Here are our top tips for staying healthy and maintaining a workout routine while self-isolating at home.
1. Move your body daily - make your own workout routine
Note: Move, not necessarily exercise. Find what works for you and plan your workout routine.
You don’t have to do an intense workout every day, but you do need to move every day. Here are some options:
● Get out of the house once daily during alloted exercise time (make sure you do this on your own), and go out for a walk or a run. Just make sure you follow government guidelines wherever you are. In France, you can only go 2km from your house.
● Join me for a varied, fun, full-body workout routine that is fully scalable to people with different capabilities every Monday, Wednesday or Friday morning. Join my live class via Zoom for the whole week for just £12 per household or one class for £5. Sign up here.
● Give yoga a go. It’s great not only for the body, but for the mind and soul too.
○ For live classes, I highly recommend Harriet Taylor Yoga. Send her your email to be added to her mailing list (@harriettayloryoga).
○ For recorded classes, I recommend Yoga Glo. My favourite teachers are Jason Crandell, Stephanie Snyder and Tiffany Cruikshank.
● Use this time to improve your joint health, which is not something we focus on in our busy day-to-day lives. Tune in to Ailish McLaughlin’s daily CARs sessions (Controlled Articular Rotation), where she’ll teach you how to take each joint through its full range of motion (@ailishgetsbetter).
● If you have some equipment at home and are looking for something a little more intense, join the 98 Gym online program. This is the gym Jack and I used to go to in Sydney; I would say it is one of the best gyms in the world. Join their community if you want to take your fitness to the next level.
● Stretch daily. You can do this while watching television or while you’re taking a break from work.
Find the best home workout routine for you and stick to it.
2. Plan your weekly meals and make them healthy
The easiest way to get into the habit of eating healthily is by planning your weekly meals and buying groceries on a weekly basis. Shopping weekly will also mean that you have to go out less, which is a necessary step to take during this pandemic.
You can even use this time to try out all those recipes you never had the time for. If you’ve been thinking about cutting back on your meat consumption but don’t have any idea where to start, I would recommend this cookbook by Rukmini Iyer, The Green Roasting Tin: Vegan and Vegetarian One Dish Dinners.
Our top tip: We cook enough dinner for four servings and have it again for lunch the next day. You must portion and store the other half straight away so you aren’t tempted to have seconds!
3. Check in with your friends and family
Check in with your close friends and family daily. You can also use this as an opportunity to get in touch with the people you haven’t caught up with in a while because you were too busy.
Get creative and have some fun with your loved ones virtually with apps and video calling platforms. You can even use these apps to do group workout routines with your friends and join my live class every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning on Zoom.
We’re using Zoom to have a ‘pub’ quiz on Sunday with a group of friends and we’re even getting dressed up for a virtual dinner date with my parents!
However, take the time to switch off from technology as well. It really is such an incredible tool to utilise at this point in time but try to spend at least 30 minutes of your day disconnected as well.
4. Sleep
Use this time to catch up on your sleep.
There are recommended sleeping amounts based on age; people aged 18-24, for example, need between 7-9 hours of sleep. If you’re a night owl, you can stay up late and get up late. If you’re a morning lark, go to bed early and get up early. Find a sleeping pattern that lets you be at your most efficient but remember to stick to a routine so you don’t waste your days.
Always make time for a workout routine and keep yourself healthy even if your regular schedule has been overturned.
If you are homeschooling your children at the moment, a regular sleep cycle and routine is particularly useful to make sure they don’t fall behind. Studies have also shown that the time of the day affects a child’s performance at school so you can also use this time to identify how and when they work best.
5. Do something you’ve never had the time to do
Even if the things you’ve always wanted to do aren't possible from home there’s a multitude of new things you can still take up at this time.
Here are some ideas:
● Read/listen to audio books
● Learn a language
● Learn to knit/sew
● Draw/colour
● Dance
● Sing
● Write poetry
● Do some DIY
● Spring clean
● Organise your spices
● Put a business plan together for that business you’ve been wanting to start for years
● Make your own home workout routine
● Run 5km/10km in X time
● Stretch
● Do yoga
● Practice mindfulness
● Meditate
It’s as easy as that! Those are our five top tips to staying healthy whilst in isolation.
Move your body daily and maintain a workout routine
Plan your weekly meals and make them healthy
Speak to your loved ones daily
Sleep
Do something you have wanted to do for ages but haven’t had the time
These are extremely uncertain times for everyone, so we need to support each other where we can. Make decisions to ensure the health and safety of yourself as well as the wider community. Support your local or online businesses and always keep moving.
We would love to be a part of your home workout routine. Pick up a package for our live classes - running Monday, Wednesday and Friday next week. All three classes for £12 or one class for £5 (for the entire household).
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