How To Avoid Gaining Weight During Quarantine?

Controlling your diet can be challenging if you work from home, especially in the kitchen where there is a lot of food and the fridge is in a prominent place. This temptation can have a negative impact on your waistline, disrupt your weight loss plan, and reduce your productivity.

One minute you’re finishing a report, finishing an article, and the next you’re in the kitchen, reaching for a cookie, sweet, or chocolate bar. The promise to yourself to eat only a handful of sweet cereal is defeated by an empty box.

Or maybe it’s the case that because of a fast project deadline, you suddenly realize that you haven’t eaten anything all day.

So, here are 10 tips on how to follow the rules of healthy eating:

  • Don’t work in the kitchen or near the kitchen

Try to place your work area away from the kitchen. Because in the kitchen you will be constantly tempted to check what’s in the fridge. Determine the times when you will be in the kitchen during the working day when you will have breakfast, lunch, and dinner. If you have trouble keeping to the rule of not opening the fridge, try posting a schedule reminder on the door.

  • Plan your meals in advance

Just like with your daily schedule and planning your breaks throughout the day, it’s also important to set aside time to exercise, warm up, and shower.

Determine when you will eat, stick to breakfast, lunch, and dinner times, and prepare something for snacking. The meal schedule should be familiar and convenient for you.

  • Make sure you’ve really eaten

When you’re working, it can be hard to take a break and actually eat on time. However, it’s important to recognize the signs of hunger and understand that hunger and exhaustion will affect your productivity. In addition, eating on time throughout the day will prevent you from raiding the candy box hungrily. Set a reminder on your phone or watch to remind you when to take a break and eat.

  • Prepare your own breakfast and lunch

There’s something romantic about going out and grabbing whatever you want from the fridge, not having to wait in line for the microwave or coffee machine. However, there is a temptation to uncontrollably consume extra calories and not get enough of the right nutrients, such as fiber, vitamins, minerals, etc.

Try to plan your lunch, just like you do at work. Of course, it doesn’t have to be a gourmet restaurant meal that requires a lot of preparation. A good example would be a light salad of chopped vegetables, seeds, and nuts, or a baked chicken fillet. You can also make an omelet with vegetables.

  • Eat real food

A balanced diet will make you productive. Eating healthy foods, such as plenty of vegetables, whole grains, bread, nuts, seeds, and vegetable oils, will keep you full for a long time. Make yourself a self-observation journal, which will not only allow you to better control the number of calories and nutrients in your meals but, most importantly, the journal will help you understand what foods give you a lot of energy for a long period of time and improve your mood. The journal will give you a lot of useful insights.

Think about it the next time you’re hungry and start looking for a hidden chocolate bar. Focus on proteins, fiber, healthy fats, vegetables, and fruits. Planning your meals in advance will help you avoid choosing foods that look tastier, faster, and more affordable at a particular moment of hunger.

  • Drink enough water

Not drinking enough fluids can cause headaches and weakness, which will certainly affect your performance. Keep a water bottle near your workstation, just like you did in the office. If you have water nearby, you’re more likely to drink enough. Be careful to avoid sugary drinks and juices, as they are a source of empty calories.

  • Don’t drink too much coffee

The ability to make coffee almost every minute can lead to excessive caffeine intake.

Too much caffeine can cause headaches, palpitations, high blood pressure in sensitive individuals, overexcitement, tremors, excessive irritability, anxiety, digestive disorders, and even have an effect that is not typical of caffeine, namely, weakness. Of course, this will interfere with productive work. Limit yourself to 2 cups of coffee a day. Avoid using high-calorie cream, sugar, or other additives in your coffee. Try drinking sugar-free coffee with cinnamon, cardamom, or other spices.

  • Don’t buy junk food

Don’t fill your kitchen with packets of chips, sticks, crackers, salted nuts, chocolate bars, and other empty calories. Especially avoid foods that are difficult to control, such as so-called junk food. As the saying goes, out of sight, out of mind.

  • Mindful eating

When you sit down to eat, physically put everything aside: laptop, phone, notebook, anything. Distractions during meals can lead to overeating because a busy brain feels the moment of satiety and pleasure from food worse. So, take a break from work, from all your worries, sit down at the table, relax, and enjoy a well-cooked meal. Mindful mindfulness nutrition will not only help you digest food better and avoid overeating but will also give you time to switch and rest during the working day.

  • Determine the portion before eating

Never eat from a packet, container, or pot, as it makes it very difficult to control the size and composition of the portion. Use the rules of the Harvard plate. For example, take a medium-sized plate 23 cm in diameter. Fill half of the plate with non-starchy vegetables, one-fourth of the plate should be filled with protein (lean meats such as chicken, brisket, seafood, legumes, eggs, tofu, cottage cheese, or Greek yogurt), and the rest of the plate should be filled with complex carbohydrates with high fiber content (whole grains, fruits, starchy vegetables).

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Written by Bella Adams

I'm a professionally-trained, executive chef with over ten years in Restaurant Culinary and hospitality management. Experienced in specialized diets, including Vegetarian, Vegan, Raw foods, whole food, plant-based, allergy-friendly, farm-to-table, and more. Outside of the kitchen, I write about lifestyle factors that impact well-being.

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