We have all heard about the jokes and memes that fly over the peak of food consumption, referring to the obligation to put filters in the kitchen cabinets or maybe to wear a mask at home just to avoid ingestion. Although jokes about food consumption becoming a part-time job can be funny, the subsequent weight gain will probably not be a laughing matter if we don’t agree on this now. There are many solutions on this out there. Now you can also make your life healthier during pandemic by exercising. You can lose your weight, write a story about your healthy life and at the same time, earn money. You can apply for this job easily.
Among all of the information in the internet, here I come with my own suggestion and tips. The wonderful news is that you will discover practices that you can incorporate into your daily life to maintain those extra pounds. In this guide you will find seven functional methods to ensure that you maintain a healthy weight during quarantine.
Go Back to the Basics
In terms of weight management, the biggest piece of this pie is food (the quality of indulgence expected!). Satisfaction is an expectation. In every journey we make, we are faced with things that inspire this particular way of thinking. For all the important wellness issues that require specific adjustments or concerns, this is my deepest key recipe, which worked out pretty well for me: Go to the supermarket and hang out in the creative department. Take some specific proteins and healthy fats and good fats with you.
Note This explanation is a simplified explanation of the strategy. Each area can and should be colored in much more detail and adapted to each individual’s specific needs, goals, and requirements, and sometimes a professional recommendation is justified.
Eat Mindfully
Plan your meals. Eat at regular intervals during the day, not as a hobby. Please fill in your body with nutrition, not only just fat and carbs. Do you eat in response to stress? When you start asking questions like these, your relationship with meals begins to change.
Tracks Your Calories
You are caught in a “calorie shuffle” that for a longer period of time when you run and run for weeks, you spend time at home and in the kitchen! Some of them, and others scattered throughout the day, can accumulate calories very quickly without us noticing.
I usually push for “intuitive eating” (a method of food intake that depends on one’s inner wisdom to feed one’s body). Although this is a great long-term plan, I suggest that people think about tracking their calories during the quarantine. Counting calories during the day will increase your awareness of the amount and type of food you eat, which will pave the way for a basic diet after quarantine.
Wear Your Street Clothes
Although we do not have access to the normal tools we use to monitor certain metrics on how we manage our weight loss, our clothes’ consistency could be a great barometer of our “weight loss status”. While it may seem tempting at first glance to rummage through sweatpants and loose t-shirts, don’t let them become your best friends during the quarantine. Your favorite less forgiving jeans may give you feedback before the less forgiving tracksuit pants.
Increase Lean Mass
Standing up and moving around is important in normal conditions, but it is also very important now, when your lifestyle is often more sedentary than usual. You can go for yoga and do some healthy gym exercises at home. In weight control. Although the gym is closed and we do not have access to these normal weightlifting machines, there are several ways to do weight training, such as bodyweight exercises, resistance groups and some familiar items that can be twice as heavy if used carefully.
Conclusion
In addition to the above, you should maintain a holistic and healthy lifestyle, such as proper hydration, proper sleep and stress management techniques. These play an important role in maintaining a healthy weight. Focus on how you feel, not how you feel, and make sure you choose the long-term perspective.
It’s OK if You Gained Weight During the Stay-at-Home Order
Building body acceptance
- Stay-at-home orders have sparked body-shaming jokes and anxiety about weight gain.
- To stop negative self-talk, practice creating new thoughts about your body.
- Shift your focus to your overall well-being, including your mental, spiritual and emotional health.
- Try your best to listen to your body and remember to treat yourself with kindness.
We’ve all seen the quarantine-15 memes, read the posts about binging on stay-at-home snacks and listened to a friend or coworker talk about weight gain during COVID-19.
While many of these posts and comments aren’t intended to cause harm, the onslaught of negative body talk can impact your mental health and make you feel othered or shamed if your body does not conform to conventional beauty standards.
“I cannot tell you how many patients have brought up weight,” says Dr. Sarah Halter, a family medicine provider at UW Neighborhood Factoria Clinic. “People are dying and losing work, but we are still so stressed out about gaining a few pounds.”
Finding body acceptance is hard enough in the best of times — not to mention in the middle of a pandemic.
So, how can you feel good about your body and avoid shaming yourself and others? And what does this even look like during the current crisis?
It’s OK if your weight fluctuates
During the pandemic, factors like gyms closing, groceries shifting to highly processed foods with long shelf lives and your routine being thrown completely out of whack can disrupt your sleep, increase stress and cause anxiety.
It’s understandable if your weight shifts because of these changes.
“There are so many variables that can affect weight,” says Karen Conger, a registered dietitian at Harborview Medical Center. “I’m hesitant to even work with patients about weight loss or have that as a goal under normal circumstances, but certainly right now is not a good time to be focusing on it.”
While your weight does contribute to your health, and obesity is associated with earlier onset of chronic diseases, like diabetes and heart conditions, it is only one of the many factors that go into your well-being.
Instead of fixating on a number on the scale, try to consider wellness holistically, Halter says.
By allowing space for your mental, emotional and spiritual health — along with acknowledging outside factors that impact your body, like access to healthcare, food and movement — you can help improve your overall well-being.
How to create a more positive self-image
If you are struggling with negative self-talk, try using cognitive behavioral therapy practices, or CBT, to reframe how you view your body.
“Taking time to identify a belief that fuels painful emotions or drives unhelpful behaviors — and finding a kinder and more realistic way to view yourself — can be really helpful,” says Dr. Kate Hoerster, a licensed clinical psychologist and an assistant professor in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavior Sciences.
