How I got my Pre Pandemic Covid15 Lbs. Body Back

For so many Americans, we are now coming up on a whole year of pandemic living and we are just hoping and praying for a healthy new year. Or possibly just a normal New Year! Normal life in 2020 meant staying at home, furloughs from work, gyms closed or being socially distanced from friends and family. Being stuck or safe at home (Or both!) is the perfect recipe to bake that fancy cake you never had time to construct before a global pandemic. Who has time for Betty Crocker like baking during your previous sixty-hour workweek? So what if you then shoved the whole cake in your face and obviously did not go to the gym. I mean why go to the gym even if they were open still in your area of the country? You’re just working from home in your pajamas and your boss can’t see that they have kitty cats on them from that Zoom call. And so what if they are the only pants you own that still fit. If this sounds like your 2020 lifestyle you may just be ready for a healthy new year.

Are you working remotely from home now? Are you a work from home fat ass like me? Are you forced to wear your largest size of yoga pants? Is that Baileys and coffee in your coffee mug at eleven a.m.? It’s okay, it’s month eleven of this pandemic from hell and we are all in the same fat ass boat. Or you might be recovering from the Coronavirus at this point and look like Kate Moss. Which sounds great but you haven’t been able to sleep since coming down with this virus that you probably picked up from the dude who just couldn’t stand six feet away from you in the post office. Or perhaps you are in the opposite boat and stayed healthy during the pandemic but packed on those pandemic pounds after baking way too many slices of holiday Anglo Indian Fruit Cake. Here we are, finally, in January 2021 and it may be time to kick start your healthy new year. It may be time to put down the Bailey’s and lace up your running shoes!

When you start cropping your Insta worthy photos to purposely cut out the fastest part of your ass, you know it’s time to make a change for a healthy new year. It may be the first of the year but here we are in 2021 in a world I certainly can not recognize. How do you make these healthy changes when modern-day life is basically a Stephen King novel (Not quite The Stand but not quite as depressing as Misery either) Yesterday I spent time with a couple where the women was a doctor and the husband worked at a pot dispensary and they told me they were both considered essential workers and were getting the vaccine in the next week. Here in 2021, we live in a world where being a drug dealer is considered an essential job. Meanwhile, grocery store workers and truck drivers have no idea when they can get the vaccine. That’s life in this ass-backward state we call California. If you are as frustrated by the news and our local government as I am maybe it’s time to get your fat ass off the couch, go for a run and sweat out the stress. That’s what I decided to do. 

One day, oh hopefully sometime soon we can all go back to work at our workplaces and not from our couches. As much as our pets will miss us being around twenty-four seven, life has to get back to normal soon. Maybe we can have happy hour with co-workers again. Maybe we can hug family again sometime soon. Starting out this healthy new year with a plan to get back into shape and lose that Covid fifteen (Or fifty) Is a great way to start 2021. It would be so great if my boss could recognize me in April when I hopefully finger crossed, get to go back to work and my coworkers don’t have to wonder just how much Butter Chicken I have been consuming for the past twelve months. And that is why in the first month in December I decide to get off the couch and go for a run.

Fatty goes for a run

I hadn’t run in basically probably a year.  (Or maybe two) When I was in my early thirties I was obsessed with running and ran basically every day of the week, sometimes running fifteen miles before my work shift. That was before I had massive back problems. I ended up stuck on the couch for a good six months barely being able to walk and eventually had back surgery. After losing all that core strength when recovering from this life-changing injury I just couldn’t get back into trail running again. I mean until month ten of this pandemic pissed me off enough to get me off the couch and out on the trail. It’s funny how just a little pandemic inspired frustration can get your blood pumping. The holiday season was incredibly frustrating for me in 2020. My whole family was suffering through Covid 19 and we couldn’t get together and feel holly and jolly without spreading germs among us. It was a depressing way to spend the Christmas season and by that last week in December, I knew I was ready to get back on track to have a healthy new year.

I live in a beautiful alpine filled national forest with so many miles of trails. It may be fifteen degrees by the moment I lace up my Asic running shoes each winter morning but the long lost runner in me found no excuse to not go for a run every day for two weeks straight. After the first two stress-filled days when I banged out five miles a morning, then could barely walk for a week afterward I was back to being hooked on running. This right here made me feel much better about the depressing holiday season of 2020 with almost no friends and family time. Even my dog looks sad.

The first step to not being a fat ass is getting back into shape.

