You Gained Weight During COVID. Now What?

It’s time to turn the tide on current weight gain trends!

It seems like every day there is an alarming new study showing statistics of weight gain during the last yer and its detrimental effects. A year or so ago as the pandemic began, we learned that comorbidities – including being overweight or obese –   dramatically increased risk for hospitalization, intensive care, a ventilator to help them breathe, or death. Today a large number of Americans find themselves in WORSE condition than they were a year ago, which means more people susceptible to serious illness. Depending on what study you read, 42-61% of Americans gained weight in the last year at an average of 2lbs. per month. That’s 24 lbs. in a year – so much more than the annual “holiday weight gain” everyone blows off. 

One of the latest is a report showing that obesity is linked to lower immune response (less antibody production!) when the COVID-19 vaccine is administered.

Let’s start with a strategy for losing 5lbs.

So how do you start to reverse the weight gain? 

  1. Begin today. The best time to have taken control of your health is years ago. The second best time is today.
  2. Know your math and set a goal. Setting a goal to “be healthier” or “lose weight” is a weak goal. You need to put metrics behind it. The best metric to check is body fat percentage, but for now let’s look at weight. 5lbs. equates to 17,500 calories. Figure out how many pounds you need (or want) to lose and divide that by the days in which you want to hit your goal. That will give you the caloric deficit you need to have EVERY DAY during that time to move the needle that far on your scale and hit your goal. For example, if you want to lose 5 lbs. in 60 days, you need to burn 291 calories more than you consume. If you want to hit that goal in 30 days, double that. It should go without saying that if you need to gain weight, that means you need to consume that many more than you burn.
  3. Be accountable. Track your caloric intake and burn.
    1. Pick a system or app to track your caloric intake and record what you eat and drink EVERY DAY so you know what you are putting in your body. Fuel it with nutritious food and beverages!
    2. Know your resting metabolic rate (what you burn each day just existing – breathing, digesting, circulating blood, etc.). You can get a pretty good estimate from a smart watch of this.
    3. Track how many calories you burn during training. You should be getting 4 hours of LEGITIMATE TRAINING each week. Click here to learn more. 
    4. Review these numbers throughout the day and week to make sure you will hit the mark. If you see that you will fall short, adjust your caloric intake or activity level to get there.
  4. Understand your Results. Whether you succeed at hitting your goal or you miss your goal, understand WHY. Are you eating too many calories? Are you burning too few calories? Do you need to drink more water? That’s where reviewing the data you’ve tracked becomes so valuable! It takes the emotion out of it and gives you black and white numbers. If you are doing everything 100% right (zero cheating!) and still not making progress, schedule an appointment with your doctor, get some blood drawn and bring your food and training diary for review.

If you need help figuring out how to get started, please reach out. We welcome the opportunity to get your health on the right track.