Kitchen Renovation

I guess this falls under the state of everything, though mostly it's just the state of me. So, you may have noticed, there's a pandemic going on. People are dying. Me, I'm more or less holed up in my house and have been, so that has a whole other thing happening. A couple of things. So, when the pandemic started, lo these many months ago, I was in the best shape I had been for years, which is not saying much, but which is saying something. My husband had been in England for 6 weeks, and then, I forget, 2 more or something, and so I was in charge of running the house. Literally keeping the home fires burning. Taking out the garbage. If I needed something from somewhere, I had to go get it instead of sending my errand boy. As I recall, my eating had morphed, without the tyranny of three squares, or something like that. At the very end, I gave up my bedtime snack and that was hard. I love eating at night. So then, pandemic. Stay home. Feel really sorry for yourself, and scared. I wore a mask, and I made masks (so many masks) and I hated wearing them, because they make me really hot. Like, hiding in the bread aisle, scooping sweat out of my boobs hot. Like, I forget what I came here for, whatever I get will have to do hot. Hideously, wring the damned mask out hot. So I started using curbside pickup, which was nice, but which didn't exactly help me move. And I ate. I ate to console myself. I might die; I'll have some chips and dip. I'm stuck in the house and I can see the person I want to see; I'll have a cookie. Or two. Or five. And then I'll have something savory and then I'll have something sweet and, oh, look, the potatoes from dinner need to be finished, I'll just do that. And I never went anywhere, so I wore leggings. In the end, this was not good. I started overweight, and I got more overweight. I don't know how much, because I have a long-standing habit of not weighing myself. It's complicated, but it's not good for me and not because I get anorexic. It's just not good for me. I've gone on big diets and lost weight and do I know how much? Not a clue. And that's fine. So, here I was fat, but we don't know how fat. Well....I sort of know. Or, I have one specific metric, and if TMI bothers you, stop reading now. I couldn't wipe. I could, but I couldn't get very far. I started using baby wipes, which sort of helped, but they required a lot of contortions. Did I stop eating? I did not. Did I even care? Well, I sort of cared, but it's not like I ever saw anyone, so.... Well, time passed. We got our shots. We went to visit relatives. Friend/relatives. I ate, but I didn't eat at night, for like three days, nothing great. (Oh, and staying there is double wiping hell, because they have those high toilets that everyone loves, but I hate, because at BEST I can't wipe on them. Suffice it to say, I thought of little else. And I'm VERY regular, I go every morning, so every morning, when I'm barely awake, I have this to deal with). So anyway, we came home and the next morning, I went, and....I could reach further. Not far, but further. What was different, I asked myself. Well, golllllleeeee Sgt. Carter, I didn't eat at night. No, really, that was all, because I wsas scarfing trail mix at other times as though I were ON a trail. Did this inspire me to not eat at night. Yeah, not so much. Then two more things happened. We have Blink cameras, a gift from my daughter and her husband and I saw myself heaving myself into my husband's Jeep and I thought, yeah, something has to happen, and maybe even that same day, my other daughter came over, thinner, and said it was from intermittent fasting, and it was good for famine bodies. (We joke that every person of Irish descent in the world today is descended from people who survived the potato famine and so we all know how to hold on to food. It's a joke, but not really). So that day, I stopped eating at 6. That was it. I had breakfast at 10, which is sort of when I eat breakfast anyway, and I had dinner by 6, which is hard for me, and I didn't eat at night. Mostly. But really, it was from one day to the next. And I saw changes, from one day to the next. I am not here to preach the gospel of intermittent fasting. I'm pretty sure nothing magic happens at hour 11, no matter what the fasting apps say. I think the reason it works is because you can only shove so much food in yourself in a smaller time window and for me, if you're not eating at night, you don't have that marvelous hand-to-mouth thing I love so much and find so soothing. So you're taking in fewer calories. So.... You can wipe better. You can take a shower and not pant. You can walk a little further. I am honestly finding it remarkable, and other than getting really hungry at about 10:30, I'm not that bothered. Sometimes I give in. Sometimes life makes me have to eat at other times and then I do, because, really, why make yourself nuts? But I've gone back, which is the really remarkable thing. I think about it, though. Not going back, but where I was, and where I am and where I might end up. I was literally so fat that I couldn't perform basic hygiene. I am still fat, by any metric, (though less fat and my doctor told me so, but in a way nicer way, because he's chubby, too and so he's really nice about it, no weight bias there) but I'm less fat. I try clothes on once in a while, to see what fits. and things are starting to fit again. So I have a notion of my weight, honestly, because I know what fit when and sometimes I do weigh, although I haven't since November of 2019. I don't really have a point here, other than I sort of wanted to get this out of my head, but if I do have one, I guess it's this. I have always believed that everyone knows how to lose weight, even though there is a body of evidence that it's not really that easy. But I also believe that even if we think we want to, we don't. We dont' want it enough, and honestly, that's fine. If you need protection, I am sincerely fine with that. It's just, and this sounds preachy, and I don't mean it to, maybe you want to work on letting yourself out of your flesh prision. I don't care if you put on a bikini and go to the beach, I'm post-bathing suit myself and just bundle up in SPF clothes because the beach hates me even if I don't hate it. But maybe you want to tie your shoes. (I'm not really there, by the way). Or maybe, you just want to wipe. Whatever you do, don't make yourself crazy doing it.