Our relationship with food and the impact of social distancing

So things are going to be different for a while.

Habits, routines, social support networks, lifestyles and stress levels will all change. And guess what, so will our relationships with food and exercise.

Accept, go easy and seek to understand

The first thing to understand and accept that this change will inevitably happen. Expectation management is key. 

Don’t be too hard on yourself. If you, like many of the internet memes suggest have found yourself working through your ‘quarantine snacks’ at an unsustainable rate, that’s ok. I’d guess its quite common. What did you think would happen with a cupboard full of snacks and bored inhabitants?

In coaching, there is a subtle but important difference between a mistake (something someone does through random error from time to time) and a flaw (something that is persistent and needs improvement through coaching). Don’t start trying to fix a problem if it isn't really there.

If your behaviours have changed and they are starting to adversely impact your quality of life (beyond the impact of being confined to your own home for all but essential reasons) e.g. binges followed by excessive guilt or compensatory behaviours, then you need to take action. 

The most important thing is working out exactly what is going on. 

Start a qualitative food diary. We don’t need macro splits and calorie content - this isn’t about that. We want to know what you eat, when, where, who you eat it with, how you feel and what else is going on at the time. Make no attempts to ‘diet’. Seriously, it won’t help. The diary will help give clues to what is going on and from there we can work out what to do about it. 

In any coaching situation it's imperative to understand what is going on before you make changes in a systematic and deliberate way.  Don’t trip yourselves up with the illusion of ’now is going to be the perfect time to get lean and really sort fitness out..' etc etc. It might well be, but also likely is that these changes might actually add stress and difficulty to a set of resources unable to take the strain.

Make sure you take time to get the lay of the land first. Accept things are going to be different, give the changes time to settle and then try to understand exactly what is going on.