Stuck inside these days – on lockdown? Bored out of your mind? Stay positive and active, have a plan for your day and attack it full on. Here’s a short lockdown survival guide! Create a plan for your diet, your exercise and your mindset. Here’s how to stay healthy and fit – on the inside and outside during this challenging time.
Lockdown Survival Guide Part 1: Food & Fluids
1. Immune Boosting Foods
If you’re not eating lots of plants already, now’s a good time to start. Fruit and vegetables are packed in phytonutrients, vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. All of the important things we need to fight infection, not to mention live a healthy long life. Vegetables and fruit provide the natural nutrients we need to build cells that are needed for our immune function including red and white blood cells.
Additionally upping certain food nutrients will help modulate the immune system response such as eating garlic, ginger and turmeric! Even more benefits can be found when you eat certain foods together like lemon and garlic! Foods rich in zinc are also important. Zinc is involved in many pathways in the body including the immune response. Zinc is also an effective and powerful antioxidant.
Stay Healthy Tip: Stock up on vitamin C rich foods like grapefruit, lemons, limes and oranges, you’ll also want to load up on turmeric, ginger and garlic. As well as foods that are high in zinc such as lentils, chickpeas, beans, seeds and nuts.
2. Get on a Meal Plan
Meal plans can make sure you got your food covered – no need to worry about starving in isolation! But, be sure you find a reputable meal plan company that has high standards for food control. That means they’re ISO certified and follow very strict guidelines when it comes to hygiene and food quality.
The second reason to follow a meal plan, is that a time like this you’re more than likely not doing as much exercise or calorie burning as you were previously, and likely bored, so controlling your calories will help you to make sure you come out of quarantine looking exactly as when you went in! Eating a healthy meal plan will also help you get the right nutrients you need to help keep your immune system stocked!
Stay Healthy Tip: Choose a reputable healthy meal plan company, go for a weight loss or calorie reduced plan to maintain your current weight. You can also cook and prep your own meal plan, just be sure to be measure out our portions, and that you’re committed to the process!
3. Drink Lots of Hot Fluids
Most of us already reach for hot fluids when we’re sick, but these days its all about prevention. Drinking hot fluids will help keep any viral or bacteria in your mouth from getting very far. Be sure to drink hot fluids frequently. This will help wash out the mouth and draw the bad stuff down to your stomach, where the acids will kill those bad bugs. Additionally frequent fluids will help keep your body hydrated.
Stay Healthy Tip: Drink plenty of hot tea – all and any kinds, tea is high in antioxidants that can help increase our antioxidant capacity. Also drink hot water, instead of cold water; add citrus fruit – a squeeze of lemon or lime and grated ginger.
Lockdown Survival Guide Part 2: Home Workouts
There are a million home workouts on the internet these days. Don’t need to look further than your IG stream or YouTube to find something that will interest you. My workouts these days focus on HIIT, shadow boxing, Muay Thai drills, skipping and core! And a little yoga too! Maybe I can’t hit the pads, but I can still practice my footwork and work on my flexibility.
Home Workout Tips:
- Have a Set Time When You Train – try to maintain your normal schedule, or pick a time to train every day and be consistent.
- Change it Up – now’s the time to do something new; use resistant bands or kettle bells if you have them. Improvise if not – water cooler jugs, water bottles or soup cans if you’re not that strong! Try a new workout or work on a specific technique. There’s a tons of aerobic HIIT style workouts online that will keep your heart healthy, maintain your body and burn calories!
- Amount of Time – commit to a specific amount of time you’ll train for. The goal should be at least a minimum of 30 minutes. In fact, there should be no reason why you can’t get at least 1 hour; think about it, if you’re stuck in the house for so many hours every day, no reason why you can’t get a complete workout in or a few smaller ones.
- Set Your Expectations – a home workout will never get you the same body as a heavy training session, but you can maintain. Your goals should be to burn calories and get your energy levels up. Get your blood pumping through the body and release some endorphins. This will automatically make you feel better about the current situation.
- Set A New Goal – how many minutes can you skip, how many push-ups can you do? How long can you hold a plank? Pick something and get better at it – chip away everyday – what else do you have to do?
Lockdown Survival Guide Part 3: Keeping a Positive Mindset
The most important thing to do is keep positive. If you’ve never had time to work on yourself, make the most out of this opportunity. Don’t waste this time watching Netflix all day. Do something with your time. Not sure what to do, here’s just a few ideas:
- Business Idea – always wanted to start a second stream of income, why not now? Who knows what the future will hold; why not work on an idea you have now
- Write More – journal, blog, write. Get it out. Craft something and be creative. You’ll feel better the more you write.
- Meditate – learn how to control your breathe and your thoughts; connect with yourself and the universe; meditation can also reduce stress levels too. Do it every day.
- Learn a Language – somewhere you’ve always wanted to go, learn the language in advance. Download an app! Hola
- Take an Online Course – learn something new; improve a skill set! Cooking lessons? Improve your digital marketing skills? Take a writing course, or improve your make-up skills?
- Chore List – never got time to finish that chore or task? No time like the present, make a new chore list and start ticking them off.
- Get More Sleep – sleep helps reset the system and recover the body. If you’re lacking sleep, now’s the time to get more. You can’t make up for lost sleep, but getting in some good rest now will help regulate your immune system, your hormones and keep you strong.
- Listen or Read Something Positive – positive happy music, a podcast, some comedy, read a book you’ve been meaning too!
Until Next Time…
Be Fierce, Stay Safe & Rule the World,
Lauren Jacobsen