Lockdown Losses
April 2020 — in quarantine
When quarantine started, my first thought was: this is weird for you guys. Not me. I've worked from home for years. I was teleconferencing way before it was cool. I once had someone work for me for eight years, and in all that time I saw exactly one photo of him; everything went over instant messenger (live IERQ1994).
So I figured I wasn't the right person to sympathize. Then I thought about it differently. I'm probably more experienced with what you're going through than most of you, and that experience says: it's hard. You've seen the lists. Keep a schedule, eat meals at regular times, don't snack all day, call your friends, keep your sleep normal. I've had that list for years, and it's still hard. I still find it emotionally challenging (live IERQ1994).
Death by a thousand paper cuts
The things I'd normally do to break the monotony were gone. My big one was going to a coffee shop, which in my town was more or less illegal at that point. Social media used to be another one, on a day when everybody's just posting memes about some TV show. In April 2020, social media was overflowing with opinions and people shouting (live IERQ1994).
I'd seen this coming back in early March and said so, so in theory I shouldn't have been surprised or upset. But it wasn't one big shock. It was a repetitive series of disappointments. Death by a thousand paper cuts (live IERQ1994).
Here were some of my paper cuts. I had tickets to see Joe Rogan live, and tickets to see Run the Jewels and Rage Against the Machine. Gone. I had plans to go hiking with a girl I liked. Gone. My love life in general was on hold (live IERQ1994).
And the bigger one: I was dating someone who lived in another state, and I hadn't seen her in weeks. She worked in healthcare, around patients, without enough protective gear, around a disease nobody understood yet, and I couldn't be there. Even if I could have, I had family here too, so my allegiances were split (live IERQ1994).
Then, the week before this live, a great-great-uncle of mine died. Somebody I'd spent a lot of Christmases with. I asked everybody watching to please stay home (live IERQ1994).
Nobody should feel lucky
A lot of people were doing this thing to themselves: well, I still have my job, my family's healthy, I'm not in a bad area, so I should feel lucky. I said no one should feel lucky. This sucks for everybody. Count your blessings, sure; practising gratitude is a healthy habit. But when it turns into "nothing's really wrong with me so I'm not allowed to be upset," that's too far. Dumb stuff happened to all of us. A cancelled concert is still not fun (live IERQ1994).
I hadn't mentioned a ketone in a while
I had to admit something on that live: I hadn't talked about carbohydrates, or mentioned a ketone, in quite some time. Everybody with a job like mine was out there broadcasting more and wandering outside their expertise, and I didn't want to be one more of them (live IERQ1994).
So I announced the next video, and it was going to be about diet. A little tough love.
It would start with an exemption. If you'd lost your job, if you had challenges with your kids, if you had family who were essential workers or in healthcare, and you wanted me to understand why your diet wasn't the priority right now: you win. I'm not having that argument with you (live IERQ1994).
But for everybody else, the argument that you can't eat keto because the store's out of your keto foods doesn't hold up. What you're trying to do is lose weight, so what you should be doing is eating less food, and maybe sometimes no food; fasting is an option. Most places still had meat. And if you're gaining weight in quarantine, it's not really about the food you can't get. It's that you're home all the time, you're bored, you've lost your social life, and your taste buds want excitement, so you eat a Dorito just to have something cool happen in the moment. That's the habit worth looking at, and whether it puts you in a good place coming out of all this (live IERQ1994).
And because I kept seeing people posting about struggling and wanting to rededicate themselves, I promised a reboot group for after quarantine, where everybody who wanted to restart could restart on the same day (live IERQ1994).
Then both my dogs started panicking at the door because it was a nice day out, so I let them out, knowing full well they'd bark all over the rest of my broadcast (live IERQ1994).
What I'd tell you now
I'd keep the exemption. A hard season can make diet the wrong priority, and that's a choice, not a failure. I'd also keep the tough love, aimed where I aimed it: boredom eating isn't hunger, and keto's real advantage is that once you're adapted, actual hunger gets quieter, which makes the boredom kind easier to spot (hunger on keto). Protein helps there too; in one small trial, raising protein from 15% to 30% of calories, with carbs held the same, cut what people chose to eat by about 441 calories a day (Weigle et al., 2005; protein and fullness). On "maybe no food": if you take medication for diabetes or blood pressure, talk to your doctor before you fast or cut carbs hard, because doses can need to change (why); if you have a history of an eating disorder, do this with your care team (more). More on fasting: keto vs intermittent fasting.
Earlier: The Gym Closes · Later: Not in My Top Three, and Happy