Day in a Life (Quarantine Edition): What I Eat & How I Stay Active

You may had read in my other blog post, Tips on Surviving Quarantine (link here), that focusing on what you eat and staying active is extremely important in keeping your immune system up and feeling your best during these uncertain times.

We are currently stuck at home, forced to prepare all three meals (plus snacks), and somehow need to get our exercise in. After being in quarantine for TWO WEEKS, I wanted to show you how I do it!

Nobody knows how long this quarantine is going to last, but I hope the following tips help you maintain a good diet and give you ideas on how to stay active!

Focusing on my Diet

Breakfast

I have been in the mood for avocado toast lately, which I think I had like 5 days in a row. It's the easiest thing to make - just make sure to sprinkle some salt and pepper to taste. This with coffee? You're ready to start your day.

Other breakfast options are:

- oatmeal with banana and peanut butter

- oatmeal with apples and cinnamon

- oatmeal with berries

- power smoothie (greens, protein powder, frozen fruit, Greek yogurt)

Lunch

I feel that lunch can be one of the most important meal of the day. You need enough energy to last you during the key productive times of the day, but at the same time, you don't want to eat until you have a food coma.

I feel that you can get away with a bigger meal during lunch than dinner, since you have more time throughout the day to digest and expend the energy.

I usually like to guage how hungry I am. If I had a big breakfast (ie. oatmeal), I might be in a mood for a salad. This becomes especially relevant if I haven't been moving all morning.

If I had a light breakfast, I might be in a mood for a hearty lunch. A tip is to switch your dinner options with lunch! Just listen to your body and feed it what it's craving for.

Lately, I had been in the mood for a mixed greens salad, with cucumbers, cherry tomatoes, and a hard boiled egg. I like to keep my dressing simple by drizzling olive oil with balsamic vinaigrette.

Other lunch options

- Switching with what you would otherwise have for dinner (ie. grilled protein with vegetables)

Dinner

I treat dinner as a time to supplement the food groups or nutrients that I didn't have throughout the day. If I feel like I didn't have enought protein, I will cook some salmon, chicken, or tofu. If I feel like I didn't get enough vegetables, I will try to have more greens.

Since I had been having lighter lunches, I would have an earlier dinner. My go to have been grilled salmon with broccoli, cauliflower, and carrots on the side (cooked with avocado oil and salt to taste).

Other dinner options

- I would change up my protein (ie. steak, chicken, tofu, salmon)

- I would always have some grilled veggies or mini salad

- Sometimes I would treat myself with a glass (or two) of wine - mainly red wine

- Pasta (brown price or gluten free pasta noodles, with low fat/calorie sauce)

Snack

Depending on how hungry you get during the day, it's perfectly normal to snack. However, being home all day may make those trips to the fridge way too frequent (#Ineedtoselfisolatefrommyfridge). This would especially become a vice when you have junk food lying around your home.

The most important rule I stick by is not to buy any junk food. Because I know that the moment someone brings in anything REMOTELY unhealthy, my hands would be all over it.

Instead, I treat myself to one guilty pleasure (ie. usually wine). Other than that, I like to have relatively healthy snack options at home.

Snack options

- Vanilla Greek yogurt, with fresh berries

- Apples with peanut butter

- Carrots/celery with hummus

- Trail mix nuts

Guilty pleasures

It's almost impossible to be on a perfect diet when there are so many temptations in the world. In a perfect world, you would stick to your healthy meals like a gun and don't even bat an eyelash at anything even remotely unhealthy.

However, depriving yourself can often come back to bite you in the butt, and even cause you to binge eat (becoming even more unhealthy). That is why I like to have a balance.

Sometimes, I would buy a Ben & Jerry's ice cream (albeit, I would get the ones half the calories) or get chips (dried veggie ones). I do like to indulge, but I try to make a conscious decision of getting something even slightly better for you.

You probably know by now, my biggest vice is red wine. Though, I heard red wine is good for your heart and losing weight? Say what? Maybe, that's something I like to believe. Nevertheless, I like to drink in moderation, with one or two glasses per dinner.

Staying Active

It's hard to be active when you are stuck at home all day. I get it. However, when I see that my steps are only like 500, and it's already mid-afternoon, I get anxious. I want those numbers up! Not to mention being on your butt all day messes up my digestion and my mood.

That's why I like to get some sort of exercise during the day. I limit myself to having some outside activity (otherwise, I would go insane) and doing some mat exercises at home.

Depending on the weather and my mood, I would either go for a walk, a hike, or even a bike ride (through ride sharing apps). I ALWAYS make sure that I keep my distance with other people (#socialdistancing). Luckily, I have not been sick so far - but if you have symptoms of a flu, please, please, don't go outside for the sake of other people's health.

Sometimes if my walk was pretty chill, I feel like I want a little something extra to my workout. I would usually just pull out my yoga mat and find something on Youtube to follow. There are TONS of good tutorials online or even free apps. There is never a good excuse not to be active!

I feel the hardest part of being active is just not starting. Even if I feel super lazy, once I force myself into some workout clothes, I somehow find the motivation to workout. It definitely puts me in a mood - and after I finish one exercise, I often find myself pushing to get more done.

Remember, some sort of activity everyday is better than no movement. It's the little things that really add up.

Hope my tips helped. Stay safe and healthy!

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#socialdistancingfrommyfridge #icecreamisafoodgroup #idontrememberthelasttimeilefthehouse #30daychallenge