At the end of February, I got sick of how much weight I had gained during the quarantine so I decided to sign up for the Noom diet app. It is a few hundred dollars (like $180) for seven months of nutrition, exercise, sleep and stress-reduction education, plus coaching. Before the pandemic, if you asked me if I would have ever used my smart phone to track every glass of water, every step I took, and everything I ate, I would have said you were crazy. And here I am, with my Fitbit and weighing myself first thing every morning, trying to drop all of the weight I've gained not just since the pandemic, but since before the Boy (now to be known as Pedro) was born when I weighed ~125 pounds. After Claire-Adele was born, I went kind of nuts and exercised twice a day a several times a week. I'd bike in the morning for an hour before Jack went to work, and then I'd go to this kick-ass aerobics class at the YMCA with every stay-at-home mom in central suburban St. Louis. The more I worked out, the less I ate. My food choices also improved. I ate more vegetables and less fatty and fried foods.
When Pedro was born, I didn't have make or find time to get enough exercise. It was a pain in the butt to make go to the grocery store with a toddler and infant and cooking is my least favorite chore, so we ate out more. I didn't gain weight all at once overnight. It was a slow steady, packing on of extra pounds, a few at a time. I have an hourglass body shape, so I tend to carry my excess baggage in my boobs and my booty, which isn't bad. I never felt like I looked fat or ugly.
Why now? What is the urgency? I am tired of carrying these extra fifty pounds around with me wherever I go. When I hike with Claire-Adele, she kicks my butt. Last time she was in town, we hiked Little Si. I imagine my excess weight to be bags of groceries. Do I want to carry fifty pounds of groceries up Little Si? Because in effect, I was. I want to be able to hike. I don't want my legs and joints to ache. I am fine now, but how will I feel in ten years?
I tried Keto and I lost a few pounds, but it wasn't a diet I could permanently maintain. I like bread, but how much is enough? How much is too much?
I also didn't have some obvious "one thing" to fix and tada! drop my flab. Jack has a co-worker who lost 45 pounds in the first three months of the pandemic. How? She stopped going to the bar after work (because bars were closed) and drinking five beers. Instead, she walked seven miles.
This Noom app helps me build self-awareness around what I eat and how much I move. I've learned that exercise won't overcome a bad diet, but moving and building strength can keep me healthier. When I was twenty-three, I could go to John Barleycorn on Belden and Halsted and have a beer, eat half a plate of nachos, the best hamburger on the planet and their potato chip like fries. I might have gained a few pounds, but nothing epic. I could still bike and walk and play tennis. I'd go to water aerobics. After I had kids, I drank a lot less (I'd get cranky when I'd drink around my kids. Not a good parenting look.)
The Noom app is doing two things:
- Helping me make healthier choices to help me lose weight.
- Even if I am not losing weight as fast as I'd like, I am not gaining more weight, which alone is a miracle.
I've lost seven pounds so far. I am moving the ship in a different direction. Yay! Forty-three more to go before I get to my pre-Pedro weight. 😒
The worst part is that I am kicking myself for gaining all of this weight in the first place. I wish I had developed healthier and more consistent eating and exercise habits years ago. I wish I would have ordered a salad instead of french fries for the past decade (or two), and then I wouldn't be here. I wish I had managed my diet and exercise as well as I've managed my money.
Wait...What?
I wish I had managed my diet and exercise as well as I've managed my money.
Whoa.
By my own admission, I am really good at managing money. A year after Claire-Adele was born, I asked Jack why he loved me. The first thing that came to his mind was "You are really good at managing money."
That was not that answer I was looking for or expecting. "What? No, seriously. What do you love about me?" Then he doubled-down.
"I am serious," he said. "If it wasn't for you, we wouldn't be able to buy a house."
I was hoping he would have said that I was kind or attentive or thoughtful. Instead: my ability to manage money.
Some of my friends ask me for advice with their money. I have other friends who are really good at managing their money whom I ask for advice. My dad is an accountant, so I have a built in family member who provides direction and insight. Heck with having a doctor in the family--you only need a doctor when you are sick. Money is around 24/7/365.
Years ago, I was in a memoir writing class at the University of Washington. The teacher asked us what was our passion, our obsession, and to write about that. The first thing that popped into my head was money. I didn't say it to the class because I was too embarrassed.
The thing is, I am not greedy. I don't aspire to be rich so I can buy lots of stuff. I want to be comfortable and secure and have money for a rainy day. I want my money to work for me, in addition to me working for it. I want the freedom money provides. I want to know that I can pay my bills if I lose my job, that I can afford a new roof if the current one leaks. I want to send my kids to college. That I can manage a crisis if one happens, just like it did with Pedro.
"Money doesn't come with instructions," my Uncle Bob once said. Food doesn't come with instructions, either, but I am learning about it through Noom. Love, relationships, family, friendships, career: none of those things come with instructions. Yet, we can learn from one another, in a safe place where was can share our fears, as well as our hopes and dreams.
In this next phase of my blog, I will write about something I have self-studied for years, something I am passionate about, something I want to share, something I have discussed with friends and family: the relationship I have built over the years with money.
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