every day in the space of one week, a new and never before heard announcement was made. One day the prime minister was loudly and proudly talking about his upcoming footy match - the next all sport was cancelled, the borders were shut entirely, and the premiers of the biggest states were in a public fight with the federal government, arguing that schools should close. The federal government at every step tried to claim everything was fine, that if we all calmed down things would go away, only to be dragged into a more alarmist and action-heavy response by the state premiers.
It was this public arguing and uncertainty that indirectly led to my weight loss.
In the stress and uncertainty, and starting to feel quite fragile, I quickly abandoned my weight loss plans. I was going to eat whatever I wanted to feel better, and I'd figure the rest out later! But suddenly, the government was promising the borders would remain open, then shutting them the next day, promising schools would remain open, and then shutting them the next day, and so on. We could not trust what the government said, because it was always followed the next day by a total 180.
The prime minister announced everyone should have a two week supply of food in the house, and all hell broke loose.
With no guarantee then that the shops would remain open, and an order to have a two week supply at the ready, everybody flooded the supermarkets. It was insane. I don't have a car, so could buy only what I could carry, and I filled my trolley and my backpack and my handbags with as much as I could - it still wasn't more than a supply for a few days. So I went back the next day, and bought more, and the next.
Was I panic buying? Perhaps. Depends on your definition. Really I was just trying to get a two week supply, as we had been ordered by the government. The government had not thought things through. Usually people buy a one week supply for their household. Suddenly everyone had to double their purchase all at once, so a rational decision looked like panic buying. The supermarkets later announced they sold enough to feed 50 million people - in a country of 25 million. Personally I don't think this is panic buying - just everyone doing as they were told all in one go. We earned the dubious honour of being the number 1 panic buyers in the world. My local supermarket ended up going viral after a man filmed himself walking up and down the aisles - and there was no food. None. No veggies, no biscuits, no vegan sausages - there was no food at all.
I didn't have a car, and didn't have the luxury of travelling for food or buying a lot in bulk. So I had to change my shopping habits quickly in the prospect of not being able to get food at all. I made a decision to shop early every day, but only eat perishable food. I would stockpile non-perishable in case I could not find food in the future, and needed to isolate. Back then there weren't options for food delivery at all, so if I got Covid, I really was on my own in terms of food (or at least, that was the thought process based on the information I had at the time).
All my chips, pasta, biscuits, cereals and carbs, my weaknesses, were saved. I didn't touch them, because I couldn't. Instead, every day I ate fresh bread, eggs, milk, and vegetarian stir fry. I ate anything I couldn't keep for long periods. Then the next day, I'd go out and buy more perishables, with a side of pasta or grains to add to my stockpile, until I couldn't carry or couldn't find more food. I just ate perishables. I ended up on an unknown and unexpected diet, and to my surprise, I kept losing weight, despite explicitly abandoning my goal.
This lasted many weeks (remember, we Australians were number 1 in the world at panic buying - woohoo!) By the time the stocks in the supermarkets recovered and stayed strong for a while, and I had a two week supply of non perishable food so felt comfortable eating it again, I had lost more weight and was almost at my goal.
This diet worked for me - fresh food only, nothing that you can keep. My tastes in fresh food were such that I enjoyed eating stir frys and omelettes, and now I have a nice diet plan in mind for the next time I find I need to watch my weight!
tl;dr Panic buying made me only eat fresh food, and I lost weight despite abandoning my goals to do so.
