Improve your Health While Social Distancing
The coronavirus has temporarily changed everything about the way we live. It has changed how we work, go to school, shop for food and how much time we spend at home.
We have a choice as we socially isolate. We can ring our hands, overeat Doritos and ice cream and binge watch NetFlix or, we can decide to accomplish something amazing. Why not look at your time at home as an opportunity to write that novel, learn to speak Spanish or to change your eating habits to dramatically improve your health. You can help to lower your blood pressure, blood sugar and your cholesterol through diet change. If weight loss is a goal, more time at home can lead to major success.
Surprised? The biggest reason people say that they stop at Dunkin Donuts or Wawa for breakfast is because they don’t have time to eat at home. Many order take out for lunch because they did not have time to pack their lunch and dinner could be prepared food, pizza or restaurant meals because, you guessed it, no time. The corona virus, as terrifying as it is, has given us the gift of time at home. Let’s use it to accomplish something that will make us feel proud and improve our health.
How do we start? Planning and prepping. You need to have healthy food in your home. Before you go to the food store, mask and gloves in place, make a list. Think about which foods you are going to make, how many people you are feeding, what you want to plan for meals. When planning and shopping, go heavy on the fruits and vegetables. If you are trying to limit your trips to the food store, fresh fruits and vegetables are great but so are frozen. Canned vegetables can be used in a pinch but they are not optimal. They are high in sodium and lower in fiber than either fresh or frozen vegetables. The only exception to that rule is canned beans. Dried beans are the best choice but they take longer to prepare. If using canned beans, rinse the beans well after opening the can to remove some of the sodium. Beans in any form are a nutritional powerhouse.
Once you have the food at home, the next step is food preparation. If you come home from the supermarket and jam all of the food into the refrigerator, it might stay there untouched for a week. If instead, you immediately begin cutting and chopping, you are well on your way to improved eating habits. Wash your greens, dry them well and make a big salad. Next, cut up colorful vegetables and put them in glass containers so you can see what’s in each bowl. Maybe grill some chicken so it is ready for wraps, salads or sandwiches. The more food you prep, the more choices you and your family will have.
When you head to your kitchen for a snack or a meal and the first thing you see is a bowl of fruit on the kitchen counter, maybe you will choose an apple or a pear instead of a bag of chips. Next, when you open the refrigerator and you see a few containers filled with chopped vegetables, a bag of freshly prepared salad and a container of home-made vegetable soup you will be more likely to make a healthy choice. If the food is ready to eat and visible, you have dramatically improved your chance of choosing nutritious foods.