Health re-boot as you prepare for re-entry – TheBritishHerald
Health re boot as you prepare for re entry TheBritishHerald
Health – Whether you’ve burpee’d your way through quarantine or sat back and ridden the banana bread ride, as lockdown eases, you may be wanting to get into healthier habits as we adapt to the ‘new normal’ way of life.
Lockdown has been more sedentary than usual for many of us. Fitbit data suggests British adults were 8 per cent less active in March 2020 compared to January. Meanwhile a study by King’s College London in partnership with Ipsos MORI of over 2,200 participants in the UK found that 48 per cent reported putting on weight in lockdown and 29 per cent said they drank more alcohol than they normally would.
If you’ve struggled to find an exercise routine or have found yourself eating and drinking things you wouldn’t normally, there’s nothing wrong with that. The anxiety and stress of the past few months have been more than enough to throw most things into disarray.
Here we asked some fitness and nutrition experts for their top tips to overcoming lockdown lethargy.
Focus on your ‘background activity’ rather than a single workout
Been working out and still gained a few pounds? The reason could be down to a drop in your nonexercise-related activity, says Nike Trainer and elite coach Luke Worthington.
“Weight loss or weight gain all boils down to a simple equation of energy in vs energy out,” he explains. “If we consistently consume more than we expend, we’ll store it as fat. If we consistently get our energy balance out of balance, it can lead to unwanted and potentially harmful weight gain or weight loss.”
In terms of ‘energy out’, Worthington says that people typically focus on the energy burned from a specific workout, when what we’re doing for the other 23 hours a day that we’re not exercising, that he terms our ‘background activity’ — such as taking the stairs, walking to places standing instead of sitting — makes up a far larger proportion, and it’s this that has been most affected during lockdown.
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“So even if people have been as consistent as they were before with their daily exercises and have maintained their nutritional levels, this shift towards a lower level of background activity can result in unwanted weight gain,” he says. “My advice for people who are still working from home or on furlough is to worry much less about the daily 45-minute insta live HIIT class, and pay more attention to their daily activity.”
Schedule in regular walks throughout the day, he suggests, “if you’re having socially distant catch-ups with friends do them while walking rather than sitting.”
Add to your diet, don’t take away
If you’ve found you’ve been eating less healthy options in lockdown than you normally would, rather than focusing on the things you want to cut out from your diet, think about healthy options you’d like to add.
