Still here!

Why I've been silent for two months

Well, hello there! I can’t believe it’s been two months since I last showed up here.

I had good reasons: the big move took up a lot of my time and energy, then my business needed some attention and finally, in mid October, I got Covid. I so wanted to be one of those people who never gets it, alas, this latest variant is highly contagious indeed. It had been a year since my last booster (I was actually scheduled for one just a couple of days after I got infected) so my doc agreed to put me on Paxlovid. The first three days were rough but the meds helped once they kicked in. Let me tell you though, Covid fatigue is real. Even though the strong symptoms went away after a few days, I had lingering congestion, tickly cough and I was super tired all the time and had zero energy. Today it’s been 16 days and I finally feel that I am turning a corner. I’ve been taking lots of vitamins and natural supplements but it wasn’t until I started taking Old Indian Wild Cherry Bark Syrup that things began to improve. Could be a coincidence of course, I am no herbal specialist, but this syrup always seems to help me.

For someone who has a lot of health anxieties this was a dreaded event, especially as I had regained a lot of weight and was physically and mentally not in best shape. I am immensely grateful for modern and natural medicine, and also my body’s healing capabilities despite being obese and unfit.

Having Covid triggered my anxieties big time and I did do a good amount of comfort eating once my appetite returned. I haven’t been on the scales in a while but I can feel the tightness in my clothes. Yet I have little mental energy to get back on my program. And as so often when I reach this point, I ask myself:

Is it not time to ditch the weight loss attempts once and for all, and to accept and love myself the way I am, and to just focus on living my life the best way I can?

Here is the thing. This is not about not accepting or loving myself, nor is it about not living a good life. My life is in a really good place right now, and I am happy in many parts of it. So why am I still so hung up on wanting to lose weight?

A few reasons:

1. My health. I want to get off my blood pressure meds, improve my sleep, and ease the pressure on my joints, especially my bad ankle.

2. My anxieties. I had actually come up with a really good anxiety framework for emotional eating and even started looking for a trauma therapist, but all of this came to a halt when we decided to blow up our lives and move! My anxieties are at the core of my emotional eating and I still want to find non-food ways of dealing with them.

3. “Hello Kerstin, there you are!” This is still the biggest driver behind my desire to lose weight. If you’re curious as to what I’m talking about here, I wrote a post about it at the beginning of this year, click here to read it.

It’s not really about the weight but the weight is the most obvious ‘symptom’ and tackling that helps me with all of these reasons. If I do it, that is. My weight loss program got thoroughly derailed this year but I have every intention of putting it back on its tracks. For now I am focused on my Covid recovery, finishing the house and working on a new online course for my business. I am taking baby steps towards the return to my program, like getting back to journaling (writing was impossible while dealing with the brain fog), cutting back on my sugar and slowly building up my walking habit again.

One thing that is really helping me mentally is accepting that this is all part of the journey, there is no good/bad judgment here and I am not beating myself up for derailing the train. Instead I am learning that the journey itself matters just as much as the destination. The end result is a worthy goal but all the steps that get us there is where we live our lives, and where I want to put my attention.

Well, that’s it for now, my friends. Thanks for listening to my ramblings and for still being here, too.

Have a calm and peaceful week ✨

Kerstin xo