We have all been impacted by COVID-19 in some way or another. It doesn’t mean that we give up on our fitness and health goals, though. Our decrease in daily activity, increase in being stationary and our loss of motivation to eat healthy gives us plenty of easy reasons to gain fat, get lazy and forget about all the work we put into ourselves before this all happened.
This doesn’t need to be the case, though. We don’t need to put our goals to the back burner during quarantine. We just need to adjust what we are eating, how much we are eating and when we are eating it.
Here are three simple tips to help you keep on track with your fitness goals by giving you energy and keeping your body fat low.
Decreasing your daily calorie intake
There are always functions happening to keep us alive no matter how much or how little activity we are doing at the time. Our bodies are using energy even when we are sleeping or sitting on the couch. Things like breathing, organ function and pumping blood still require muscles to contract and energy to move.
So what does this have to do with losing weight?
We use a calculation called the Basal Metabolic Rate or BMR, which is a number of calories our body uses at rest to function. That number of calories is what we need to eat every day in order to maintain homeostasis. Basically, maintain what our body is at currently. So if we want to gain muscle or lose fat, we will need to adjust this number in order to achieve the body type we are looking for. Some goals are increasing, some are decreasing.
Once you have an accurate BMR number, you can then set up your nutrition plan to reflect your goals. This means you are not guessing or blindly eating food in hopes of losing weight. You will know exactly how many carbohydrates, fat and protein is needed to be eaten per day based on your activity level and your goals. With being stuck inside more than usual due to COVID-19, this number might actually be lower than it normally is when we are much more active. We are moving less, walking less and exercising less, so we need to adjust our calorie intake accordingly for the time being.
Nutrient timing
Being stuck inside more during quarantine has forced us to sit a lot more and exert a lot less energy during the day than we normally would. But most of us are still on a fitness or activity routine of some sort and those are the times we need the excess energy the most.
Rather than being completely consistent with our eating, it is often best for us to revolve it around our activity routines. If you have a consistent training schedule, try matching your nutrition timing with it. Eating more before and / or after your workouts when your body is in need of nutrients for energy or depleted from a hard workout will allow your body to use the energy when it's needed instead of holding on to the excess when you are at rest.
Avoid snacking all day
Whether we are working from home or not during COVID-19, we are now tempted with snacking on things all day due to the close proximity to the fridge. This is an easy way for us to pack on the pounds when we don’t want them.
Even healthy snacks are still snacks. We need to try and avoid random snacking as much as we can and stick to eating our calories during set meals, if possible. Having our metabolism react and work the way we want it to will give us the result we want, whether its fat loss or muscle gain. If we are continuously eating all day, our body doesn’t have time to process what it has into something useful. It will just keep using what we are packing on top which will result in a surplus of energy or fat storage.
Sticking to a set meal time gives our bodies the time it needs to process what we have eaten and designate it to the place it needs to go. It will hold onto less and use more, resulting in packing on less pounds even when moving less.
Do you need help with your nutrition?
Are you struggling with keeping your body fat during this quarantine?
You are not alone!
Lets work together on a plan to help you feel positive about your progress. Contact me today and we can get you started!
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