Picked up some bad habits?
Right, roll up folks, this is one that I want to hear your answers to. We’ve all had a lot more time at home over the last few months and I want to know what bad habits you’ve picked up along the way.
For me, there’s been a few and I promise I’ll snap out of it at some point, but the first one I’ve picked up is spending way too much time napping. I literally am disturbed by how much I can sleep and I find that the older I get, if I’m sat in a comfy chair for more than ten minutes then it’s game over, I’m gone again. Similarly, if I’m in bed, I actually have to set multiple alarms or I simply won’t wake up. I’m dreadful for it. I even find myself ‘treating myself’ to a nice late afternoon or early evening nap if I’ve got nothing on – to the point where I miss it if I haven’t had one. I’m like a cat in human form. In fact, if we get options on reincarnation, that’s what I’m picking. Unlimited naps, no responsibility, free food… Sounds perfect. Which leads me onto the next bad habit…
Food. I’ve made no secret of the fact that I love food. I love to cook it and I love to eat it. I spend so much of my time at home in the kitchen and do most of the cooking for my house, but over the last few months, I’m finding myself standing in front of the fridge having to ask myself if I’m actually hungry or just bored. It’s not like I have to have my poolside body ready for this year, but at this rate I’m going to have to hire someone full-time to follow me around and slap food out of my hands because I can’t stop myself. There are certain cheeses I’ve had to just outright stop buying as I’m just having great big bits of then whenever I pass through the kitchen. Food’s just so good – and the lack of distractions isn’t helping. If this carries on much longer, I’ll be lucky if I can get into all my gowns! Fair enough, a lot of my kitchen time can be put down to the fact that I’m working on a cookbook, which thankfully I’ve found extra time to work on recently, but it’s all the other time I seem to find myself in there that’s the problem. I can be forgiven for all the ‘experiment cooking’ in the name of work, but I really need to cut back on the ‘experiment eating’ – even if it all tastes fantastic. Even if I boxed some meals up and put them in the freezer, that would be good, but that might involve sorting through the freezer. Hmm, sounds like a bit much effort to me.
Another one I’ve been really, really bad at is not getting enough outdoor exercise. I’ve actually kept myself rather busy over the last few months and in some ways have been busier than ever and with things starting to loosen up a bit, I’ve just got busier and busier. This is why I’m feeling a bit guilty that when I probably could have squeezed it in, I wasn’t going out for walks and stuff and I’m really wishing I had. I kept just putting it off and putting it off and promising that I’d get round to it, but never actually did, which is probably how I ended up putting on about a stone this year. A friend of mine pointed out that before ‘normal’ was interrupted, I was probably walking a couple of miles a day without even realising it, but with most of my activities centered on home, the exercise just wasn’t happening and I’m actually jealous of the people who really went for it with their health and fitness in recent times. I totally wish I had that kind of discipline, but I’ve never been one for structured physical activity. Maybe if I’d been encouraged to enjoy it rather than dread it at school, I’d be much more into it, but unfortunately, I’m just not. It’s a shame really, but then it wouldn’t be fair to everyone else if I was sexy, talented AND skinny, so really, being a little bit chubby is a public service, as I wouldn’t want to make other folk feel bad. You’re all welcome.
Procrastination is another one that I’m more than familiar with. I’m so easily distracted that if I’m not forced to make some sort of plan, I am a master of letting time just disappear. If it’s not excessive napping, it’s trying to tidy and ending up flicking through every book or magazine I find during the process, or just making ‘one more coffee’ before I get back to work or just ‘one more smoke’ or whatever. No matter what it is, if it’s a way of making time just disappear, I’ll end up doing it and losing another day. It’s not a great problem right now, but when things start to speed up, I’ll probably have to resist a little harder and get my shit together.
It’s just such a shame that habits are a lot harder to break than they are to make. Before you know it they’re routine and that’s just the way things are. So what are some of the habits you’ve picked up over the last few months? Have you had some of the same ones as me? What did you do with them? Why not get in touch and confess your new bad habits to us all in the comments. Or, perhaps on the other side of the coin, you’ve managed to go the other way and actually fix a bad habit that you had before lockdown! If so, why not tell us what it was and how you did it and maybe inspire some of us!
Hope you’re all hanging on in there, much love,
Vida!
