What happened? A year or so ago when we all got the news that we had to stay home, lockdown, quarantine, avoid our friends, stop dining out, start freaking out and begin living our life on Zoom. For me, it was like hearing a voice over the PA system or getting an urgent text message that my flight had been cancelled and the next one was delayed until further notice.

Now what do we do?

We started a ritual of zoom happy hours with friends, we began baking banana bread, we bought pasta machines, we hoarded toilet paper and started asking, “What day of the week is this?”

As a TV presenter I had to pivot quickly to teach myself how to shoot videos in my home kitchen with newly ordered ring lights, microphones, tripods, wifi extenders and even brought a step ladder into the house to prop up the laptop for Zoom interviews. The good news was the commute to work was much shorter and it didn’t matter what shoes I was wearing. The world switched its view to waist up. Cue the cute earrings, the false eyelashes and a colorful top. Zoom fashion was born.

Maybe, Not So Happy Hours

Back to the virtual happy hours. Here was one of my first with a group that I call my “pandemic pals”. We are all registered dietitians living in different parts of the country and have know each other for years. Our weekly zoom chats were uplifting as we all shared the challenges of the day.

At first it was fun to make a cocktail and say cheers across the miles. But, as the weeks poured on the multi-step process of finding a glass, filling it with ice, choosing a spirit, adding the mixer and topping with a garnish became just too much work. Wine is so much easier. Then opening a bottle that had a cork became too much to face and with the summer heat in place cracking open a screw top bottle of chilled rose was all we could manage. The screw top lid literally makes a loud “crack” sound when you quickly turn the threads and that’s all you have do. Find a glass and start drinking. Add ice if you want, who cares, no one will see you.

And that’s how it all started. No one will see you. No one will know you stayed up binging all of the episodes of a TV series, pressing ‘next episode’ with the conviction of an angry protester. And TV binging led to binge drinking, binge snacking and very bad sleep habits. Feeling tired the next day it was so easy to say no to yoga, especially virtual yoga on a lap top screen. Made it easy to say no to taking a long walk, because what if you bump into the virus swirling around in the air? It’s safer to stay home and live on Zoom and wait until the next happy hour at sunset. Then you didn’t really even need a sunset. Who cares?

Alcohol sales surged at the start of lockdown – with online purchases in April jumping 477% compared to the same time last year, according to Nielsen.

This article in US News by my colleague and friend, registered dietitian Janet Helm is an excellent overview of the pandemic booze binge and happily, the resulting after-trend of consuming lower alcohol or no alcohol beverages.

We can’t eat out, so let’s cook!

Cooking for many became a refuge and we all escaped to allowable outings to the supermarket. We even thought about what shoes to wear. For a long time, if you remember, we didn’t wear masks in public because it was believed only people who worked in the medical profession needed to wear a mask. Doesn’t that seem like a long time ago? Back to the cooking.

I guess it was a good thing that more people were cooking at home, learning to cook, learning to cook new things and teaching their kids to cook. But, food became an obsession for many and the opportunity to over eat, eat too often and in the name of preventing food waste “eat it all” became a caloric bomb waiting to go off.

Don’t want to cook? No problem. Scores of food delivery services popped up, restaurants upped their take out game and within an Uber second you could enjoy whatever your hungry heart desired. The second pandemic was beginning to spread.

This excerpt is from an article written by Phil Lempert, Supermarket Guru.

“American Physiological Association’s (APA) latest survey of U.S. adults, conducted in late February 2021 by The Harris Poll, shows that a majority of adults (61%) experienced undesired weight changes – weight gain or loss – since the pandemic started, with 42% reporting they gained more weight than they intended. Of those, they gained an average of 29 pounds (the median amount gained was 15 pounds) and 10% said they gained more than 50 pounds.” 

WOWZA!!!!