If your recent life is like me, a pre-pandemic routine that includes regular exercise and disciplined meals will probably make way for a sedentary night in a large chair, with chocolate ice cream or a mac. Repeat your favorite TV series runaway while drinking “n” cheese.
But let’s not be beaten about it. Some of the doctors I’ve talked to recently, most patients and many of their colleagues, have a hard time maintaining healthy habits in the anxiety of a pandemic. ” Quarantine 15“(Pound, that is) is a real phenomenon.
“The dual challenge of protecting our health, including our immune system, while fighting unhealthy temptations is the challenge that everyone is dealing with,” said David Kilgore, director of integrated medicine programs at the University of California, Irvine. “.
Long before COVID-19, Over 40% of US adults They were obese, putting them at risk of the worst consequences of COVID-19. But even people who are accustomed to physical fitness and nutrition are struggling to break the bad habits they have developed in the last five months.
Karen Clark, a resident of Knoxville, Tennessee, found intense rowing late in his life, and her several workouts a week consumed all the extra calories she had burned. But the pandemic has changed everything. She could no longer meet her teammates and quit her workout at YMCA.
Suddenly she was taken down at home. And, like many, it led to a more sedentary lifestyle, connecting to the desk without having meetings outside the house or a walk for lunch with colleagues.
“I was just like anyone else, returning to a comfortable meal and a comfortable routine, looking badly at Netflix and Amazon Prime,” Clark says. “When I was 25 years old with £10, I cut beer and ice cream for a week. With £62 and £12, it’s a long way to go.”
She set off along the road in July, where she stopped buying chips, ice cream, and other treats. And in August, she rediscovered the rowing machine in the basement.
But don’t worry if you don’t have Clark discipline or a rowing machine. You still have some control over your life.
Dr. W. Scott Butch, Head of Obesity Medicine at the Obesity and Metabolism Institute at the Cleveland Clinic, said that a good way to get started is because it’s often just what was removed by a pandemic. Is to establish a daily routine. He recommends making your day a “book end” with physical activity. It can be as simple as a short walk in the morning and a long walk after work.
And he says prepare your meal at the beginning of the day, or even at the beginning of the week, especially if you have a child at home to study remotely this fall.
If you haven’t been exercising for a while, “Start slowly and move your body until you can keep up with your heart rate,” says Leticia, a family doctor just south of the South Bay Primary Medical Group. Dr. Polanco says. San Diego. If the gym is closed, or if you can’t stay with your regular fellow gymnast, she says there are many ways to stay fit at home or in the neighborhood.
If any of these activities appeal to you, take a walk, run, or ride a bike. In many jurisdictions throughout the United States, residents need to wear masks when in public, but this may not be necessary. Harmful to some people with respiratory illness — While doing heavy exercise.
“It’s obviously hard to work out with a mask,” said Yvonne Maldonado, a pediatric infectious disease pediatrician at Stanford University School of Medicine. “We go hiking at the foothills. We take the masks with us. We don’t wear masks unless someone else comes in. Then we wear masks, then I’ll take it off.”
If you want to avoid the mask question altogether, think of your home as a cleverly disguised gym. Wearing music and dance, or hula hoops, Polanco proposes. If you have dumbbells, you can also iron them or find a cable TV station where you can enjoy yoga and other training programs.
You can find countless exercises for beginners and experienced fitness enthusiasts by searching “exercise videos” on the Internet. Please try one of 7 minute workout app It’s very popular these days. You can download it from Google Play or Apple Store.
Lacking companionship to exercise with others, virtual fitness groups may seem like a pale substitute, but they can offer motivation and accountability, as well as live streaming video training by like-minded exercisers. One way to find such groups is to search the “virtual fitness community.”
Many gyms also offer live digital fitness classes and physical training sessions, often advertised on their websites.
If you play group sports, you may or may not have options, depending on where you live.
In Los Angeles, Indoor and outdoor group sports The city park will be closed until further notice. The only sports allowed are tennis and golf.
In Montgomery County, Maryland, the Ronchel Draft League, a men’s softball league over fifty, will resume play early this month after finishing the spring season for COVID-19, and Dave, the league’s commissioner, will resume play. Haider says.
But he says it’s difficult to get enough players because he’s worried about COVID.
“There are a lot of people in senior groups who are in a high risk category or who may have a spouse in a high risk category.” There are no plans to play.
Players must wear a mask at least 6 feet away from the field. On the field, catchers are the only players who need to wear masks. Heider explains that masks can wear glasses, slip, cause vision problems, and endanger runners and fielders.
Whatever form of exercise you choose, you can’t stay healthy unless you reduce the consumption of fat and sugar-rich foods that can increase your risk of chronic illnesses such as obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure. All COVID-19 risk factors.
Kim guez, a nutritionist at the University of California, Berkeley, recommends a healthy supply of beans, lentils, whole grains, nuts, seeds, frozen vegetables, tofu, tempeh, and canned fish such as tuna and salmon. I am.
“Start with something really simple,” she said. “It may even be a side dish of vegetables that goes along with what they are used to cooking.
Whatever first step you decide to take, now is a good time to start a better meal and move more physically.
“Maintaining good health is more important today than at any other time, because we are fighting this untreated virus,” said Butch of the Cleveland Clinic. “Treatment is our immune system.”
this KHN First published story California Health Line, Services California Healthcare Foundation..
