How to retain your health during lockdown?
With England having just entered into its second lockdown this year, there is no better time to share with you some really useful guidance that I believe will get you through this and any other lockdowns to come. Those who follow me would have recently seen a very useful infographic I posted on the same subject, this article will get under the bones of some of the key messages I gave within that post.
At a time when the world is full of unknowns, it’s comforting to read some structured, sensible, science-based advice and forget all the COVID related stress and sensationalism, instead of focusing on good health. Let’s be sensible about it, the advice I am about to provide is not a cure, there isn’t one right now. But, we all know that a healthy lifestyle and diet help to achieve good immune health, and this is what I am advocating.
My wish is for all who read this article to come out of lockdown, and out of the COVID pandemic, a healthier version of themselves. We can absolutely bring positives from this challenging time.
So, without further adieu, let’s crack on.
Lifestyle
Your lifestyle, which is your diet, stress levels, activity levels, amongst many other things, can impact our likelihood of becoming ill and how ill we get, generally. To give yourself, and your family, the best chances of having a strong immune system, research suggests you should focus on the following areas:
Eat a balanced, nutrient-dense diet, this is reinforced in a paper by Mohammed Iddir published in the Nutrients Journal, who recommends a good mix of protein, vegetables, fruits, fibre, fat and carbohydrates (low in processed fats and carbs) You can find many calorie calculators online, for example, https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp. It can be used to estimate the number of calories you need to lose, maintain or reach a specific weight. In my mind, it’s useful if you don’t know where to even start with how many calories you should be consuming. I’ve added some test data to it, I feel these calculators can come out with calories that are a little on the high side, but, try it, assess your weight in a week and make adjustments to your calorie target if you aren’t seeing the results you expect. It’s far better than blindly eating.
Aim for at least 7 hours sleep per night
Drink plenty of fluids
Manage stress. Easier said than done during a pandemic, I get that. If your stress levels are high, work on making changes to minimise the catalyst for your stress and on coping strategies
Exercise. The only real freedom you have to leave home, other than for work or essential food, is for exercise. Get your wellies on. Embrace it. Enjoy it.
Diet
During the last lockdown, I know from conversations with friends and family, that many of us ate more than we normally would. Probably through boredom, stress, change in our routine, the fridge being just 10 steps away all day, every day, extreme levels of baking with the kids (the last is from personal experience!).
So, what can we do this time around, to ensure we don’t fall back into the habit of eating to excess?
Firsty, and most importantly, let’s exercise a modicum of self-forgiveness. Let’s take a deep breath, forgive our eating sins from the last lockdown and pre forgive ourselves if we do binge during the current restrictions. We are going to set ourselves a goal to eat a sensible volume of macro-nutrient rich foods, but if this falls over, we will let it go and get back on track. All or nothing is the wrong approach, we don’t want a single incident resulting in a full lockdown of over-eating.
Some tips to eating well during lockdown are:
Plan meals for the week, inc snacks before you go shopping
Pre-cook healthy meals in advance
It may even save you a few pennies at Tesco too, you are less likely to pick up foods you don’t need, which may not be the healthiest option :) everyone’s a winner.
If you are currently following a diet aligned to a goal, fat loss, maintenance, weight gain...there is absolutely no reason why you can’t continue with this. Many of my clients did this with great success during the first lockdown, so crack on with your diet, nothing needs to hold you back.
Exercise
How about exercise? Exercise not only helps to keep weight under control, it also improves immune function, cardiovascular health and can reduce risk of disease as stated by Frank W. Booth et al in a recent article published in Comprehensive Physiology. At the very least, you should keep moving and not sit still for prolonged periods as this can adversely impact your health in several areas.
The recommendation is to get up every half hour. I do this habitually, it’s not a conscious thing for me anymore. I think it’s likely quite annoying for those around me, but even if I just get up to look out of the window, stroke the cat, grab a drink, stretch...I am keeping myself from being sedentary.
Again, my experiences of the last lockdown, through conversations with friends and family were that, for many, exercise went out of the window, along with sensible eating. On the flip side, as I mentioned earlier, all of my clients, and I, continued to train. Adapting to exercising away from the gym and embracing the calm of bicep curls in my garden, with my 3 year old. OK, so it probably wasn’t that calm, but it was actually fun. Although my face in the pic tells a different story. Arthur is clearly having the time of his life.