For example, if you’re worried about what your coworkers will think if you gain a few pounds during stay-at-home orders, try to get curious about where this thought is coming from.
Once you’ve acknowledged the thought, you can work on creating a new, more compassionate belief about your body. This may mean choosing an affirmation to repeat to yourself, or celebrating all that your body can do, like breathe in oxygen, pump blood and even help you move through this pandemic.
If intrusive thoughts creep in, try not to judge yourself or get frustrated. Instead, notice the thought, then gently remind yourself of your new more compassionate way of thinking.
Why it’s important to listen to your body
During COVID-19, you may be experiencing more or different cravings than usual. Maybe you’ve jumped on the bread-baking bandwagon, or you might be turning to food to help you feel better.
“It’s OK for food to be a source of comfort,” Conger says.
You don’t have to drastically restrict the food you eat in order to be healthy, she notes, and shaming yourself for eating certain foods or labeling food as either good or bad can be harmful.
“It’s really when we have guilt around what we eat that we start to have a problem,” Conger says. “We feel like we’ve blown it, so we eat the whole pack instead of a single cookie. We aren’t enjoying them anymore and then we don’t feel good anymore. I mean, eating an entire pack of kale probably won’t feel great either.”
The key is to find some balance.
“I think there’s an opportunity to reflect on what you want your health to look like and how you want to nurture your body and soul right now,” Hoerster says.
Physical activity and eating some fruits and vegetables can boost your mental and physical health and even reduce symptoms of depression or PTSD, but it defeats the purpose if these actions are coming from a place of shame or a belief that your body is only acceptable if it looks a certain way, she notes.
It’s important to check in with yourself to determine what is best for you and your body — not what society is telling you to feel through implicit and explicit messages.
Sometimes the cues your body sends can indicate deeper wishes, like wanting to call a friend who you aren’t able to see right now or needing to grieve the loss of normalcy. Other times your body might be asking for some fresh air, a nutritious meal or, yes, a sweet treat.
“Pay attention to your thoughts around what is really going to help you,” Conger says. “And if it’s the cookie, it’s the cookie.”
How to practice self-love
Loving and even accepting your body can be a big ask, and it’s OK if you aren’t there yet.
Conger, Halter and Hoerster share some small practices you can do to help cope.
Unfollow body-shaming media
With confusing and harmful messages coming from the entertainment industry to online trends (hello thinspo and thigh gaps) to even politics and healthcare, it’s no wonder that it’s hard to have a positive relationship with your body.
Halster recommends a simple yet effective way to cut through the body-shaming noise: Marie Kondo your social media and unfollow influencers or sites that don’t spark joy.
Get some movement
Instead of putting unnecessary pressure on yourself to use your at-home time to transform your body, focus on adding movement that you actually enjoy into your day.
Whether it’s dancing in your kitchen or walking around your neighborhood, joyful movement can help you feel more present in your body, boost your endorphins and increase your mental and physical health.
Feel your feelings
Hearing comments about weight gain or seeing negative body-image posts online can be irritating and upsetting.
“It’s the idea of death by a thousand cuts,” Halter says. “Our brain’s response to social rejection is similar to its response to pain. It’s OK to acknowledge that those feelings can hurt.”
Allowing yourself to feel your feelings can help to reconnect you with your body.
No matter what you do, try to give yourself some grace and compassion during COVID-19 and beyond: Your body and identity are so much more than a number on a scale.
Take the Next Step
- Meet Dr. Sarah Halter and Karen Conger.
- Read about eight ways to practice self-care while social distancing.
- Stay up to date on UW Medicine’s COVID-19 response.
The info in this article is accurate as of the publishing date. While Right as Rain strives to keep our stories as current as possible, the COVID-19 pandemic continues to evolve. It’s possible some things have changed since publication. We encourage you to stay informed by checking out your local health department resources, like Public Health Seattle King County or Washington State Department of Health.
Dr. Lalezari Offers 5 Tips For Weight Loss During Quarantine
As a bariatric and minimally invasive surgeon, Dr. Sepehr Lalezari, believes the procedures he performs is as much about the lives that are positively affected as it is about the weight loss or surgery itself. For his clinical training, Dr. Lalezari trained throughout the United States, including Florida, New York, California, and at Minnesota’s prestigious Mayo Clinic. Dr. Lalezari is currently practicing minimally invasive bariatric surgery and general surgery in Los Angeles at his practice Lalezari Surgical.
1. Keep your mind and body active
Dr. Lalezari says to get outside and get active at least three times a week for 30 minutes each and gradually increase from there. Keeping your mind active is just as important Dr. Lalezaru recommends picking up a hobby to avoid taking trips to the refrigerator out of boredom.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
2. Stay hydrated
Dr. Lalezari says you should be drinking 64 ounces of water a day and adds that the body senses thirst as hunger. Keeping hydrated helps to curb hunger cravings.
3. Avoid simple sugars
Simple sugars cause spikes in insulin and inturn signals your body to store fat. Simple sugars include things, like candy, smoothies and soda, so it's even more important to avoid them with meals.
4. Keep a food journal
Documenting your eating habits helps to learn more about how you eat when you eat and how you feel when you eat. Learning more about your habits gives you the power to change them.
Photo Credit: Shutterstock
5. Don't get discouraged
Dr. Lalezari says it's important to keep in mind that if you’re doing the right things and you’re eating the right food it will just take time. During that time surround yourself with positive energy, the right people, and people that will encourage you.
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