How I Lost My Quarantine Weight, Part 1: Food

With a few words about exercise, because it’s all connected

Photo by Brooke Lark on Unsplash

If you’re like me, you spent the early days (or, well, months) of COVID-19 quarantine…baking. I learned how to make skillet breads, and crème brûlée, and English muffins. I baked lemon bars with duck eggs to make them richer, and did the same with lemon curd, and with ice cream. I made granola, and quiche, and cassoulet, and crumpets — oh, crumpets (sigh). World’s greatest butter vehicle.

All that baking had its results. Boy howdy, did it ever. By late summer, I was ready to turn this around. I had gained — well, I don’t know how much weight I had gained, because I had long since stopped weighing myself. And I also don’t want to talk specific numbers here. I love numbers, I love measuring and calibrating and keeping track, I love spreadsheets and charts, Quicken and Excel; but I want to talk much more about general principles. Weight is very personal, and also quirky. Everyone’s experiences, emotions, and individual relationships with weight are unique. Where I think we can relate, and maybe even help each other, is in these more general principles.

I have lots of thoughts about weight, and health, and living in our bodies the best way we can. All my adult life, I have — not struggled exactly, but been aware of food…