Hey,
I'm currently typing this email on my sanitised keyboard, while sitting atop a throne of toilet roll in my secure fortress guarded by a three-headed dog called Fluffy. I've seen World War Z, I know how this ends.
Unless you've been living under a rock for the past month or so, you already know the world is getting completely hammered by this Coronavirus and everyone's life has been thrown into disarray.
Managing your nutrition
The silver lining to all of this is most of you are self-isolating which means you’ll have more control over your diet than before.
A lot of you have asked if you should adjust your diet, here are my recommendations.
If you’re currently in a fat loss phase, this is going to be a great time to buckle down and focus on that. Though, this isn’t the time to diet aggressively. I’d recommend no more than a ~10% deficit. The more restrictive your diet, the more you risk missing out on important vitamins and minerals that will help maintain your immune system.
If you’re currently trying to build muscle and only doing bodyweight workouts, I’d recommend reducing the surplus to no more than 100-200kcal above maintenance. It may even be worth dropping calories down to maintenance intake to prevent any excess fat gain.
If you’re still weight training because you have a home gym or strength training equipment at home, you can ignore this and continue as normal.
Food items to help
Here are some unperishable food items you can look to buy. This is only worse case but seeing some people are treating this as a zombie apocalypse, please be mindful of only buying what you need and not stockpiling like we've seen recently, leaving nothing for the elderly and our NHS staff. THINK OF GRANDMA, GODDAMIT.
Canned meats/fish
Canned beans, lentils, etc
Canned fruit
Canned soups (some are fairly high in protein. For example I did a Google search and found the Heinz Chicken and Vegetable Big Soup contained ~12g protein and only 200 calories per can)
Beef jerky
Frozen fruits
Frozen vegetables
Nuts and seeds
Nut butters (all kinds)
Oats
Rice (rice and beans = high protein meal)
Protein powders (whey, casein, plant-based etc.)
Protein bars
Pasta
Popcorn (unsweetened/unsalted)
Rice cakes
Herbs and spices
And of course, you can always buy meat in bulk and freeze it. In fact, it’s a good idea to cook a few meals in bulk using simple ingredients (e.g., carb source like rice + protein source like chicken) and freezing these meals. See my recipe book below in case you've missed it, or are a new subscriber. You're welcome!
Supplements?
The number of bullshit posts I’ve seen on Instagram these last few weeks about magical foods, diets, and ‘natural health supplements’ to help boost your immune system and protect you against Coronavirus is too damn high!
To be clear: there is no food, diet, or supplement that will prevent you from catching the virus or treating the virus if you’ve caught it.
That's it for now, but I'll be sending out details of my online fitness classes over the next few days. If you want to get involved, I'll be doing them for free at the moment, so follow my Facebook page for the deets - www.facebook.com/meanandleanfitness
