Best Way To Lose Weight During Pandemic
It’s easy to see how you might have gained weight during the pandemic, especially if you were spending most of your time at home. Comfort food recipes were trending on Google. (There was so much baking going on, supermarkets couldn't keep flour in stock.) You maybe found yourself thinking that a cookie sounded good—or a beer. So as restrictions continue to ease up, people are becoming concerned about “COVID curves” and the “Quarantine 15” (referring to new pounds gained) that haven't gone away.
Nobody has yet done an assessment of how COVID-19 has impacted the nation’s weight—in fact, there are reports that some people are
Weight. But John Morton, MD, MPH, MHA, medical director of bariatric surgery at Yale New Haven Health System, says he has seen patients in telehealth appointments who have gained five, 10, and even 30 pounds.
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“Anecdotally, we are definitely seeing weight gain, ” Dr. Morton says. “You can put on 30 pounds really quickly—you can do it in three months.”
In fact, COVID-19 has created a perfect storm for people who struggle with weight. “Life has been disrupted in a major way, ” says Artur Viana, MD, clinical director of the Yale Metabolic Health & Weight Loss Program. Gym and park closures have upended exercise routines, and the stress has escalated for parents who suddenly had to work at home while teaching their children. People have had to postpone medical checkups and physicals, where getting updates like blood pressure and cholesterol numbers can be motivation to think about weight, he says.
Stress can affect weight. “We know that obesity's causes are multifactorial and that stress is involved, ” says Dr. Viana. “Not only are there organic body changes, but we turn to food as a way to cope with stress.” There are also metabolic changes associated with the “fight-or-flight syndrome, ” says Dr. Morton. “When you’re stressed, your body will sense it, and it will not give up any calories when it thinks it needs for energy for running away or combat, ” he says.
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Inflammation is a primary factor, Dr. Morton adds. “It’s hard to establish if it’s the chicken or the egg. Does inflammation lead to more weight or does more weight lead to more inflammation? The answer is, probably, both.”
Losing five or 10 pounds is entirely possible, says Dr. Morton. He advises starting by stepping on the scale at least once a week. Having spoken to patients during telehealth visits in the past few months, he says, “I was surprised at how few patients have weighed themselves. Weighing yourself is both therapeutic and diagnostic.” The National Weight Loss Registry, which tracks people who have lost significant weight and maintained the loss, has shown that people who weigh themselves are more likely to keep their weight down, he says.
Once you know your weight, you can determine your body mass index (BMI), which is a height/weight ratio that will show where you fall in the weight spectrum. (There are many simple BMI calculators available online.) Your BMI is considered healthy if it falls between 18.5 and 25, and overweight if it is between 25 and 30—a good reason to adjust your diet and exercise routine. When BMI reaches 30, people begin to have an extremely difficult time losing weight without medical support and interventions, Dr. Morton says. The Yale Weight Loss Program offers options such as medication, endoscopic procedures, and surgery for people in need.
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If you need to lose 10 or 15 pounds, it should be doable, Dr. Morton says. The first step is to come up with a plan, he says. He recommends building new routines around what he calls the four pillars for weight loss: diet, exercise, sleep, and stress management. “You have to have routines. You can’t just be sailing along, hoping for the best. Start with the fundamentals, ” he says. “That means getting up in the morning, taking a shower, getting breakfast, and having a plan for the day. Purpose gives direction, and it helps when it comes to weight.”
One or two pounds a week is a reasonable weight loss pace, Dr. Morton says. “If you want to cut back by 500 calories a day, that might mean you are exercising the equivalent of 200 calories and cutting out 300 calories in your diet.”
Should you just go easy on yourself right now? It’s a question that comes up. “Everybody’s got a tipping point with their weight. A lot of people know this—when they get to a certain weight they start to have problems like reflux or joint pain, ” says Dr. Morton. “I would say it’s fine as long as you are in a normal weight range, but if you are getting out of that range, I would do something about it.”
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If you are still in a normal weight range, an extra 5 to 10 pounds may not make a significant impact on your health, says Dr. Viana. But if you are overweight or obese, losing 7 to 10% of your weight can have a positive impact on such conditions as heart disease, fatty liver disease, and joint pain, he says.
Whatever your weight goals may be, now is a good time to assess your lifestyle and focus on all the things that keep you healthy, Dr. Viana says. “You might have more time to reshape your priorities and decide what to do about food and exercise, ” he says.
While you want to have a plan, you do have to make it sustainable and make allowances, says Dr. Morton. There is no reason to be rigid about it, Dr. Viana adds. “So, don’t have macaroni and cheese every day, but if you want to have it once in a while, I think it’s fine.” It’s been somewhat of a running joke in a profoundly unfunny time: endless laments about the “quarantine 15” or “Covid 19, ” referring to the number of pounds gained during lockdown.
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According to a June survey of 2, 000 American adults by the weight loss program Nutrisystem, 76 percent of respondents gained weight, up to 16 pounds, between mid-March and July. And 63 percent said that losing weight was a priority, post quarantine.
The difference between losers, gainers and maintainers during the pandemic, experts say, is largely dependent on your mind-set: how you approach a new set of circumstances and cope with change.
One of the many challenges of Covid was the abrupt change to day-to-day schedules. People began working from home, if they had work at all, in many cases joined by their kids. Gyms, recreation centers and parks closed, curbing exercise routines. Stress levels skyrocketed for many, with baking, eating and drinking becoming major outlets and means of reward. Indeed, studies show a link between high stress levels and overeating.
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“When the environment and your routine changes, you can use it as an opportunity to say ‘I’ll drink at home, ’ or ‘I deserve to treat myself well in those really tough times, ’” said Gary D. Foster, chief scientific officer of WW (formerly Weight Watchers). “This is where mind-set is so important. It’s how you view things, how you position the situation, your sense of self-worth, and how you treat yourself.”
“After that initial period, there was a subset of people who said, ‘This is an opportunity to take care of myself, ” he said. “That different way of thinking about the process is really powerful.”
Susan Abrams Torney, 62, a dental office manager in Delray Beach, Fla., had an epiphany early on in the pandemic when she realized that she could use the time off from work to make a positive change in her life. Sheltering in place worked in her favor. “It took the ‘I don’t have time to exercise’ excuse out of the equation, ’” said Ms. Torney, who has lost 30 pounds since the beginning of the year.
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She credits her grandchildren with motivating her. “Before I started on the journey, if I sat on the floor I felt like I needed a crane to get me back up again, ” she said.
During lockdown, she finally broke open the Wii video game console her children had given her for her 50th birthday and started playing Wii tennis and also going for “sanity” walks with friends around her community, her only form of in-person socialization.
It also helped that she was no longer able to go out for meals and had to cook at home, where she prepared healthy meals for herself, like chicken, fish and salads. Rather than vodka on the rocks, her previous cocktail of choice, she diluted her vodka with mineral water and a splash of cranberry juice. “Quarantine gave me time to be creative with the meals I was eating, ” she said.
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Another reason many people gained weight is that they stopped planning their meals in advance. Without planning ahead, they would just grab whatever was available.
“Before shelter in place they would prep their meals and sort of had a plan, ” said Dr. Rami Bailony, the co-founder and chief executive of Enara Health, a digital membership weight loss clinic. “Once
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