I’m not sure how many of you ended up in the same boat as me, but as I said in one of our posts, I gained five pounds in two days. The only real lifestyle difference was a reduction of how active I was during the day (easiest to measure by tracking daily steps). When I saw what was happening on the scale it was a very shocking moment for me, but then when I think about how many steps I was taking before being quarantined versus now, it makes a ton of sense.
If you change how active you are in your daily life and do not change anything about your nutrition, you will most likely gain weight.
There is nothing profound about that statement, and it probably makes sense to most of us. This is one of those things though that sort of sneaks up on people when they have so many other things changing in their lives, and most of us won’t even register how our personal health and wellness is changing. Needless to say, one of the easiest things we can all do during this time is to better monitor food and alcohol consumption.
A big problem with being quarantined is that there seems to be this natural tendency to be a bit lazier when stuck at home (at least for me there is!), and then things sort of snowball from there….
“Ordering takeout sounds nice because I’d hate to mess the kitchen up again…”
“Is 1:00 PM too early for an alcoholic beverage?”
“I’m hungry again, but I just ate!”
I bet some of these statements sound familiar, and I think a lot of this boils down to boredom. A lot of people tend to eat or pour a drink when they get bored, and a lot more people are currently bored due to sitting at home most of the day.
So a practical way to try and maintain a healthy lifestyle would be to try to keep track of all of the snacking you are doing, and drinks you are enjoying and ask yourself, “Do I need all of these snacks and drinks?” It’s a pretty simple question, but don’t hear what I’m not saying: I am not telling you to eat one meal a day and completely cut out alcohol from your diet, I am just encouraging you to be mindful about how much food and alcohol you are consuming and maybe consider limiting it a bit.
The scientific reasoning for this is that your calorie intake is probably now going to be much higher than your calories burned given these changes, so extra snacks and alcoholic beverages are going to increase your overall caloric intake. Paired with this idea, if you choose (or are forced) to limit your physical activity as well, expect to see the number on the scale to go up. Health and well-being are certainly more than a number on a scale, but the scale can be a nice indicator of how you are treating your body!
For me personally, as I mentioned in a separate post, since the difference in the number of steps (calories burned) had dropped so dramatically, I’ve had to purposefully arrange to go on a few more walks to burn some calories. I’ve also had to decrease the number of calories I am consuming daily. Doing those two things has gotten me back on track to complete my goal of trying to lose weight and get “shredded” for the summer.
Cheers