Disclaimer: I am not a medical professional, I am only writing from my own personal experience. Please don't read this if you're likely to be triggered by discussions about weight, food, exercise, fitness or anything else related to these subjects.
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Honestly, I wondered how long it would take for the fat shaming to begin. It's that predictable. Another rung on the ladder of shirking responsibility for the human impact of Covid-19. The sad thing is that we'll probably largely (pun not intended) fall for it. Even though fat shaming is absolutely not what anyone needs right now (or anytime for that matter).
Anybody who is fat, knows they're fat. Trust me, I know, I'm fat. We don't need telling by anyone else. But I'm also, dare I say it, the fittest I've ever been, thanks to a multitude of factors, some of which stem from being privileged. Because, yes, it is easier to lose weight and be fitter when you have more money, energy and time. That's just a fact.
Health is more than just what our bodies look like, though. Health and well being is mental as well as physical. And we all know that right now, times are challenging mentally for many of us. That's without taking into account all of the pre-Covid-19 problems people were facing.
I'll use myself an example. I lost my job late last year, and the self confidence and self esteem I'd spent years building up basically abandoned me (thanks buddies). For the first time in my life, I had got a promotion, I was managing people, I was earning good money, the most I'd ever earned, and I felt good about myself. And in the blink of an eye, the rug was pulled from underneath me and I very nearly found myself in a deep, dark hole of despair.
Thankfully, being experienced in the ups and downs of the toxic combination of anxiety and depression, I knew right away that I needed to get help. And I did. For the first time in years (something that I feel/felt like a failure for) I started taking medication again. It was only because of this medication (and because of a conversation with a doctor who told me that SSRIs don't create serotonin, they just boost it, ergo exercise helps, if you can bring yourself to do it) that I was able to have the wherewithal to realise that I needed to give myself a structure to my days that involved leaving the house, otherwise I probably just wouldn't (except for, you know, council meetings and stuff).
N.B: (I also saw a therapist for several sessions at the beginning of the year. This didn't have an impact on my fitness but it did teach me a lot about my core values, which helped me to understand why external factors affect me the way they do, but I wanted to mention it because leaving it out felt disingenuous).
So I started using the gym that I'd been paying membership for, for an embarrassingly long amount of time without actually using it. But then they closed because of Covid-19.
In the interests of being totally upfront, I had started doing couch to 5k last summer, before I got the promotion, when I was starting to feel a bit dissatisfied with life, so taking up running wasn't something I started completely from scratch during lock down. But having stopped because of a series of infections (thank you rubbish lungs) and then it being winter (again, rubbish lungs mean I can't run in the cold) I started up again this year not long into lock down, and am now working my way through couch to 10k, regularly running between 2-3 miles non stop.
I also started playing a game called Ring Fit Adventure on the Nintendo Switch. I actually completed it today. I've used it most days for a first thing in the morning work out of between 15-30 minutes, involving a series of exercises focused on the arms, legs, and core muscles, and yoga positions. The gamification of exercise is absolutely something I can get behind, and have demonstrably embraced extremely enthusiastically!
This isn't to say that lock down has been smooth sailing. Early on I got quite dark about it all, mostly because of the amount of chest and throat infections I attract, and knowing that I am already challenged when it comes to breathing (my lung capacity shocks my nurse at every asthma review, it's that bad). I managed to convince myself that I would die if I got Covid-19. A bit of me still feels that way, or at the very least that I'd have a really bad time of it, and would definitely have hugely unhelpful, life limiting after effects, so getting fitter was my way of trying to control a variable that is somewhat within my own hands, during this pandemic. If I'm going to get it during subsequent waves, I want to be in the best position to fight it off. And if my lung capacity hasn't improved at my next review, I will feel thoroughly cheated.
As I mentioned earlier on, I am privileged. Though I lost my job, I'm not in dire straits financially. I own (some of) the roof over my head. I have a partner who earns a living that means we're comfortable without me working (although as fun as that might sound to some people, it is not the lifestyle for me). We have space and a games console that allow me to work out from home. I have a bike that I've been cycling around on more (although less so since the roads got busy again 😒). I have a smart phone and data plan that allow me to use a running app to my heart's content. We live in a suburb that is quite green and has lots of segregated pedestrian routes. We aren't on a budget when we food shop so we can buy whatever we like, to make nutritious meals.
Not working has given me ample time to exercise and meal plan/prep. And being on medication has allowed me to be mentally strong enough to get out of bed every morning and engage in positive choices for my health and well being. Sometimes those choices are to bake yummy things, or order take away under the guise of supporting local businesses. Those are still positive choices even if they aren't super healthy ones, because they lift the spirit and give you something to look forward to at a time when there really isn't very much to look forward to at all with any degree of certainty.
I suppose my point is that nobody knows what other people have going on. It's all well and good for Boris to pontificate about how being fat probably made his experience of the virus worse, and so therefore we should all hit the treadmills. But we don't all have his ability to spectacularly fail upwards in life.
As I've found myself saying numerous times during this pandemic, though we're all in this together, we're all experiencing the pandemic in a myriad of different ways, and so we need to be kind to each other, be compassionate, empathetic, and generous. Being judgemental of others is so easy to do when you don't know what things people are struggling with, but nothing is ever as simple as those judgements might lead you to believe. So no fat shaming, please.
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