Food, fitness and the virus

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 25/04/2020 (2000 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

If your motivation to exercise and eat right has flatlined, you’re not alone.

Falling out of routine is a normal reaction to change at the best of times, and we’re certainly in unique times. Having more time to forage through the pantry or refrigerator while binge-watching the news is wreaking havoc on fitness plans — and waistlines — everywhere.

Hey, if you’ve got time right now, use it to do productive things such as exercise. If you’re trying to survive financially, balance work with taking care of kids and keep the house in order, it’s OK to cut yourself some slack.

You decide what you can commit to. If fitness helps maintain your sanity, like it does for me, keep making it a priority, but don’t stress if you can’t. Fitness is not a race and your goals can wait. Trust me, most of us, even fitness professionals, are sucking wind right now. There’s been a lot of change, added stress, and uncertainty.

However, if you’re eating recklessly and not getting any form of exercise in, you’re probably making things worse. Try to do your best to create an environment that minimizes the damage, and that’s what this article is all about.

First off, it’s awfully tough to gain pounds of actual body fat over the span of a couple weeks.

What your body cannot process for storage, it tries to burn (your temperature rises) and excrete (you end going to the bathroom a bit more in the following 12 to 24 hours).

The only way you could’ve gained an actual pound of fat overnight is if you ate something like five fast food burgers in excess of your BMR (the baseline calories needed to maintain your weight).

So you probably didn’t eat 5,000-plus calories in one sitting, am I right? Yes, your scale weight will be up a lot. The excess stomach content and water weight will drastically skew the number for a day or two. It’s temporary — if you cut yourself some slack and use the tips in this article to help guide you forward.

Junk Food Cravings Explained

First, though, what is it about chocolate, pizza and sweets that make it so hard to stop at “just one”? You know these foods aren’t good for you in excess, so why do you indulge? Is it the forbidden fruit mentality? You want what you can’t have?

For starters, your brain loves junk food. They are energy-dense (i.e. high in calories). Good news if you’re a hunter-gatherer and nutrients are scarce, but bad news nowadays with endless food at your fingertips.

Your brain releases dopamine when your mouth and small intestine detect the base materials in sugar, fat, and protein. The more concentrated the nutrients, as in junk food, the greater the surge in dopamine and the more immediate your craving. Essentially, your brain is doing its job by encouraging you to pursue calorie-dense foods, but your brain chemistry simply wasn’t built for the world you live in today.

You need simply take a passing glance at that timely pizza promotion in your mail and crave it because the sensory cues are so innate. Then, with a few clicks on your smartphone, that cheesy delight arrives at your doorstep.

Other factors that exasperate cravings can be brought on by high stress and poor sleep.

Inadequate sleep decreases levels of leptin, the hormone that signals satiation, and increases levels of the hunger-signalling hormone ghrelin. A joint study by the National Institutes of Health, the Minnesota Obesity Center, and the Mayo Clinic showed that when the test subjects were sleep-deprived, they ate an extra 549 calories per day.

Similar problems are encountered when the stress hormone, cortisol, is chronically elevated.

Tiredness, of course, also affects motivation and leads to missed workouts, lower activity levels overall and poor food choices.

Overcoming Social Norms

Our society associates eating with leisure, however you may be spending more time on the couch. Which leads to watching more Netflix, which can lead to more grazing.

These are powerful social cues to overcome, but it’ll take replacing old habits with new, healthy ones to buck those trends. Start by eating a filling, healthy dinner so you aren’t so tempted to snack at night. Try to do some form of exercise before settling into your TV routine. Keep it simple and short to start with and build up from there.

Set up Your Environment

Now, here’s a quick checklist to survive the remaining time in isolation with your health and waistline intact.

If it’s not immediately in your environment, you’re probably not going to eat it: So keep it out. Yes, you may need to stock up on snacks for the kids, but limit exposure to your kryptonite foods.

If it has to be in the house, put up “walls” in front of it. Keep the junk food in less visible and less convenient locations. For example, if you need it in the house for your kids, keep ice cream in the downstairs freezer and hide it under a stash of frozen vegetables if necessary.

On the opposite end of the spectrum, take down the “walls” in front of making healthy food choices. For example, keep a fruit bowl out on the counter, not a bowl of candies. Keep refrigerated vegetables on the front and middle shelves of your refrigerator, and keep more “off plan” refrigerated items near the back (or perhaps in the drawers).

Keep to a schedule of planned dinners you prepare and food prep some lunch essentials ahead of time, particularly proteins and starchy carbs, which can’t really be figured out on the fly.

Don’t buy super-sized portions you might binge on — only indulge in controlled amounts.

If you live with others who bring junk food home, get their support by at least getting them to agree to hide it in a place only they will know to find it.

Prepare your meals as you normally would for your job and have them ready in the fridge, eating meals on the same schedule.

Eat more whole, fresh, minimally processed foods with a balance of macronutrients, protein, carbs and fats so you aren’t “shortchanging” your brain from much-needed nutrients (i.e. limit cravings)

Eat slowly and mindfully. No matter what you eat, slowing down will help your digestive system do its job and also help your brain get the signal from your gut that it’s full.

The best kept secret is not to depend on willpower but to have an alternative option at the ready that meets your goals. Find your go-to healthy meal or snack options and make sure they’re staring at you when you open the fridge or pantry or are offered something you’re trying to avoid. Hey, if you slip up, don’t see fitness so black and white. A few slices of pizza aren’t going to ruin your progress if you see it that way.

Mitch Calvert is a Winnipeg-based weight loss coach who regularly contributes to Men’s Health and has helped over 1,100 people realize their fitness goals. Visit mitchcalvert.com to grab yourself a free diet secrets checklist to get started.