I’ve been quarantined for almost 6 weeks now and life definitely has been special, stressful, challenging and great all at the same time. We now get to be full-time parents with our 5-month old all the time, so we’re not missing milestones but also now balancing work with it.
With all of the chaos and stress, the last thing we’ve done is watch our food intake. As many of you can probably attest to, being at home has made you snack more and “eat more feelings”. When we finally took to the scale, we noticed our weight was nearly 20 pounds heavier than we wanted.
Once that reality set in, we took a step back to understand the reasons why this happened:
- Having a Child and Parenting Full Time: Once our little girl arrived, the stress set in, but once we also had our little girl 24-hours a day, we realized how much disruption to our daily routine it was. We did not have day care to help us and we found ourselves working full time and managing a 5 month olds daily routine as well. This was easily the #1 reason why food choices were put aside and we used carbs and sugar to ease our stress.
- Hosting My Parents for 2+ Months: We had an opportunity to have my parents fly up right before quarantine and they decided to stay with us during most of it. Having your parents in your home with a 5-month old was amazing because we had more hands to help. However, I realized that the stress does set in when you are all of a sudden now worrying about two more people’s health.
- Working from Home: Working from home has been a challenge! It’s not only hard to get motivated each morning, but also a challenge to not find yourself getting up to look for a snack. The realization that working from home was not going away any time soon helped me get into a routine to manage my schedule and snacking habits.
- Financial Stress: Many of you might be feeling financial stress. We’ve been taking this day by day and watching our money but financial stress is definitely aiding in our weight gain. We’re also looking to go on another surrogate journey so this is creating additional stress.
I find that once you take a step back to understand the reasons why, then you have an opportunity to be fully aware and not fall into the traps. Also, getting into a “new normal” routine also helps. Going into each day unknown had us doing things that we would never do so having a routine has put us on a path back to being our healthy, slim selves again.
Have you been going through the same things?!
