We would all agree 2020 is not the best year we’ve ever had… It didn’t start well for me when I was in Sydney for NYE, with bushfires impacting wildlife in Australia and making the sky look grey and grim. Surrounded burning forests affected the air we were breathing in the city, it was not possible to ignore it. That was nothing compared to what followed though, or maybe it was only the beginning of the consequences of human actions on the planet.

It’s only fair I give you a bit of context so you can get to know me a bit better. I quit my job late 2019 without anything else lined up, I wanted to leave the office for a while and follow my free spirit instead. The plan was to travel for 6 months (to Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, Fiji and Japan) and then come back to London to find myself a new job and settle back in. I know that nothing usually happens as planned in life, you always bump into unexpected things… But it’s fair to say I didn’t see a worldwide pandemic coming.

Throwback to how the pandemic impacted my plans

18th March 2020

My last day in New Zealand felt a bit strange… The worldwide pandemic was all over the news with an increasing infection rate and I felt guilty publishing pictures of the beautiful landscapes I had in front of me. Unlike in Europe, Kiwis were not yet panicking and although some pharmacies displayed “masks + antibacterial gel out of stock”, most people didn’t behave differently.

19th March 2020

I thought we would be able to stay a few days in Fiji doing absolutely nothing at all, just staying near the swimming pool under the sun with a good book to read and a nice cocktail in hand (away from social media and depressing news). Travelling can be quite tiring and I was really looking forward to this mini holiday in between. It didn’t turn out as planned, obviously. The island saw its first case the day after we arrived and everything shut down in an attempt to limit the spread. What I hoped would be a nice and short break turned out to be 3 long weeks stranded in a depressing apartment near a closed airport where no plane was allowed to take off. The longest weeks of my life, as far as I can recall…

7th April 2020

Who would have thought Mother Nature could be our saviour?? Yep, the only reason why the Fijian Government finally accepted to let their brand new planes fly was to protect them from a strong cyclone coming up… Who better than trapped tourists to help support the costs? I can safely say I never spent so much time in a plane without watching any movies. I stayed still for the entire trip (roughly 20 hours from Nadi to London with a stopover at Los Angeles), didn’t touch anything, didn’t remove my mask, limited my trips to the loo. Also, I barely slept.

8th April 2020

It never felt so good to be back in London. “Home” is where you want to be when the world is in crisis. But it was not the same London I remembered from when I left 6 months ago… It was like I missed the beginning of the story, I didn’t experience the “panic” over loo rolls in supermarkets, I just arrived in the middle of a national lockdown and no idea how to behave.

2020: Not so great so far

Fair to say the beginning of 2020 made me want to skip the rest of the year and jump straight to 2021. Back in April I really thought the virus would be gone by the end of the year… Not sure if it was optimistic or just terribly naïve. We’re almost in October now and it’s sadly very much still here. So how long will it last? Who knows. There is only one thing I know: I can still focus on what I can control.

What I can control

I can control the focus I want to give to my health. Many said they’ve put on weight during lockdown, the consumption of biscuits in the UK has increased drastically over the last few months and clearly it’s easy to turn to comfort food to help you cope with emotions. Being unhealthy is not what you want to be though, now more than ever is the time to prioritise your wellbeing. So I’m thinking, why not using my extra time at home to change my lifestyle for good?

My plans for the rest of the year (and beyond)

I’ve been back from my travels for 6 months now and things are not improving anytime soon, this is why I decided to start this blog today. I want to write about various topics related to self-improvement: health topics in general with a particular focus on mental health and weight loss, but also environmental issues and travel.

2020 will be the year I planned to come back to health. I have a current situation (with a BMI at almost 29, I’m overweight), a goal (I want to be back to a healthy 60kg) and a target date (Valentine’s Day 2021 – I’m a hopeless romantic). Stay tuned for updates! 🙂

Big Girl x