Heavy weight of COVID-19 pandemic tips BND columnist’s scale in wrong direction
Everyone has heard of the Freshman 15, where kids go off to college and return home for the summer 15 pounds heavier.
I now present to you the COVID-15. If anyone doubts it exists, they need only to gaze upon my new chubster physique.
Goodbye skinny jeans, hello muumuus. My new figure was achieved through quarantine binges of wine and chocolate. Pasta, pizza and Mexican food also played a role in its development.
I’ve recently begun raising my chins during Zoom meetings to make my face look slimmer. I used to suck in my stomach. Now I suck in my cheeks. Since the pandemic struck, it’s all about the head.
“Hardly anybody sees my body any more,” I told my pal Lydia recently. “It’s always from the neck up on a computer.”
“But what if you run into someone you know at Aldi?” she asked.
“True. Grocery outings require wearing pants.”
They do not, however, require wearing burgundy lipstick. Yet I always slap on some before heading to the store.
“The inside of my mask is stained bright red,” I told Lydia. “You’d think my mouth was bleeding.”
“It’s your brain I’m worried about ,” she said.
When the world turned upside down, my way of thinking went with it. I’m not nearly as sociable as I once was. These days, I’m way too content sitting on the sofa with my pets, nibbling Oreos and staring at the fireplace.
I’ve been on two diets since March. Each began with what I like to call a “Farewell to Food” — meaning I binged on everything in sight before swearing off junk food the next day. A few weeks later, I was back at the trough.
I have friends (who shall remain nameless, mostly because I hate them) who look better now than they did before this pandemic started. They exercise daily and eat only healthy food. They risk their lives to get manicures. Not me. My nails are gross.
Last week, during a rare foray to the gym, I realized I had chocolate beneath my nails. You may think I’m kidding, but, seriously, I’m not. It had to do with a late-night binge into a batch of really gooey brownies. Judge me, if you will. But they were delicious.
‘I can do pie in moderation’
“You can’t do anything in moderation, can you?” my husband, Mark, asked me, as he nibbled a slice of apple pie.
“I can do pie in moderation,” I said, “unless it’s chocolate, lemon or coconut. Or pecan pie. That’s another trigger for me.”
With the world shut down, there are so few pleasures left. I may start another diet come Monday. Or I may just lift up my chins a little higher on Zoom.
