Covid-19’s Evolving Eating and Exercising Habits
Last week I happened upon a pop-up, outdoor spin class in Manhattan’s Carl Schurz Park. It was exciting to see bodies bobbing up and down as twenty New Yorkers cycled frenetically to blaring music. Spinning is back, I thought with gratitude! While I’ve hesitated to return to my normal three-times-a-week spin class at Equinox, it felt vicariously reassuring to see others exercising in their cycling shoes and workout outfits.
What’s wrong with this picture?
But wait a minute. I took a closer look. These people don’t look like the members of my spin class. Everyone outside looked slightly overweight, including the instructor. This gave me pause. What has been going on during this past year when we’ve been self-quarantine? Have our eating and exercise patterns changed?
Not everyone is baking bread
Many of us have been confined to where we live over the past year. We’ve also had an excess of free time on our hands to play in the kitchen. While this is the norm for some, others are still keeping regular office hours, albeit from improvised home offices. Mia Malm, who has a PR firm in California wine country, explained her situation, “I can’t say I’m doing anything differently in the kitchen. Sometimes we got takeout from our favorite restaurants to support them when in normal times we would have gone out to eat. Both Michael (her spouse) and I never stopped working so our routines stayed pretty much the same. No pandemic downtime to get into making pasta or bread or anything ambitious.”
Turning in tango shoes for an apron
On the other hand, Covid-19 has turned others into Julia Child wanna-bes. Natasha Kavanagh, retired advertising executive, had eschewed cooking completely before Covid lockdown. She proclaimed to her friends one day that she would rather spend her time focusing on opera, tango dancing, theatre, and travel, all active hobbies. “Well, Covid called my bluff,“ she recounted with a self-deprecating laugh. “Suddenly I was menu planning for weeks at a time, provisioning, preparing, and cooking 21 meals a week!”
Without any in-person socializing, cooking became a form of entertainment for Natasha and her boyfriend, Lou. Periodic trips to Trader Joe’s with a long list met their food shopping needs. Stocked up with fresh produce and items with long shelf life, Natasha became a wiz at sheet-pan cooking, one of the most popular ways to make a meal during the pandemic. “Our favorite was a broccoli rape, shrimp, and blood oranges, a meal which got repeated many times.“
There is nothing like a convert
With her newfound self-confidence as a cooking enthusiast, Natasha started experimenting. “My favorite fruit crumbles also got a covid update. The secret, I learned, was to bake the topping separately from the fruit and to replace some of the regular flour with almond flour.”
For the holidays, she and Lou switched it up a bit by bringing in a food kit curated by New York City’s Smith restaurant sourced from their purveyors and local farmers. "A big box would arrive with all the fixing for a five-course meal for two. It was still cooking but with all the prep work done and extra treats like amazing sauces, special desserts, elaborate side dishes.” She divulged that her partner is “petrified that as Covid eases up that our home cooking will end!”
To shop or not to shop in person
Over the past year, some people refused entirely to go out shopping. Instead, all their food was ordered online from grocery stores or delivered by bike messengers via restaurant take-out. Others would only sporadically venture out to shop in person. On the other hand, I would go everyday as part of my exercise routine, always wearing a mask and social distancing, of course.
Similarly, Dr. Michael Apstein, gastroenterologist, and wine columnist for WineReviewOnLine.com, refused to give up choosing his own ingredients. “I never used a grocery delivery service because looking at the selection at the store helps decide the menu. However, in the beginning and for several months, my view of food shopping changed from enjoyment to fear. I didn’t want to linger and examine each item. It was in and out. Now that I’m vaccinated and we know more about transmission of the virus, I feel more comfortable lingering.”
The added benefits of cooking at home
Michael cooked every night and expanded his repertoire at the same time. Like many home cooks during the pandemic, he turned to the NYTimes Cooking for inspiration. “Fortunately, I love to cook,” he declared, “so it was not really a chore. A plus, too, was drinking from our well-stocked wine cellar.”
New York is a city where people are passionate about dining out. Subsequently, the early days of Covid-19 were particularly difficult for us with our favorite haunts shuttered. However, once restaurant outdoor terrace dining came to life, we breathed a communal sigh of relief. Yet many of us still continue to eat meals cooked primarily at home. Why? Because it was less risky. Some also felt it was healthier. All agreed that the creative process was emotionally calming.
Being creative in the kitchen
People became inventive testing out unusual spices and preparing ethnic cuisines for the first time. One of my friends told me “I’ve enjoyed cooking imaginatively during lockdown by creating vegetable purées such as squash and fava beans. I use them as sauce thickeners for the various dishes I’m making. Then I add spices, Indian or Moroccan, for example, and turn the dish into something exotic. Another of my new tricks is to always keep in the refrigerator caramelized onions to which I’ve added Saba (cooked grape must similar in taste to Balsamic vinegar). It helps intensify the flavor of whatever I am making. Having the purées and the onions as prepped ingredients makes cooking quick, easy, and delicious.”
“The other night,” my friend continued, “I made boneless, skinless chicken thighs with artichoke hearts and added a fava bean purée spiced with saffron and cinnamon. It was fabulous. I froze the leftover stew, as I always do, so that when I come home from working around town there’s something healthy and tasty to eat. Between healthy eating, yoga three times a week, Pilates once a week, and lots of walking, I’ve kept my pre-pandemic weight level.”
Giving up restaurant entertaining
Some people have actually lost weight. Hotel senior executive Sharon Telesca lost ten pounds and her husband Gérald Feurer lost twenty. Given Gérald is no longer traveling around the world as a sales director for a major hotel chain, he isn’t forced to eat three meals out in fancy restaurants with clients or grab unhealthy snacks in airports.
