A Twix and Between Christmas

What a weird year this has been. Things started out fairly normal.  January saw me still working from home, same job, same house. Now here I am in December, 50 pounds lighter, jobless, and preparing to completely change my life by selling the house and travelling Europe for a year.  Wow.  Didn’t see any of that coming.

I also didn’t see the ‘once in a century’ storm we’d have for Christmas this year.  Saturday, Christmas Eve, Atlanta saw record low temperatures of 6 degrees F.  I’m just glad that it’s been sunny and dry the last two days.  I can’t imagine living through the blackouts and whiteouts they’re having up north this year.

Watching the weather reports only added to the sub-zero amount of Christmas spirit I have this year.  I just packed the decorations into my storage unit last week.  The last two months have been all about getting rid of a lot of stuff in preparation for the move, so no new presents for me (the only Christmas present I want is for someone to back up a truck full of money in front of my house and get it off my hands).   I sent out a few cards as I do every year, but got zero response.  Seems like I’m not the only one lacking in spirit.

Now I’m just waiting.  And it stinks.  I can have all the plans in the world to go out and explore, I can make all the travel arrangements I want, but getting someone to first see my house and then decide to buy it is completely out of my hands.  The realtor I’m working with is a nice guy and doing his best, but I think it’s just a matter of bad timing.  End of year, economy heating up, lots of people getting laid off. So.  The holding pattern continues. 

I do hope everyone has a good holiday.

Well … I got laid off last week.

 And I just ‘celebrated’ my twenty-year anniversary at my current employer in March.  How quickly things change.

I knew this was coming.  There had been a lot of changes imposed on my group in a very short time to cut costs.  I’d heard the rumblings of a recession for months now.   So, when the boom was lowered, it wasn’t a shock.  But still there are … feelings.

Admittedly, I was getting burned out.  I’d been in my position for ten years and was ready to move on.  The changes within the position in the last year did not help anything.  I knew it was time (waaaay past time) to get out, but I kept dragging my feet.  It was only when I started to get the layoff vibes in September that I started making plans.

My first move was to declutter the house with a plan to sell it.  Please note:  I love my house.  This is my first home, I’ve been in it for 19 years come December, and I have been very happy here.  But, since I had no interest in immediately jumping into a new job, there was no way I could maintain this house for very long.  The declutter part has been a bittersweet experience.

I have seriously been considering going expat or a while now.  I’d originally wanted to sell the house years ago and move to Australia.  But considering that I made this decision right before the 2008 housing crisis … and those plans kinda fizzled out.  Cut to 12 years later and that impulse to leave America is even stronger than before.

I changed my mind about Australia for various reasons then switched to New Zealand.  That idea died when I saw a report on Kiwi TV that said expats were leaving the country in droves because of the expense and the hard path to citizenship.  Then I began to focus on Portugal.  I have heard good things about the climate and the quality of life that has already attracted a large portion of black Americans to move there. 

Acquiring a visa takes some time though, and I was thinking I would have more of it before the layoff.  This job officially ends on 12/31/22 which has me scrambling to establish a workable timetable.  I canceled my planned scouting trip to Portugal for November and instead sent my passport to get renewed.  It expires in July 2023 and I wanted to make sure it got back to me before I put the house on the market.  I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to apply for the D7 visa before the first of the year, so I hatched a new plan.

I’ve also been researching the idea of a grownup gap year (my brain is just swimming with ideas).  I’ve found that there is a whole community of black women who took several months off to just travel and get their heads right.  I didn’t realize until the last month or so that I could really use a break, a time to rest and relax before finding another job.   Now, I’m trying to figure out an itinerary, looking for employment opportunities, packing up the house, searching for my medications overseas, picking up some Portuguese (Madeira would be my first stop), doubting myself every step of the way, feeling overwhelmed, excited, sad ….

Like I said.  There are feelings.

How I lost 40 pounds in 4 months (or how I spent my summer 2022)

 

Simple answer for this one:  WW online.

Before I say any more, this disclaimer:  I am not sponsored by Weight Watchers.  I’m not a dietician or personal trainer or anything like that.  I’m just a middle-aged chick who wanted to lose weight to improve my health.  Hope that makes things clear.

How this process got started:  I’ve been into healthy eating and regular exercise for years now.  There is a gym in the basement of my office building and I’d gotten into the habit of hitting it every morning before getting to my desk.  I’ve always been a bigger woman so my focus was not usually on weight loss as I’ve gained and lost the same 20 pounds over the years.  I firmly believe that exercise and a reasonably good diet are important to everyone. 

