Combat weight gain while working from home

The Coronavirus pandemic (otherwise known as COVID-19) has thrown everyone off their routine. Many lost their jobs, temporarily out of work, or had to bring their work home to try to balance their home lives on top of it.

The stress of trying to balance work and home life at the same time is a new challenge for many. Not only are they trying to manage their work schedules, but their spouse and children are home as well because of COVID-19.

It’s no secret that stress leads to weight gain, high blood pressure, diabetes, and other health conditions that are difficult to manage when there is no balance. Many people don’t realize they’re putting on extra pounds just sitting at home all day. It’s not safe to go to the gym or other public areas, you’re also helping your children with their schoolwork, and you’re keeping up with the household. All the stress can culminate in fat cells that end up collecting in unsavory areas of the body.

Fortunately, you don’t have to fall into a cycle of stress and weight gain. There are changes you can make in your home that requires some dedication. Follow these simple tips to keep yourself from gaining weight during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Diet Strategies For Weight Loss

Being at home can be a blessing or a curse when it comes to diet strategies. For one, you’re not commuting to and from work, so you’re less tempted to stop at a fast-food drive-thru for heavily processed carbohydrates and sugars. On the other hand, you’re stuck at home with delivery apps that can bring that food to you. It takes a little impulse control, but it’s possible to control the flow of food in your home.

Try Alternate-Day Fasting

If you absolutely insist on eating whatever you want, then try alternate-day fasting. This is an easy lifestyle change where you eat whatever you want one day and stay under 500 calories the next. This helps your body rely more on ketones for energy than carbohydrates, which can help reduce your body fat.

Higher-Frequency, Smaller Portions

The reason why you eat so much processed food is that it has very little nutritional value. When you eat smaller portions of healthier food, your stomach signals to your brain that it’s satisfied with your meal because you’re getting more nutrition in smaller servings. This could help increase your metabolism if it slowed down a bit.

At-Home Exercises For Weight Loss

You don’t need to buy fancy workout equipment to exercise at home. If you want to make it simple, then all you really need is yourself and the floor.

Squats

Sometimes you see people doing squats at the gym with an exercise ball in their hand or a barbell on their shoulders. You don’t need any of that at home. If anything, you can use a small potted plant to hold in front of you as you squat with your feet shoulder-width apart. When you bend your knees, bring your arms up and your backside down until your hips go below your knees, then dig your heels into the ground to bring yourself back up while maintaining your balance.

Push-Ups

For a push-up, all you need is yourself, a floor, or a wall. Wall push-ups are recommended so you can learn the proper technique, or if doing push-ups on the floor is too painful for you. Stand with your feet shoulder-width apart with your body about an arm’s length from the wall. Lift your arms shoulder-width apart and bend your elbows, so your body moves towards the wall. Slowly push your arms away back to the starting position. Once you get accustomed to wall push-ups, then slowly start doing them on the floor.

Lunges

You’ll often see people do lunges at the gym. Sometimes they’ll do it across the entirety of the gym, and no one questions them because they’re effective and can be done anymore. Stand with your feet as wide as your hips and take one large step forward (lunge forward). When done correctly, you should feel most of the weight on the front of your foot. When you’re lunging forward, bring your back knee as close as you can to the floor. Put weight on your heel and push yourself back up to a starting position.

Planks

Nothing hurts more than a plank, but no pain, no gain, right? The reason why planks hurt as much as they do is that they work your core muscles. The core muscles are a muscle group many people ignore, even if they’re at the gym. A simple way to performing a plank is to get on your hands and knees. Place your forearms on the floor and lift your knees off the floor. You have to maintain that position for at least a minute when you’re just beginning, but you’re going to feel it in your core.

Yoga Poses For Weight Loss

Yoga is just as stress-relieving as conventional exercise. Yoga helps clear your mind and helps bring a sense of mindfulness to your day.

Cat Pose

The cat pose is relatively easy because you’re getting onto your hands and knees and arching your back like a cat would do if they were stretching. The cat pose helps strengthen and stretch your back and stimulate the organs in your core area.

Corpse Pose

The corpse pose might look really easy because all you’re doing is lying on your back, right? It’s actually one of the more challenging poses. You lay on the floor with your hands down to your side as if you were a corpse. Make sure your kids aren’t running around the house and accidentally crush your pelvis. You need to mindfully focus on every muscle of your body and bring it to a state of total relaxation.

Takeaways

Just because you’re stuck at home doesn’t mean you’re destined for a life of staring out the window wound up in a ball of stress and weight gain. Following these simple tips can not only keep you in shape, but you might come out the other end of this pandemic in better shape than before.

References

https://www.insider.com/how-to-lose-weight-when-you-work-from-home-2019-1