It’s Day 138 of COVID-19. Health agencies have stressed the importance of staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic. Most people are for the first time working from home. Some people are having to home school their children. Some people are having to do both. With a full house of people that you love but might not want to spend all your time with stress levels can get high. Feelings of being “stuck” at home and not being able to spend time like you usually do can open up a whole new level of emotions. Some of these emotions might be fear, sacrifice, lack and scarcity. In normal circumstances, these emotions are not as heightened but now that everyone is going through the same issue all at the same time all these emotions are magnified. Learn ways to stay healthy and fit during COVID…
Find Out In Today’s Podcast:
- How to Socially Distance Yourself From Your Fridge
- Earn Your Sit Time
- When is the best time to have stress
- 6 Simple Steps to End Your Cravings
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Ways to Stay Healthy and Fit During COVID
Health agencies have stressed the importance of staying at home during the coronavirus pandemic. Most people are for the first time working from home. Some people are having to homeschool their children. Some people are having to do both. With a full house of people that you love but might not want to spend all your time with stress levels can get high. Feelings of being “stuck” at home and not being able to spend time like you usually do can open up a whole new level of emotions. Some of these emotions might be fear, sacrifice, lack and scarcity. In normal circumstances, these emotions are not as heightened but now that everyone is going through the same issue all at the same time all these emotions are magnified.
Now, add in a stocked pantry and completely full fridge … if you are an emotional eater you are going to have a strong desire to overeat.
Maybe you are bored and you find yourself peeking into the refrigerator…a lot! Looking for a mood change from work or from home schooling the kids? You may be pulling out the third bowl of ice cream before it’s even noon….because “why not?” You get to wear sweatpants or pajamas to work now (or at least from the bottom down).
So, if you are finding it challenging to socially distance yourself from your fridge, I want to offer these suggestions:
Socially Distance Yourself From The Kitchen
Even though your pantry and fridge are stocked doesn’t mean you need to eat all the food. When clients come to me, I always give this advice on eating…eat when you are hungry (stomach growling) and stop when you are comfortable full. If you are eating when you are not hungry then you are eating for emotional reasons.
Being in this new “normal” can bring out all the emotions that you have been pushing aside before the coronavirus hit. If you normally are a “stress-eater” then your stressful thoughts about the pandemic will make you want to eat even more. If you want to learn 6 simple steps to stop overeating and end your cravings – join Crush Your Cravings for free today!
Earn Your Sit Time
Because you have no one to really answer to you might feel like lying on the couch all day and bingeing on the shows you “must” catch up on. Or maybe you have that extra commute time because you aren’t driving to work, and you spend it doing more office work? My professional recommendation is to make a schedule. You might think having a schedule is rigid. If you build in personal time you’ll not only be more productive accomplishing timed tasks but you also be able to relax and enjoy your personal time because you know everything else is taken care of.
In order to earn your sit time (this is relaxing time), you need to move throughout the day. A good goal to aim for is 10,000 steps per day. This might be a huge jump for you. If it is, start by adding an additional 1,000 steps to what you are currently doing. If you are sitting most of the day, set a reminder to get up and move around the house. You could do some jumping jacks, squats or even plank holds on a work break. If you have access to stairs (even one step) you have yourself a great cardio workout.
Walk around your yard. Depending on what type of environment you live in, go for a walk around the outside of your house or around the block (of course following health agencies directives on socially distancing).
Decrease Your Stress
You have many options on how to look at this pandemic. You can stress out on things you have no control over. You can also think nothing has gone wrong. And you can have many varieties of thoughts in between the two. You get to think what you want to think. You also get to decide if you are going to be a victim to circumstances or are you going to make powerful decisions no matter what. You could make the powerful decision to hire a coach and lose 10 pounds while in quarantine. You could make a powerful decision to start the business you’ve always wanted to. You can also curl up into the fetal positions and cry. You can also blame others for what you don’t have. You get to decide your choices and by making a decision you can reduce stress.
You can also do some stretches to relieve stress. You can check out my stretches in the exercise library on my YouTube channel but even just a typical “yawn” stretch will be effective.
Take in account your mindset. Notice what you are thinking about when you are feeling stressed. What actions do you take when you are stressed? Don’t judge yourself but when you start paying attention to your thoughts you soon will see why you have the results that you have. This is one of the key skills I teach to my clients to lose weight.
Now, believe it or not there will come a time when like Anna in “Frozen” the castle gates will reopen and we will be given the “okay” to go outside and resume what life was like before the pandemic occurred. And when that does happen, I want to offer you these post-coronavirus tips.
Post COVID-19 Tips
- If you haven’t been exercising, start off slowly.
- If you have gained weight realize you can take it off with the right skills and tools. The last thing you want to do is go on a crash diet.
- Work on your mindset. The missing link to losing weight and keeping it off is all in the way you think. This is what I teach my clients. It’s a skill set that once you learn it you can use it for life.
Take-A-Ways
My hope is that when this is coronavirus crisis is over these are some of the take-a-ways we will leave with:
- We can have more work from home situations.
- We can appreciate what our teachers go through with our children.
- We can go to the parks for exercise.
- We can get through anything with the right mindset.