Things were going just fine until March 2020.  The transition to working from home indefinitely did nothing for my physical health.  Being jarred out of my routine and barred from the gym at the job (coupled with anxiety about Covid) left me basically immobile for two months.  It was only after realizing that I wasn’t doing myself any favors with all the additional butt time, I slowly adapted to a new routine.  The diet remained the same, but I started to move more.  I felt like I was getting back on track.

Cut to two years later and quarantine had not been kind.  It’s not like I was pigging out on the regular but by the beginning of 2022 I had reached the age of 50 and was post-menopausal.  I had no idea the damage to my body until I went for a routine doctor’s visit in May.  My blood sugar was at 106 and my weight had ballooned to 257 pounds.  What.  The.  Hell.

The WW program had been suggested to me multiple times in the past, but I always insisted that I could do this on my own.  Joining the online program, though, pointed out various tweaks I could make to my routine put me in a calorie deficit.  Cutting down on butter, cutting out my once-a-week fast food habit, and getting rid of all added sugar were a good start.  Additionally, I set up my own weight-lifting station in my living room and scoured YouTube for work at home routines.  Through these videos, I also learned how hormones can affect the body with age and how they need to be regulated to maintain a healthy body weight.  I added a probiotic to my supplement regimen along with apple cider vinegar and turmeric.  I was already a big fan of a multi-vitamin, fish oil and green tea so what’s a few more pills?

It is now routine for me to have two weight-lifting sessions a week and 2-3 cardio sessions where I power walk around the neighborhood.  I prepare bento boxes for lunch every week, using a food scale to maintain proper portions.  Water all day every day and logging my food online saw me losing around two pounds a week.  No cheat meals but I do allow myself cheat drinks.  I took up mixology right before starting WW -- two things that don’t really go together but at least WW assigns points for my 3 beverages a week.  I’m still shocked that this has gone so well.

What I’ve learned: 

1.       Consistency is key. 

2.       Plateaus will happen but don’t be discouraged. 

3.       Don’t be afraid to indulge every once in a while. 

4.       Rest when you need it.

5.       Weight loss is not a sprint, it’s a marathon.

6.       The best meal in the world is nothing compared to putting on a pair of pants that fit last year and watching them fall off while I laugh maniacally.  Good times.

Breaking out of my bubble

 

Wow.  It has been a wild 2 ½ years!  Who’da thunk that a few months after my very first cruise in December 2019, the world would come to a complete stop because of a pandemic.  That one of the first incidents to mark the strange year to come was that the very ship I was on, the Grand Princess, was the same ship that got held up off the coast of California because of the rising Covid cases onboard.  That what was originally supposed to be a few months of quarantine turned into a few years with no real end in sight. 

I still vividly remember the email sent out by my employer on that Tuesday, March 10, 2020.  To paraphrase: ‘Management has officially determined that ^&*(: has hit the fan.  Take your laptops home and don’t come back to work until we say it’s safe.’   Um.  Okay.  I worked from home for the next few days terrified of even leaving the house for groceries and trying to soak up as much info as I could find.  At the time, it was expected that we’d return to the office by the end of the month.  Then it was the end of May.  Then it was July.  Then it was …

I got used to the ‘new normal’ as the world descended into hell.  My work station had already been set up for my regular work from home Thursdays.  Online meetings with my teammates kept me connected to the outside world and the work load continued as usual.  The fact that I’m a loner with no social life made the adjustment much easier.

As uncertain as those first few weeks were, I certainly did not miss being in Atlanta traffic.  I had already started my year off with an accident in January that totaled my car – the second car of mine to be destroyed by someone else’s stupidity.  I’d purchased my first ever new vehicle that same month which was great, but there was always that nagging fear that this car, too, would get hit.  Quarantine took care of that fear nicely.  Instead of spending 2-3 hours a day, 4 days a week driving the 25 miles to and from work, I now spend less than an hour a week in the car.  I went from spending around $100 a month on gas to filling up the car maybe once every 3 months. My local grocery store is only a mile away and an easy walk on sunny days.  As much as I like my new car, I don’t mind that I’ve barely put 5,000 miles on it in 2 ½ years.

In some ways, I was designed for quarantine.  I’ve never required human company and now that I see everyone as teeming with virus, I got no problem staying away from them.  I busied myself with crafts and remained grateful every day that I still had a job, a roof over my head, and had avoided getting sick.

But now … I’m feeling a little restless.  2022 is coming to an end and I’m ready to break out of my bubble.  Other than a couple of trips to Hilton Head (still love that place) in 2021 and 2022, travel has been placed on the back burner.  I’ve barely written anything in the last 3 years.  I turned 49 during quarantine, then 50, and now at 51 I’ve had more than enough time to think about what I want to do with the rest of my life.  It’s time to get back to my passions, beginning with updating this blog more regularly.  I’m planning my first post-Covid international trip to Portugal in November.  Wish me luck.

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