Turns out his wife Sharon has a high cholesterol problem. However, during Covid Sharon started enjoying a controlled portion of oatmeal, blueberries, and cinnamon every morning for breakfast instead of the usual bagel and creamed cheese. Not only did it helped check her cholesterol level, but it also helped her to lose weight. Additionally, vegetables became the focal point in the couple’s meal preparations at home, another major contributor to losing pounds.
The pros and cons of a healthful lifestyle
With no longer having to travel to work, Sharon recounted that “We added a consistent strength training session into our exercise program while maintaining our cardio - tennis for him and cycling for me. With more free time, we consistently worked out four to five times a week, up from our typical three sessions.” The only drawback to their healthy eating and increased exercise regimes is, according to Sharon, “that Gérald needs to buy all new suits!”
Covid-19’s extra weight gain
Despite all these stories of my friends keeping their weight under control and even loosing pounds, 60% of Americans have admitted to weight gain since last March. Stress, unhealthy eating, and lack of exercise being holed up at home explains how some people have gained an average of 1.5 pounds a month! This also explains why there were so many overweight women at the outdoor cycling class! Full disclosure. I, too, have struggled with not being able to lose the five pounds gained last March.
Prior to the pandemic, Ellen Negrin, former wine sales manager, had lost considerable weight. She was determined not to fall prey to the “Covid-15-” weight gain phenomenon when the pandemic hit. “I am taking an on-line course through IIN (Institute for Integrated Nutrition) so I based my eating on what I am learning. I’ve added more to my salad repertoire and have lightened up other favorite dishes such as using cauliflower mash instead of potato for Hachis Parmentier. I eat a variety of nutritious food, watch my sugar intake and exercise.
“With this routine I feel great, have high energy and am happy to pass on this positive ripple effect of my studies to others. For years I sold a lifestyle through promoting wines. Now I promote a healthy lifestyle using many of the same selling techniques. When I complete my coursework at IIN, I hope to set up a business as a health coach.”
Experimenting with exotic cuisines
Like Ellen, Connie Maneaty and her husband Steve— who recently moved from Brooklyn to Chicago—are eating healthy but also having fun experimenting with unusual ingredients and ethnic cooking. Their twin daughters, Zoe and Mei, and juniors at Wooster College, join the food fun club when they are home and even take over the family cooking responsibilities. Everyone is getting in on the act making exotic dishes such as a Ghanaian spinach stew with tomatoes, ginger, onions, and ground pumpkin seeds.
Connie explained that baked goods, sweets, ice creams and processed carbs such as pasta, are off limits. Instead, the family follows mostly the Mediterranean diet. In descending order of quantities this includes vegetables, fruits, fish, nuts, and moderate amounts of chicken and dairy. And lots of extra virgin olive oil. While the Mediterranean diet does permit modest amounts of wine, Connie explained that she has dramatically cut back her consumption—even survived a Dry January—and has discovered non-alcoholic beers.
How the French are coping during lockdown
This is a snapshot of how some of my American friends have managed with their dietary patterns during the pandemic. But, what about my pals in France? I asked Jane Bertch—who owns a cooking school in Paris, La Cuisine Paris—to fill me in on how the French are coping. “For me as well as so many others, there has been a return to the ‘basics.’
“In the world of French gastronomy, when you normally have access to so many restaurants, coupled with the fact that the average Parisian kitchen doesn’t really accommodate cooking multiple elaborate dishes, the dining experience is very much a part of the Parisian lifestyle.
Returning to basics and barbecuing
“COVID clearly changed that for a number of reasons – first and foremost, restaurants have been closed, and the ‘delivery’ services, whilst expanded, have remained a bit in the ‘fast food’ realm. One of the significant changes has been a return to the kitchen to retool ourselves with basic cuisine at home. Making simple things from scratch, and of course using easily available ingredients. One of the marvelous things about French cuisine, as we know, is that it is a very basic ingredient ‘friendly’ cuisine. With flour, butter, salt, eggs, milk/cream, you can create amazing things!”
Victor Taylor— the American vintner who owns Domaine Ferre Besson, the organically-farmed winery in the southern half of the Rhône Valley—concurs with Jane. “Unlike in the States, our restaurants are still in lockdown mode. Our eating habits have changed drastically. The barbecue has become truly center stage. Come rain or snow, we’re grilling, smoking and slow cooking. My smoked French toast and bacon have become legendary. I’ve also lost count of how many kilos of wood pellets we’ve gone through.”
Yet another wrinkle to overcome
Everyone has their own story of dealing with eating during Covid-19. When I asked Jan Hazard, former food editor of Ladies Home Journal, what her dietary changes were, she let out a sardonic laugh. “Change in my cooking habits? I am just trying to manage cooking on an induction hot plate and using a microwave.” Adding to the other challenges we’ve faced this past year, Jan has also been doing battle with Con Edison who turned off her gas in 2019 after a building renovation.
And the take-away from these past twelve months?
How has the lockdown impacted how we treat our bodies? As Connie philosophically summed it up, “Everyone in the house is a better cook now, including my daughters. The challenge: maintaining the discipline of not overeating and not eating the wrong foods once we start going to restaurants again and when the girls arrive home for the summer. We're looking forward to the social aspect of dining out and hope our resolve doesn't weaken!”
In the meantime, I vow to stop snacking and to get rid of the extra inches around my waist before all this is over. There are certainly enough examples to follow if only I’d listen to my friends and close the refrigerator door.