Three Weeks Deep

The wife and I had a pact to lose weight together. We would hold each other accountable and make good choices together. I aimed for 7 pounds of weight loss in a month. My weight has oscillated around 222 for years. I've been below and above, but I seem to settle right around 222 when I'm not sticking with a reasonably healthy diet and working out regularly. I figured my body would be willing to settle into that familiar weight if I cut the desserts, upped my running mileage, and replaced salty snacks with vegetables. Then this damn virus showed up. 

I was 229.3 when I started the pact. I was 220 when I weighed myself this morning. Lots of walks, consistently running 15+ miles a week, and snacking on fruit and vegetables rather than a handful of chips or crackers (most of the time anyway). The process was easy the first few weeks, but it's getting harder to stick with the plan as I spend more time working from home. The distortion that we've all been feeling is making life feel flat and stale. I'm getting sick of my house. I hate the furniture that we've had for way too long. We need to replace the siding our of house soon. At least the weather is getting warmer. 

We're going to look back on these few months (or however long this twist persists) and question why we shut things down. We're being asked to make profound personal sacrifices with no real indication that they are making a difference. I'm lucky that I can work on emerging from the stasis improved. The gym is closed, but I have a treadmill, a rowing machine, and a bench and dumbbells waiting for me in the garage (I've used them all this week). I have money in the bank. I'm inconvenienced. Too many people are losing everything. We may be saving lives (maybe, this is all really just a theory), but lives are being destroyed at an industrial scale. The wreckage from our response to this virus will haunt us forever.

There is all kinds of talk about controlling the virus. Controlling the virus is an illusion. We are the ones being controlled. Stick us in our houses, take away the most popular diversions and pleasures in life (those things that attract the most people must be the best after all), and cheat a hollow sphere of lipids decorated with proteins a place to release its bundle of genetic material. We take the leaders at their word. The stories of doctors and nurses tending to the worst of the worst cases magnify and amplify the worst that this virus has to offer while its failures feel ill for a day or two and go about their now heavily restricted life. 

It could be worse, it can always be worse. This could be China. The government could put everybody under house arrest and mislead the rest of the world about how effective the virus was in evading their plans to foil its life's work. I could be compelled to wear a mask, which would require shaving my beard, and carry a letter allow me to get groceries or head to work. That would be worse. The chaffing of being stuck in a three mile ring grows everyday, but at least I was free to get Taco Bell for lunch today.