My road to my fitness recovery began with that first run back in chilly December. As soon as I got off the couch and ran out into the woods with my favorite trail dog I started to feel better. Yes, I was on the way to a healthy new year and it started with those first few sweaty miles. Sure, I had to wear a mask anytime I passed another person on the trail, which made it a lot harder to power through those mountain miles. Remember those pre-pandemic days when we could work out in public without the cooty catcher on our faces? After a sweaty even though it’s snowing and twenty-two degrees morning run I’m usually ready for a healthy late breakfast like my favorite healthy new year Punjabi Indian meal, chole over steamed spinach and sweet potatoes.

This garbanzo bean tomato and onion curry is chock full of healthy breakfast protein. It also gives you a huge kick of vitamin C from the steamed spinach. Protein gives your body those missing nutrients to stay strong and fight off all those nasty Covid germs. Spinach is chock full of vitamin C, a Vitamin I can’t even buy at the overwhelmed grocery stores with empty shelves in our ski town. It is a challenge to start a healthy new year when our small-town grocery store is out of basically all foods, especially the healthy ones after an insanely busy holiday weekend filled with tourists not always wearing masks. I personally may be staying safe at home and away from all the Covid germs from friends and family but judging by the hordes of skiers, snowboarders and snow players in our mountain forest, I may be one of the few actually obeying the stay at home order placed over most of California for over a month now. Last time I checked, stay at home does not mean drive to the only open snowy tourist destination open in California,

This north Indian chole is also fantastic with eggs. Did you know eggs are great for your immunity? Eggs are chock full of healthy nutrients. I try to buy either duck eggs, higher in protein, or Omega three enhanced eggs when I get to the market. When trying to embrace a healthy new year in 2021, improving your health and possibly even losing that Covid fifteen starts with breakfast

Happy New Year? But is it?

It’s January now and most years that means everyone and their mom is at Trader Joe’s shoulder to shoulder to buy all the organic spinach. Let’s face it, every year January is that one month we all try to eat organic until our American Express bill shows up and we see just how much we spent on organic coconut oil and coconut flour at Whole Foods.  Having a happy and heathy new year can be expensive and can be frustrating when all the other shoppers have emptied the shelves of organic ginger, kale, Cara Cara oranges and anything else you might feel like juicing. Juicing is a great healthy way to start off your new year’s mornings. Here is a easy get your morning started right citrus juice.

Citrus Kale Juice

1 bag of kale

6 Cara Cara oranges

1 piece of ginger, the size of two fingers

1/4 cup fresh parsley

I soak the kale in hot water for ten minutes before juicing then throw the whole mess into the juicer. I feel this gets more “Juice” out of the kale.
For the best slightly green juice to start off your 2021 right, throw all the ingredients in the juicer together. This keeps in the fridge well for up to four days.

Healthy New Year Resolutions in 2021

I’m really not one for New Year’s resolutions but as the year 2021 sits on the horizon my closest thing to a new year’s resolution is to try and start running again. Having super high-stress levels helped me make this decision and my first week trying to run my ass off I actually ran a total of seventeen miles! (Not to mention the sixty miles I also hiked that week) Can I have a second helping of Moroccan Lamb Stew now? Do you like how this healthy new years’ blog has all my favorite none healthy recipes in it? (Okay, okay, well this delicious stew is keto if you don’t add the potatoes)

January is always the time of year when people make new years resolutions. This January starting out with a healthy new year is even more of a pressing issue when a global pandemic is raging. I hope and pray the new year will be a time when friends and family start to take their health seriously. As I watch multiple friends and family struggling with Covid 19, I’ve tried to offer the same advice all the experts have been spewing.  I really do pray my friends and family are living their lives in the healthiest ways they can as this pandemic goes from bad to worse in our mountain ski town.

• Take zinc (With a meal!)
• Take Vitamin D, then enjoy some sunshine for twenty minutes so the Vitamin D can metabolize
• Get out and move! Go for a walk, a run or just walk the dog around the block.
• Egg more eggs and healthy proteins
• Start your day with hot water and lemon, so good for your digestion!

It really seems like the key to staying healthy during this global pandemic is to stay make smart choices, eat good for you foods and stay safely away from loved ones and crowds. It seems like just common sense. I know how frustrating it can be to isolate yourself from friends and family. Hugging grandma through Zoom is just not the same.

If you feel frustrated with life here in 2021 I really do recommend getting outside for some natural Vitamin D. The pup and I just recently went for a snowy run up Mt Baldy and it was such an epic winter’s day to be outdoors during a global pandemic. Yes, I wore a mask anytime we passed others on the trail. Yes, we tried our best to be six feet away from strangers at all times. This can be such a stressful time we are living in. Being out in the wilderness breathing the fresh air and being a sweaty mess makes me feel better about this isolated world we are stuck in here in 2021.

I hope and pray for all our friends and family here in California and across the globe makes safe and healthy life choices here in 2021 to try and improve their health this new year’s season.