Readjusting Your Portions for the Pandemic

We’re now in our sixth month of the pandemic, and one thing is clear: this thing isn’t ending anytime soon. At the beginning we thought we were in a temporary situation, we may have indulged in extra food thinking that once the pandemic ended, we’d get back on track. But the truth is we’re in it for the long haul, and we’re starting to really see the effect of our eating habits.

 

One thing to remember is that we’ve lost a lot of functional exercise; we’re not running around doing tons of errands, or getting ourselves or our kids out of the house for work or school, and we’re not traveling or going out to meet friends much if at all. We’re just not moving our bodies like we used to. We’ve also lost a lot of traditional forms of exercise, like working out at the gym and attending classes. And as we settle into the mostly virtual school/work year, after whatever summer adventures we could safely do, we have to be honest about the situation: most of us are eating more calories than we need.

 

Our bodies can handle heavier and richer foods, and more of them, if you’re getting lots of exercise. But the same food will impact you differently when the exercise goes away. I’ve had clients who used to be college athletes, and when their training ended and they graduated and got normal jobs, they were no longer training five days each week plus games or competition events. Circumstances had changed. Those athletes couldn’t eat like they did when they were training. And we can’t eat like we did pre-pandemic. So the question we have to ask ourselves honestly is, how much food does our body actually need?

 

If you’re tapped into your body’s signals and can hear your real hunger, then simply adjust your portions accordingly. But if you need some help, here’s how you can give yourself a reality check: Harvard Health Publishing uses this rough guide for calculating how many calories you need to maintain weight, dependent on your exercise level. If you have no exercise in your life, you’ll multiply your weight x 13 to get the number of calories needed to maintain your current weight. For moderate exercise (30 minutes/day), multiply your weight x 15. For vigorous exercise (longer/more intense) multiply your current weight x 17. Adjust for your exercise circumstances (i.e. if you’re completely sedentary, perhaps multiply your weight x 12, or if you’re training for an Iron Man, perhaps multiply x 19). If your goal is to lose weight, then you would subtract 300- 500 calories for safe and healthy weight loss, or subtract more for aggressive weight loss. If you track your calories for just a couple days, it will give you an idea of where you’re falling, and if you need to adjust your portions. A healthy relationship with your body is always about balance, honesty, and a real assessment of what you actually need.

 

As many of you know, I don’t love calorie counting because it misses so much of the personal equation, i.e. our different metabolism rates, the glycemic index of what we eat, where the calories are coming from, and stress factors, but we still don’t want to eat more than our body needs. If you’re not mindful nor tapped into your real hunger levels, then doing a check like this every now and then, (if you’ve gained weight), can be helpful.

 

The other thing you can do of course, is move your body more. Be very aware of the new normal we’re getting used to, the inertia of sitting and staying at home. Recommit to moving your body, to finding alternative ways to exercise, like classes through Zoom instead of at a studio or gym, while doing an honest assessment of how much food you actually need.

 

Stay safe and healthy everyone!

 

Photo by Lacey Williams on Unsplash