Lockdown

I know, too many things on my title… and to be honest, all true. All at the same time. All hit my head and it was a moment where I couldn’t find my self. But, I kept pushing play, play to all, to wake up in the morning, to start my computer and sit down for work, to fight to live in this pandemic where all was closed and you must stay at home.

I live in a 50 m2 apartment in South East London, and let’s say, I’m used to work from home. So far so good. Well, my 50 m2 apartment in a lockdown became a 25 m2 as I had to share it with my partner, so my privacy became none. We only have 1 bedroom and a living room with an open kitchen. I found my self sharing my work table, my work chair, having zoom meetings at the same time…. all my space was gone in such a short time and without knowing how long this situation will last.

Of course, first thing that occurred to me was to get depressed, not deeply depress but my mind was not happy with this change. To this, we need to add that I was holding some extra weight on my body that was making me very unhappy. Just came back from Spain where food is so delicious and I have no force to control myself. When the lockdown hit I was depressed, fat and without privacy. Great! A very good way to believe in myself… 🙁

and just like that, on Monday 16th of March, I decided to push play and start a round of 80 Day Obsession. Why not. Couldn’t be worst? Of course it could, as I decided on the same day that I will follow the diet or the nutrition plan that goes with the program. So let’s recap: you have me depressed, fat, no privacy & doing an extreme workout with an extreme diet!

I have to say that the first week wasn’t too bad, actually it helped my to clean and detox my body from all the extra sugar I have and my mind started to focus on my self. You may think I’m crazy, but seriously….What other options would I have? I knew that if I stayed doing nothing in the couch eating fast food & drinking I will become something that I would hate for the rest of my life. After a week and a half, I started to read “The Monk who sold his Ferrari” and I decided to write my goals. I did first long term goals and later decided to short them out and focus only on the 3 months that the 80 day Obsession last. what were they? Easy, to lose at least some weight, keep on track and do not fail. I have to admit that it was not easy but I was motivated and most important, determined to do it.

I did start this journey alone, my partner didn’t follow my nutrition and during this first 2 weeks he was eating whatever… I didn’t mind. I imagined by body in a nice pink bikini while his with a big belly (each one got his own motivation :D). I was cooking for my self and yes, I did not make 2 different meals, he ate my food when he didn’t want to cook. At week 3, he decided his belly was big enough and started to diet with me. I have to admin that this made things easier & support you while you have cravings.

Focusing in nutrition and exercise actually helped my depression to go away but I still had my privacy to take control off. Since I normally used to get up at 7.30 and start working at 8 am, I decided to wake up a bit earlier to enjoy the silence of the morning with a nice coffee. It felt good and I was more relaxed when starting my day day of work. I decided to push a little bit harder and wake up at 6.15 and start doing some yoga, but something easy, and pushed harder and I added meditation and I finally was waking up at 6 am every day!

Having this determination has helped me to lose more weight than I planned and now feel proud of what I have accomplished.

So now I’m on my second lockdown… and if you ask me what’s the difference between the first and the current one…. what can I say? “There is no difference” was my first thought… or maybe yes. Let’s think about it.

In the first lockdown, people was panicking, let me rephrase it, I was panicking. Why? I didn’t want to be infected or maybe I didn’t want to be marked as “infected”. Or it was just the fear of the unknown sickness? Looking back at that time and comparing on how I feel now, I think I’m more relaxed. I’ve been already 8 months at home and I now see as well around me that people feel less stressed. Not anymore those big queues in the supermarket, no more toilet paper war etc. Does it mean we don’t care anymore about Coronavirus? I don’t think so, I believe it’s just we’re all getting used to and adapting our lives to it.

But coming back to the title of my post, weekends, how are those different now from before? Before COVID my weekends were quite busy, I used to make a short weekend abroad once per month, have lunch with a friend if I stayed at London, have Chinese lessons on Saturday’s mornings or just stay home. Now my weekends are all the same. I’ve been keeping the Chinese classes on Saturdays via Zoom but I have to say that in October I’ve just let them go. I couldn’t stand more to be in front of the computer 4 hours on a Saturday morning after being working from home the whole week.

Instead of that, now on a Saturday morning I have a relaxed coffee in bed, after I have breakfast, I work out for an hour, I take time for myself, shower-bath-face mask- beauty time whatever I want to do to make me feel good. Self-care is called. Lunch and relax in the couch. I try to read but the truth is I spend my time on internet or chatting with friends and family. Time for a snack and it’s already 6 pm. Time flies! So we normally eat at 8.30 so I have 2 and a half hours to decide if I go to the couch again or I cook… I normally do both 😉 Time to cook, eat & chat about the day, yes… about the day…, clean the table, wash dishes and Netflix time… so Saturday’s gone.

And now it’s time for Sundays… Sundays for me is the day that you plan to do a lot of things and you end up doing nothing of what you’ve planned because you’re tired or worst, bored. I always wake up planning that I want to this and this and this… but as long as the day passes, I feel less energised and just thinking of relaxing…in the couch. So I have an internal fight with myself where I try to obligate me to do things and not just have the whole day in the couch or watching Netflix. Today after my coffee in bed, I made pancakes, we went for a walk as it was not raining, lunch time, clean the apartment, siesta time, meal preparation for the week, snack and I’ve just realised that tomorrow is Monday and the weekend has just passed…

Even though I think my weekends are now quite inactive as they were before, I keep looking out of my window and I see the life of my neighbours where the only thing they seem to do is just watch TV… So I feel proud that at least, I keep myself busy and I move out of the couch!