March 2020 will be one of those times where everyone remembers where they were when the news broke. The country was shutting down. It was a Friday, and there were rumblings going through the school that we may have to shut down. We were at the end of the basketball regular season, and there was a lot of worry what would happen to the season with a shut down. We had to cancel the last games, as well as all the playoffs, and the students were devastated. We were remote for the remainder of the school year, and we kept on going right through the summer.

With the Covid shutdown, there was a very real anxiety surrounding the future of the school. There were so many unknowns, I felt that I needed to do everything in my power to keep the school I loved open for business. That meant a large sacrifice of time and energy, specifically by having to retrofit as many of my lessons as possible to an “at-home” setting (which was very hard to do), as well as continue to teach all throughout the summer virtually. What made it worse was my usual place of refuge to recharge, the gym, was closed. I was burning the candle on both ends.

With all the responsibilities piling up, I decided that I would focus on what I could do, and relax on some other things. Specifically diet. I still exercised, doing bodyweight resistance exercise and running, but I sorely missed my heavy free weights. I had been preparing for a try at a 400 pound bench, so my bodyweight was a little high. When I stopped caring about diet, my weight really climbed. Eventually my weight would become the highest it has ever been. Clothing felt tight, and I felt uncomfortable. But we made it through the 2020 year, and even made it through the 2020-21 year with lots of modifications, masks, and social distancing. After giving so much the past year and a half, I needed to focus on getting myself right.

Luckily, the local gym I went to (Chicago Sport and Fitness Club) had an outdoor lifting area that I was able to take advantage of once restrictions lessened. Social distancing and open air made lifting weights at the gym relatively Covid risk-free compared to other gyms with less open air and ventilation. I also knew I had to get my cardiovascular shape back, so I turned to a handy app called Couch to 5K, which goes from rookie to a 5K in about 8 weeks. Having the gym back, and getting the cardio meant that my exercise was taken care of, but I had to address the thing that really ballooned my weight: food.

I had just finished a unit with middle school where we talked about diet, nutrition, and exercise, so this was still pretty fresh in my mind. We discussed calories, macro and micronutrients, organic vs. conventional food, hidden sugar content, and much more. One thing that we discussed was that there was no “perfect diet,” and there are a ton of diets plans out there. We looked at which ones seemed to make more sense than others, which seemed healthier, which were unhealthy, or only produced short term results. At the end of the day, a diet is something that can be maintained for the long haul, which effectively eliminates every fad diet you can think of. So what did I decide to do?

There is no magic to weight loss. One needs to take in less calories than they expend. The calories in - calories out debate should not even be a debate. Every diet under the sun relies on the principle of eating less than what is being used. However, I was not going to starve myself either. While very tedious, I knew that I needed help tracking calories and exercise, so I started using MyFitnessPal again. It is a pain in the butt to track foods and calories, but it was the only way I could be sure that I was meeting my goals.

So, I didn’t follow a diet, I just followed a couple rules. Obviously, the first rule would be to try and eat less calories than I burned per day. If it was a real special occasion, I wouldn’t worry about tracking and enjoy myself. However, most days I was going to be paying attention. Secondly, I needed to hit a protein quota per day, which for me I decided was around 200 grams of protein (more than a gram per kilo but less that a gram per pound). This was like paying the bills, getting 200 grams a day is a non-negotiable. Two hundred grams of protein is 800 calories, so I still had a decent amount of calories left. From here, this is where the ability for this “diet” to work comes in. I don’t care as much where the rest of the calories come from. I’m going to eat fruits and veggies when I can (or want to), but I’m not going to stress about it. My primary concerns were:

• Did I stay under the calories for the day?

• Did I get at least 200 grams of protein?

• If i did, then I had a successful day.

At the beginning of the summer, I was at my heaviest, and I was not doing cardio. By the end of the summer, I have lost 25 lbs. (or 11 kg), and I just ran a 5K. Not fast, but I did run the whole time, and felt good. In fact, I have not felt this good in a while, and it was because I really decided this summer I needed to focus on my health again. I know there is a lot of attention on health at the moment because of Covid, but I did this more for my mental health and well being than for sickness prevention (even though it helps). I am going to start the school year feeling good physically, which means my mental health is better. I will feel better about myself, and that will translate into my work and teaching.

The TDLR to this post is, I took care of myself this summer, it paid off, and I feel great. It took months to do, and I am about halfway to my ultimate goals. But I am starting the school year off on the right foot because I feel healthy and energized. It took the conscious decision to make myself the priority, and it took time and a lot of effort, and it was worth it. Hopefully this year will have less surprises and more structure than last year or the year before. I would implore you, because you are educators, that most of you have made everyone else (students, admin, spouse, children) a priority when Covid was at its worst. Make yourself the priority. When you feel strong, when you feel good, when you like how you feel, you ultimately give the best version of yourself to others, which was your intention all along.