There was a study in the papers yesterday which suggested that, on average, most people put on up to 10 pounds during the pandemic. The number seems fair, even as my own figure has outperformed it twofold. The scientists say that it’s normal, given the stress levels and dramatic reduction in our movements, that some people would put on weight. Indeed in a year without social obligations or other people taking unsolicited pictures of you from dangerous angles, there was little point in obsessing over every calorie. I have compassion for all the weight gainers, a warmness I lack for the other type of pandemic survivors that the article spoke of: evil mythical beasts who lost weight by “forgetting to eat” or “not feeling hungry at all”. These people, I think you’ll agree, are perversions of all that is fair in the world. I think of them with the envious disdain usually reserved for serial killers. Sitting there, burning their calories in empty silence, like psychopaths.
That March is here again has allowed me to introduce some semblance of temporal organization (if not closure) to a year that has at best felt like one long week and, at worst, the climax of a safety procedure video from Chernobyl. In taking stock of what I’ve done the last year I am pleased, relieved, impressed and disgusted, often at the same thing. And while there have been momentous strides forward in my life - hard won battles of personal victory - I also essentially gave up monitoring my weight at all during the pandemic because there was only so much an aesthete can handle. It started with upping my number of weekly indulgences until it was the healthy salads that became the rarity. At the beginning I skipped one weigh in, then another, then a third; last week I found the scale under a pile of furniture catalogues, matted and dusty like an artifact from a forgotten tomb.
The truth is: my body’s natural inclination is to keep two spare tires round my tummy in case the first four give out. Anything short of that requires a Herculean, near-constant scrutiny of what I eat, how I move, what I lift, and, most important, which cravings I ignore. To maintain that level of self control without trainers, weights, open gyms, happiness or Other People was hard. The locus of my health life collapsed onto a 5 x 3 mat on the floor which became an aerobics studio, yoga class, dance class and meditation center all in one.
But I’ve been on a restrictive diet of kale and other horrid things for three weeks now, and while usually by this stage the pounds begin creeping off, that is decidedly not happening. I actually put on a pound last week by just looking at a patisserie window.
But as I stare incredulously at my dusty scale as it remains resolutely static every week, part of me must acknowledge that I know what to do. There is no magic spell for this, only an unvarnished, inconvenient truth: if you want to lose weight, you have to burn more than you eat. If that’s not happening, you’re eating too much for what you’re burning. It sucks but it’s true.
The answer is clearly to burn more, because frankly a life where you’re eating too much kale is not a life worth living. The gyms reopen in NYC a few months ago but being in confined spaces with strangers makes me vomit now so I avoided them, both here and during my months in Pakistan. Last week I summoned my courage, tucked my tummy in my elastic waistband and marched into a gym called Temple. It was as horrifying as you think it is. The desk was manned by a pair of models/athletes who do squats instead of sleep, and they looked from my face to my stomach and back again with a resigned, familiar sense of pity.
“Need to lose the pandemic pounds?” Biceps 1 asked.
“Is it that obvious…” I half-joked, wishing I had a shawl for my midsection,
“Yes,” Biceps 2 said. “Yes, it is. But don’t worry we have everything you need here. Why don’t I just go ahead and-”
“No,” I scowled. “Not you, never you.”
Biceps 1 gave me a brief tour of the facilities, a dark, cavernous series of halls wrapped in plastic and fumigated with bleach. There were more people than I was comfortable seeing in one enclosed space but far fewer than places like this used to have. Everyone wore masks and expressions of depression. The energy of these spaces, usually filled with athletes shouting at each other between pushups, was now eerie and disquieting.
“So, are you ready to sign up?” He asked after the tour.
“I will be,” I replied, turning around and walking out as I thought of the three weeks I’d need to get thin enough BEFORE I could reasonably step onto an elliptical without suicidal thoughts. “As God is my witness, I will be…”
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com
That March is here again has allowed me to introduce some semblance of temporal organization (if not closure) to a year that has at best felt like one long week and, at worst, the climax of a safety procedure video from Chernobyl. In taking stock of what I’ve done the last year I am pleased, relieved, impressed and disgusted, often at the same thing. And while there have been momentous strides forward in my life - hard won battles of personal victory - I also essentially gave up monitoring my weight at all during the pandemic because there was only so much an aesthete can handle. It started with upping my number of weekly indulgences until it was the healthy salads that became the rarity. At the beginning I skipped one weigh in, then another, then a third; last week I found the scale under a pile of furniture catalogues, matted and dusty like an artifact from a forgotten tomb.
The truth is: my body’s natural inclination is to keep two spare tires round my tummy in case the first four give out. Anything short of that requires a Herculean, near-constant scrutiny of what I eat, how I move, what I lift, and, most important, which cravings I ignore. To maintain that level of self control without trainers, weights, open gyms, happiness or Other People was hard. The locus of my health life collapsed onto a 5 x 3 mat on the floor which became an aerobics studio, yoga class, dance class and meditation center all in one.
But I’ve been on a restrictive diet of kale and other horrid things for three weeks now, and while usually by this stage the pounds begin creeping off, that is decidedly not happening. I actually put on a pound last week by just looking at a patisserie window
But I’ve been on a restrictive diet of kale and other horrid things for three weeks now, and while usually by this stage the pounds begin creeping off, that is decidedly not happening. I actually put on a pound last week by just looking at a patisserie window.
But as I stare incredulously at my dusty scale as it remains resolutely static every week, part of me must acknowledge that I know what to do. There is no magic spell for this, only an unvarnished, inconvenient truth: if you want to lose weight, you have to burn more than you eat. If that’s not happening, you’re eating too much for what you’re burning. It sucks but it’s true.
The answer is clearly to burn more, because frankly a life where you’re eating too much kale is not a life worth living. The gyms reopen in NYC a few months ago but being in confined spaces with strangers makes me vomit now so I avoided them, both here and during my months in Pakistan. Last week I summoned my courage, tucked my tummy in my elastic waistband and marched into a gym called Temple. It was as horrifying as you think it is. The desk was manned by a pair of models/athletes who do squats instead of sleep, and they looked from my face to my stomach and back again with a resigned, familiar sense of pity.
“Need to lose the pandemic pounds?” Biceps 1 asked.
“Is it that obvious…” I half-joked, wishing I had a shawl for my midsection,
“Yes,” Biceps 2 said. “Yes, it is. But don’t worry we have everything you need here. Why don’t I just go ahead and-”
“No,” I scowled. “Not you, never you.”
Biceps 1 gave me a brief tour of the facilities, a dark, cavernous series of halls wrapped in plastic and fumigated with bleach. There were more people than I was comfortable seeing in one enclosed space but far fewer than places like this used to have. Everyone wore masks and expressions of depression. The energy of these spaces, usually filled with athletes shouting at each other between pushups, was now eerie and disquieting.
“So, are you ready to sign up?” He asked after the tour.
“I will be,” I replied, turning around and walking out as I thought of the three weeks I’d need to get thin enough BEFORE I could reasonably step onto an elliptical without suicidal thoughts. “As God is my witness, I will be…”
Write to thekantawala@gmail.com