10 Tips To Avoid Weight Gain During Lockdown

10 Tips To Avoid Weight Gain During Lockdown. It goes without saying that after this lockdown, most of us will have pilled on some weight. This is because there is less movement, and idling makes us open the fridge quite often.

Do not despair though, you can still control your habits, and here is how;

1. Eat Healthy

While it is right to assume that being home-bound leads to easy access to food and snacks, there is also a latent advantage in this, which is often ignored. With no options of eating out, we are restricted to home food – which tends to be healthier, low calorie and low trans-fat. To gain further advantage from this, we can resort to lower calorie snacks and food items such as salads.

2. Eat Wisely

Since most of us are not burning off calories during this period of lockdown, it is natural that our fuel foods intake should be lesser in this period. Carbohydrates (fuel foods) include food items such as bread, chapatis, rice, potato, etc. Intake of these should be curtailed during this period. Additionally, since the body does not need any energy during sleep, carbohydrates can be completely avoided at dinner.

3. Eat Timely

The importance of timely and regular meals cannot be over-emphasized. Body metabolism works best when nutritious food is ingested at regular intervals, rather than erratically. It is particularly important to avoid eating dinner very late and sleeping soon thereafter. This habit of regular meals should ideally be followed even when there is no lockdown. This habit is particularly relevant to diabetics, as it avoids erratic blood sugar levels.

4. Plan Your Meals

Planning and prepping for all the meals (including snacks) for the whole day will prevent unhealthy eating. You may decide to eat healthy foods only, but when hunger strikes like a hurricane, you tend to reach out for anything available and eat more than you should have. So, it’s wise to have healthy meals ready in moderate amount while you are in your sane mind.

5. Practise Slow Eating

One benefit of lockdown is we have more time in hand. So no more rushed mornings or quick office breaks. You can finally eat your food peacefully, taking your own sweet time. And, what if we tell you that if you chew your food properly and eat slowly, you’ll end up eating less food? It’s definitely worth trying

6. Drink Lots Of Liquids

During this time, it’s important to stay hydrated for good health, and it will also keep you sated. Water fills us our stomachs making us eat less. Warm water with lemon in the morning has worked wonders for many people. So drink lots of water and, if possible, also have lots of juices, smoothies and lemonades.

7. Don’t Turn Bedroom Into Dining Room

Breakfast in bed can wait at this particular junction. If you bring food in your bedroom, there’s no way you would be able to keep your hands off it. Only eat when its meal time and do so in the dining room. Make it a point to leave your bed every time you have to eat. If nothing else, your laziness would prevent you from overeating!

8. Keep Busy

To avoid running to the fridge every time you are bored, try to set out a plan of activities each day. You can do housework, gardening, family calls/social time, hobby time, your exercise time and routine bed time. This not only will help give you a focus and sense of purpose for the day, it will hopefully keep the boredom and therefore nibbles at bay too.

9. Exercise and Keeping Active

Not only is activity important for our physical health and wellbeing, it is very important for our mental health too. Make sure you try to get out into
the fresh air daily for a short spell. There are tones of online, social media and TV exercise programmes that you can tap into. Pick one that you enjoy most and work within your capability.

10. It’s All In The Mind

Like many other modern-day diseases, obesity also has a strong ‘mind’ component. While the country needs us to stay indoors at this time, it does not require us to eat more, become inactive and gain weight. In fact, to the contrary, this is the time for us to evolve as individuals and make amends for whatever may be wrong in our lifestyles.