Operation Don’t Die: Update.

Previously on this kind of update I’ve talked about being too fat. Turns out that’s not really what I meant, and it has taken observing my kids to realise that. Driven (I am assuming as I don’t use the same kind of vernacular) by peers and social media and popular culture, the youngest has taken to using ‘fat’ as an insult. Not just in terms of body types, but as a general insult – she has before now used the term ‘fat brain’, not only directed at her sibling, but also herself. We are frequently pointing out to her that fat is not a negative, that thinness isn’t an indication of health and there are many mitigating factors that show higher weight isn’t necessarily indicative of poorer health.

We’re not currently getting through to her – both of my kids are at that age where the influence of parents is low compared to other places and getting lower. It did however, give me cause to think about how on previous ‘Operation Don’t Die’ updates I tended to pile insults onto myself about being fat.

Previously when I actually lost weight, it occurred to me that I was in a job in retail preparing for Christmas, working 80-hour weeks and skipping at least one meal a day. Everyone told me how good I looked at the time, and that positive reinforcement I think stuck with me, linking not eating properly and losing weight because of that being a good thing. Clearly that isn’t healthy.

Another time when I pretty much cut out sugar and bread and left everything else the same I also got a great deal of positive comments. I didn’t lose as much weight as I did during the stressful meal-skipping period, but I did drop a few centimetres off the belly, just not so much that I wouldn’t still have considered myself overweight.

I am not one of those people that have used this lockdown period to turn myself into a godlike specimen of human physicality (well-played those of you that have managed to do just that). But it isn’t the larger waist that should be concerning me; it’s the lack of exercise. I no longer walk to work, at least for now, and finding the time to replace even that amount of cardiac exercise has proven problematic. Between not feeling like I’m giving enough attention to my kids, as well as not being able to spend as much time ‘at work’ in the little study in the corner of the house, taking out an hour or more each day to go off and walk for my own health feels selfish, although nobody else at home or work would think so.

So things to work on then, both physically and mentally. Only thing to do is keep trying I guess.