The easiest way to keep active during lockdown is to walk, or run. We all still have the freedom to do this, it’s great for you and for the family. Lockdown or no lockdown, I walk every day with my little family. Weekends, it’s the highlight and I learned during the first lockdown that the woods is just as exciting, if not more exciting, than an indoor play area.
Ideally, you should also incorporate some regular weight-bearing exercise too. If you can source a good set of dumbbells, ace. If you can get your hands on some good quality resistance bands, these are readily available online and are reasonably priced, brill. If you can get hold of neither, then go for regular bodyweight sessions instead. There are a ton of free resources online providing free videos, you can’t really go far wrong with YouTube. You could also sign up with an Online Personal Trainer who can provide you with a bespoke training and nutrition plan centred on your lifestyle, goals and the equipment you have at your disposal. Think about all the cash you’ll be saving from being at home and put some of that to good use.
Resistance training, walking and a wholesome, macro nutrient-dense diet, should give you the tools you need to maintain or even improve your health.
Again, if you stop training or miss a session, or binge eat, take note of the following:
Sleep
Sleep is when your body repairs itself and replenishes the immune system, Jean-Phillipe Chaput published an article in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine ascertaining that lack of sleep impacts almost every aspect of your health. You should target 7 hours per night, although I know, being a Dad, that this isn’t always achievable when the little people want to party at 3 am.
A lack of sleep can affect the following:
Focus (we’ve all had that fog after pulling an all-nighter)
Cardiovascular health
Muscle gain (gasp)
Insulin signalling
Inflammation
Skill acquisition
What hinders sleep?
There are 5 main culprits -
Light
Noise
Heat
Alcohol
Caffeine
These affect people in different ways, so for some, they may not impair sleep, but it’s worth being mindful of them all if you have issues sleeping.
What encourages a long and restful sleep?
We have 5 protagonists -
Exercise…yay
Consistent sleep patterns
Melatonin
Magnesium
Lavender
Maybe try one or all of these sleep hero’s, if you are struggling to get the sleep you need. Unfortunately, there won’t be any sleepovers at good old Nanna’s house for a month, so there is no guarantee of a lie in any time soon.
Mental health
It is so, so, so important to take care of your mental health. I can’t stress that enough. Diet and exercise will not have the impact you want, nor be consistent, if your mental health is suffering for any reason. They all take equal importance to overall good health, it’s not all about what is on the outside.
Many of us may feel alone and isolated during lockdown, we are social beings and we need the support and companionship of family and friends. We may be worried about our family, our health, we may have financial worries. Keep in touch with loved ones, there are great channels for this now, Facebook, WhatsApp, zoom, the trusty phone.
It’s important to take a break too. Becoming consumed by articles about COVID, some based on little fact, can be overwhelming. Make sure you unplug each day, be present.
Diet and activity levels have been seen to positively impact mood, where there is a healthy balanced approach. So the advice above is useful, to again give the best chance of keeping your mood high during challenging times.
If you do feel yourself becoming stressed, or anxious, there are some strategies you can try to relieve the symptoms. Deep breathing and muscle stretching and relaxation are all used by others to cope with anxious feelings, but many people have their own strategies, like going for a walk, knitting, watching a movie, or many other distractions that clear their mind. People are different, so do whatever works for you. Just do something fun, that makes you feel content, we all have that thing. Mine is adventures in the woods, or just sitting by the river, enjoying the quiet time.
As I was writing this article, one interesting thought came to mind. There isn’t one snippet of advice in here, that I and many, many other nutrition and fitness professionals aren’t already shouting from the rooftops to our clients and our followers. What this brings home to me in a very powerful way is that your lifestyle, your diet and activity levels are a fundamental factor in you living a long and healthy life, this is amplified by the COVID pandemic and it’s risk to those with pre-existing health conditions and those of us who are obese. Don’t get me wrong, as I have said, this isn’t a cure for COVID and I am not a medical professional. But, if you are already leading a healthy lifestyle, you’ve put yourself in a really strong position to withstand the health challenges of today. If your health isn’t quite where it needs to be, it certainly isn’t too late to change this.
Make the changes today.