Health
Coronavirus Shutdown: I Expected My Weight to Go Up — Certainly Not Down
Lost 7 pounds eating only home-cooked meals! The reason surprised me.
Synopsis
- I don’t like unexpected changes, especially weight gain or more important, a loss which can be a symptom of too many diseases. I had to find out why. It started with the shutdown.
Sitting home for 10 weeks was a new experience. I expected to gain weight unless I was careful. I already had a routine for keeping my weight steady but had no idea how it would work if I was home ALL of the time.
In the beginning, we sat home instead of going dancing for an hour or so every night. I was careful not to eat between-meal snacks, except for one chocolate-coated raisin. Still, without any physical activity, I expected to add a few pounds.
Our normal routine changed
Of course! Our meals changed, but it didn’t seem like that much. It took a while to figure out how.
Our breakfasts, lunches, and dinners were the same, with one exception.
We were not going out to restaurants twice a week.
But I thought I was maintaining a flat calorie count, so that should not have made a difference. Upon closer examination, though, it did.
When I was working, I would have grapefruit, cold cereal, and since I like something warm for breakfast, toast. After I retired, I moved to hot cereal and eventually dropped the toast.
I should have lost some more weight, but the two restaurant outings per week made up the difference. My wife and I usually split one dinner, so my calorie count didn’t increase much. In fact, it just covered the missing breakfast toast.
Where the 7-pound loss came from
We were no longer going out to restaurants, but I had not added the toast back into my breakfasts. Just those missing 7 slices of toast, with butter, caused the weight loss. Ten weeks later, I weighed 7 pounds less.
I had to make some adjustments. I adjusted my belt one notch. Then I moved my wedding ring to the other hand. I had lost just enough weight that it was falling off at times. I was afraid that it would fall into the garbage disposal while it was running. The finger on the right hand is slightly larger than the one on the left.
Conclusion
According to the calculators, I am currently at my ideal weight. Now that some restaurants are open to half capacity, I don’t want to gain that weight back. To maintain the new weight, I need to cut about 70 calories per day according to my calorie calculator.
So, I will cut about 1 tablespoon of uncooked hot cereal for breakfast and 4 potato chips for dinner. Those reduced calories will offset the one slice of toast and butter.
