Why You Shouldn't Worry about your ''Quarantine-15''

Read this if you have gained weight during quarantine

The summer is coming. We've had many rainy days still but the flowers have bloomed and days are slowly getting warmer. Years 2020 and the first half of 2021 have been a challenge for all of us. After this crazy one and a half years, I think all we need is a nice summer vacation. It is well-deserved. I feel like I’m at the beginning of the movie High School Musical 2, literally counting down the days until it’s officially summer.

Just like every year around this time, I started seeing many articles and Instagram posts offering different meal plans ‘‘How to get a bikini body fast’’, ‘‘How to lose those last 10 pounds’’… And this year we have a new addition to our toxic diet culture club: ‘‘Quarantine-15’’.

Quarantine-15 refers to the 15 pounds that you may have gained during the lockdown. Now that it is summer and measures are getting more relaxed each day, suddenly the concept of ‘‘summer body’’ became relevant again. There are countless articles giving out dietary advice and explaining how to get back in shape after the lockdown.

If you think about it, it’s crazy how we normalized the idea that we must get ‘‘summer-ready’’. It is again one of those things that the diet culture has made us believe is normal but in reality, it isn’t. We are conditioned to feel the need to lose weight for the summer. It has become something so automatic that every year from May and on, my brain goes into a panic mode about the way I look. As if I am not stressing enough about my body during winter, I become even more aware of my physical appearance. Many thoughts rush through my mind:

“You ate so much today. Go on a diet. You gained so much weight, just look at that belly’’

I step on the scale to disconfirm these thoughts. There is nothing new besides the natural fluctuations everyone experiences. I see that I am in the same number range as the last time. Even seeing that isn’t enough. You see, that voice is a know-it-all, it has a negative answer for every possible argument I might come up with:

‘‘Okay.. I may have exaggerated it a bit. Maybe you haven’t gained weight but you sure did not get fit for the summer and you had ALL THE TIME IN THE WORLD to do so!’’

At first glance, it sounds true. For the last one and a half years, we have been doing everything from home. We are working, studying even “socializing” from home. We are spending way more time at home than we normally would. But does it mean that we had way more time to do things? Did we all actually have all the time in the world to eat well, work out every day and transform our body?

Staying home obviously helped me with a lot of things: I started reading again, I got to try out some new recipes, I finally found the time to wind down. But all of these do mean that I was just sitting around every day as if I was on vacation.

First of all, there was - still is the fear of contracting the virus and the fear of losing someone I love to it. That, on its own, is a terrifying concept, and unfortunately: it is constant. At the time nobody knew anything about the virus, let alone the cure.

Then came the toilet paper crisis, which later progressed to a food crisis. Everyone started buying food in excessive amounts. I remember seeing the pasta aisle empty for 3 days consecutively. We, humans, are terrified of scarcity, especially the scarcity of food. The idea of not having something essential for our survival is alarming for us. Ironically, hoarding is a perfect embodiment of what goes on in our bodies when we restrict ourselves in any way. It is literally a constant state of panic. We think about food, we binge on anything we can get our hands-on. We eat more than we normally would. Our body does this to store energy for the future. In this case, everyone was stocking up on food in extreme amounts, assuming that we wouldn’t be able to go out or have access to food anymore. Just the thought of this might set off our body’s scarcity alarms. And if you were one of the lucky ones to have an abundance of food at home, your body still probably felt the same way. So it was natural of your body to binge, even without the conscious feeling of scarcity.

A few months went by and we really started feeling the consequences of the social isolation. Everyone experienced the social consequences of the pandemic differently. Some people felt like they were stripped from their privacy, as they had to stay home with others, constantly together. This raised many relationship conflicts between couples, families, housemates. On the other side of the spectrum, people were apart from their families for months. Many felt very lonely, due to social isolation. Humans are social animals. Being socially isolated is inherently stressful for us. We crave social interaction and when we don’t have it, we get depressed. It is as easy as that.

Social isolation is unpleasant on its own, add a global pandemic and the situation is emotionally, infinitely more difficult. While all these were happening, it just makes no sense to expect someone to have the energy to constantly work towards a ‘‘better body’’. We shouldn’t put the pressure of losing weight on ourselves. That is just cruel, after everything that we went through. There is no need to add more internal pressure, as we've had enough strain externally.

Now, think about everything we have gone through once more. It is crazy. But we survived it! What we are going to do is, this summer, we will enjoy all the things we missed. The quarantine 10, 15, 20 whatever, it won’t be able to steal our summer from us. Our summer will be about spending time with the people we love. We will be grateful for all the small things that we are able to do again: grabbing a beer by the beach, having lunch outside with the sun shining; all while still staying safe of course. But we get to celebrate, in our little way, getting through the hardest part of the pandemic. And let’s not forget what unconditionally stood beside us through all: our body. Our body kept us going through the chaos, no matter how hard it got. Just like us, it also deserves some time off now. Time off from all the restrictions, all the negative feelings we hold against it. This summer; ourselves and our body, we, get to enjoy ourselves without worrying about the way we look.

Soo… WHAT TIME IS IT?