The year 2020 has been an interesting year so far and we are only a few months into it. About mid-March, the United States discovered there was a new enemy in our nation called Covid-19. The entire country has been shut down with 90 percent of businesses closed and unemployment at an all time high. As most Americans have dipped into whatever savings they may have to try to continue their normal life, the shutdown remains. It has now been almost 3 months the entire country has come to a screeching halt. Unemployment numbers have hit an all-time high and many people struggle to maintain some semblance of a normal life.
One of the most common things to do when you are stressed is to overindulge. People use food and alcohol to deal with times of high anxiety. As I have spoken to many people over the last few months, the one constant seems to be that people have put on a few pounds. It is easy to do with no regular schedule of work, school, sports, events, and family. Many families are trying to figure out how to home school their children while possibly working at the same time. The days seem to melt together and the calendar seems to just slowly pass day by day. Many grocery stores are out of stock of a variety of items, which means most people have had to readjust the food they would normally consume. If you combine all these factors with most people are living daily in lounge clothes or pajamas, it can be hard to notice weight gain. I decided that I should provide people with some helpful tools to take off those unwanted pounds.
One of the best tips for this quarantine time is to maintain some sort of regular schedule. This means going to bed around the same time and waking up the same time daily. If you are a parent who is home schooling, you should have a schedule for your child’s school time as well. This helps keep everyone on task and will try to normalize this trying time. Some people are working from home as well and the same rules apply. If you get in the habit of waking up the same time everyday, it will help regulate your eating habits as well. This means you should have a normal meal schedule of breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you want to stimulate your metabolism, then you should also have mid-morning, mid-afternoon, and mid-evening snacks as well. You might say well all that eating will add more pounds on your body frame. It will if you don’t balance out your meals.
The second tip is to watch your total caloric intake for the day. Each meal and/or snack should consist of at least 1 protein and 1 carbohydrate. This tactic will prevent you over-eating throughout the entire day. You should eat your protein first, then follow with whatever carbohydrate you may have chosen. Protein helps the stomach feel full and will slow down your carb intake. If you consume a meal and it is all carbs, you will continue to gorge on carbs. You should also try to make sure you consume carbohydrates that are on the low glycemic scale. This will help sustain your energy for a few hours rather than eating high glycemic which will work for about 20 minutes or so.
The last tip I will suggest is that you exercise 5 to 6 times a week during this down time. All gyms are closed, but you can easily walk several times a week. You can also buy a few items from Amazon to fulfill your need for a home gym. You don’t need a lot of expensive equipment to burn calories. There is also quite a few bodyweight exercises that you can do if you are on a tight budget. The main concern is making sure you exercise for about 60 minutes a day. Some items to add to your home gym solution would be resistance bands, kettlebells, dumbbells, stability ball, and a yoga mat. There are so many various types of workouts you can perform with these items that you could end this quarantine in the best shape of your life. If this pandemic has taught us anything, it should have taught us that your health is one of the most important things in the prevention of various diseases and viruses.