17 rules you aren't following in self isolation from the Corona Virus
- Eat a Nutritious breakfast
All meals are equally as important but if you are feeling hungry in the morning start your day positive by making a nutritious breakfast like overnight oats, porridge or poached eggs on toast. Remember you can freeze bread and take a slice out as and when you need it. Oats are a dry item so handy as a cupboard staple! Check out my breakfast post here
- Snack right
Snacks are good for balancing out your blood sugar levels and stopping you from getting overly hungry and binge eating. With anxiety high right now, people will be comfort eating on junk food. Why not use those cans of chickpeas and make some hummus and dip carrots in, or making some of my Nakd Bars which the kids will love
- Always be prepared
Make double portions of food and freeze them so if you fall sick you can defrost a nutritious meal without spending your energy cooking
4. Stay hydrated
Drink way more water than you ever thought you would need to. Remember tea, coffee, water, squash all count!
5. Don’t be afraid to call a friend
See this self-isolation period as a chance to reach out to friends and family you have lost touch with! This will reduce loneliness and boost endorphins. House Party is my favourite app right now as it makes it so easy to connect with friends and have fun
6. Love Fibre
I will probably guess that you are not getting enough fibre in your diet. But this could potentially be because we don’t understand where fibre comes from. It comes from whole grains and carbohydrates, and whole fruit and veg! If you get 30g of fibre a day your gut health will improve and guess what HEALTHY GUT= BETTER IMMUNITY. We need all the immunity right now with the Corona Virus.
There’s a large quantity of living bacteria that lives inside of your gut, around 2kg of what you weigh is actually bacteria! So, we need to feed those living organisms inside of us by eating more fibre. There is also a link between our gut and our mood, energy and weight management plus B vitamin generation. For lunch try opening a can of baked beans and have it with a jacket potato with its skin on. Delicious!
7. Understand the importance of protein
Protein needs is based on how much we weigh. Take your weight in kg and multiply by 0.75 and that is how many g you need. Protein is important for your skin, your hair, your nails – it actually makes up the structure of your cells, so every little cell in your body contains some amount of protein. Aim for around a palm sized portion in every meal eg chickpeas, red kidney beans, chicken, meat, tofu.
8. Plant protein
If we are in self isolation we might not have much fresh meat in the house so now is the chance to eat more plant protein but we need to combine some of them, with the exception of quinoa and tofu as it contains the same building blocks that animal products like meat and fish do. The rest we have to combine to get the complete protein eg rice and beans or hummus and pitta
If you don’t eat meat but eat some dairy, yoghurt is great and convenient. You can always snack on a yogurt on the go for a hit of protein. I love making yoghurt bark I spread some out on grease proof and sprinkle frozen pomegranate and seeds and freeze it flat. You can then break it up and snack on pieces of it once it is frozen.
9. Get your 8 a-day
Currently only 27% of the UK gets their five-a-day which isn’t great. Different countries have different targets but I believe 8 a day is the best for optimum health. Make it easy and make frozen spinach, sweetcorn, broccoli, strawberries, raspberries, pomegranate etc It wont go off and you can buy anything frozen. This is better than any supplement you can take and will boost your immunity
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Fats Fats Fats
There are two types of fat that people would have heard of. Saturated, which we want to limit to no more than 11% of your overall daily intake – that’s stuff like bacon fat and fats from animal products and dairy, like some cheeses. There is no good or bad in my books but you don’t want to eat too much of this!
Then you have something called polyunsaturated fatty acids, which are your omega 3s, and they are so good for you. It is why we are advised to have oily fish once a week like salmon and sardines, which are really accessible if you buy them canned. And then you have things like avocado, olive oil, nuts and seeds which are your vegan sources called mono unsaturated fatty acids.
In a nutshell have more of the unsaturated fats!
- The Devil
Only joking carbs are never the devil! You just have to think about the quality and quantity. When it comes to quality go for whole grain as it contains B vitamins, fibre and releases the glucose over a long period of time. Aim for a handful of starchy carbs with each meal. Potatoes, whole grain rice and pasta are also a great source of complex carbs.
- Boost the diversity of your inner garden
As I mentioned before we have lots of different species of gut bacteria. If we go on antibiotics it kills the good and bad so to get a healthy dose of species take probiotics (check out my store here) and or have probiotic foods like sauerkraut, greek yogurt, kefir, miso and other fermented foods into their diets. The more fibre and the more of those lovely probiotic foods, the more flowers (bacteria) will grow
- Find purpose in your self-isolation time
I know everyone is panicking and bored stuck at home but there is a lot of thing you can do! Maybe you want to learn a language, read that book (great escapism) or learn how to cook. Find something you can get lost in and is inspiring for you like learning how to juggle or crochet. When it comes to nutrition and health, setting something more attainable such as getting more fibre into your diet is much easier. Often people will set huge goals – “I want to lose X amount of pounds by X amount of days” – for example, and that can put the pressure on and it’s not always the healthiest way to go about it. If you want weight loss to be easy check out my best selling program here. The bespoke meal plans it is self is life changing as you don’t need to be stressed on whether you are getting all the fibre and vitamins as I work that out all for you
- Remember to move
What are your favourite ways to move your body at home? I like doing Yoga with Adrienne and The Body Coach from Youtube and having a brisk walk outside. You could also download the app Pelaton and do live workouts, they have a free 90 day trial
- Healthy is easy
I love making lots of soups and thai curries at the moment. Just shove some veggies, olive oil (that’s your healthy fat sorted.) Then add some protein by adding beans and pulses, stock and blend. With that you have a really healthy, balanced lunch that’s simple to put together.
- Frozen and tinned foods are heros
You can get anything frozen be it avocados, pomegranate seeds to dill! With these you can make anything! For example to make a red thai curry put onions in a pan, fry them off, chuck in whatever veg you’ve got left over, a bit of coconut milk and red thai paste and it’s usually done within 15 minutes. Then pair it with some simple whole grain rice.
- Finally, be sensible when it comes to social media and the news
Watch the news now and again but during lock down we all know what we should be doing- staying at home. It is a waste of energy to be constantly dipping into the news and talking about it. It can cause physical headaches and stress. Instead put your energy into sharing and learning new things and to make sure everyone is okay.