Hi all, I hope you are well.

This week I wanted to talk about the pressures that have come along with the governments new roadmap out of covid.

A much as I am glad to see some positivity and optimism return, I am also deeply saddened to see the pressures climb.

I have seen countless memes on Instagram and other social platforms making jokes about shifting ‘lockdown weight’ for June.

Images of ice cubes on plates captioned ‘my breakfast, lunch, and dinner until summer’ or using images of plus sized actresses and captioning it ‘me posing for the club photographer on June 21st’.

Although these are intended for humorous purposes, it is still feeding into the narrative that we should be eating less and restricting ourselves so our bodies are more pleasing to those around us — and truth be told these jokes are simply fatphobic.  

Sadly, this is nothing new as this ‘summer body ready’ mentality has been around for as long as I can remember, and in fact that’s actually from a scarily young age… an age where I was still wearing pigtails.

 All my life there has been this narrative that you must look skinny. This is so you can have a flat tummy poking out from under your top and so your legs look good in shorts.

By all means if you want to lose weight, go for it … just do it for the right reasons.

Do it in a healthy way through exercise and a realistic food plan that you can stick too. And do it because you want to, not because society says you should.

This year we’ve all been through a tough ride, so what if you’ve put on weight or lost weight? We need to start embracing our own skins more.

We are who we are, and if being a dress size bigger than your mates stops your mates from being your mates, then they are not your mates.

We need to start appreciating our bodies for keeping us alive, allowing us to get moving, not starving it and punishing it for not being perfectly flat or smooth.

But this blog post isn’t just a rant about body image pressures. There are so many other pressures that have emerged from the new roadmap.

Where are you going on holiday? – is it exotic, will it provide insta worthy images, will it make up for the time we’ve spent in lockdown?

Who are you going to see? – will you see all your family and friends and spend loads of time hanging out with them?

Where are you going partying on June 21st?

Personally, I am unlikely to be vaccinated by June 21st.

I am 21 (soon to be 22) and have no health conditions.

I am pretty much at the back of the to be vaccinated list.

I will still be able to contract covid and transmit it perhaps to those with unknown underlying health conditions.

Personally, I won’t feel comfortable going to a busy pub or going on a night out at a club until I have had one. Yet, I’m already feeling the FOMO (fear of missing out) and I really want to hug my friends and family.

I am also anxiety wise, due to being more spatially aware and conscious, slightly terrified -regardless of covid- at the thought of being in a crowded space.  

I have also been a bit apprehensive about getting my hair cut because of covid, I only got the guts to go in January and then the night before my appointment we went back into lockdown 3.0.

The point I’m trying to get at here is that we need to forget what others are expecting of us, whether that’s losing weight, going abroad, booking a night away, going to the pub.

We need to take this at our own pace and do what we ourselves are comfortable with. Just because your mates or partner are buzzing about going to the pub on June 21st, it doesn’t mean you have to be.

Besides that’s all a long way off. And yes, it’s something to be excited about as normality is approaching, but we can also be cautious about it and take it at our own pace if that’s what we want to do.

Let’s just continue taking it a day at a time and see how it goes.