Are you gaining weight or losing weight now?

During Weeks One and Two of The Great Seclusion, I definitely gained about three pounds thanks to weekday wine and crackers/cheese platters. With the weird combination of end-of-the-world panic and a party atmosphere with everybody home, all self restraint was gone. I gave myself the green light to indulge in all my vices.

Then came the weird need to bake bread and cakes. All bad news for the waist line.

Those calories were somewhat offset by increased exercise. I have been going for long walks every morning to escape from my family and work out stress. But a long walk is no match for two glasses of cabernet and half a brick of the “fun cheese.”

So, I downloaded the Noom app. It’s been heavily promoted on TV and on annoying advertisements on Facebook. I’ve been plugging in every morsel into the app for a week now. I’m not seeing any change on the scale yet, but I am more conscious of my food choices. The app lines up all “red food” in an angry column. I’m keeping that evening glass of wine, so that means no hot dogs for lunch or slices of banana bread for breakfast.

I’m going to start running again today, too. It’s hard to get motivated during April’s cold and damp mornings. With the massive increase of household chores, I didn’t feel like I had enough time. I’m very out of shape right now, so it’s going to be like starting from scratch. Still, it’s time to pull out the running gear.

Here are my essentials — Brooks sneakers, socks, iPhone arm band, running bra, leggings, and wireless headphones.

As the news keeps alternating between “things are getting better” to “things are going to get much worse,” I’m leaning to the negative stories. I’m settling myself and my family into thinking about this is our fate for a long time. It’s okay to drink and eat too much, during a week or two hiatus from the normal world. But I would rather not be rolled out of here in a year like one of the humans in Wall-E, so it’s time to get healthy.