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Home » Diets that Work » Coronavirus: How to stop overeating and avoid weight gain in self-quarantine – TODAY

Many Americans may find their bodies flabbier and less healthy when they finally emerge from the Great Quarantine of 2020.

And is it any surprise? Hello, pantry full of snacks and comfort foods. Heres looking at you, refrigerator packed with meat, cheese and milk.

Its all so tempting during the coronavirus crisis as people stay at home bored, anxious and stressed and seek relief by eating all day.

By the middle of this month, popcorn sales rose almost 48%, pretzel sales were up 47% and potato chip sales rose 30% compared to the same period last year, Bloomberg reported.

Theres also surging demand for cookies, crackers, soup, macaroni and cheese, breakfast food, potatoes, and canned, dried and fresh meat.

It didnt surprise Lisa Young, a registered dietitian in New York and author of Finally Full, Finally Slim.

When people are stressed, they tend to fall back on lazy patterns, letting the vigilance with the food go. And its comfort food its feel-good food, it keeps them full, Young told TODAY.

I think that in these times, its not a time to diet and to make yourself crazy but (social distancing) has now become a way of life and its so important that we make our way of life healthy.

Its also not surprising that people are buying shelf-stable foods that dont require a lot of time to prepare, said Dr. Dariush Mozaffarian, dean of the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston.

Still, food prepared outside the home is generally less healthy than home-cooked meals, so he was optimistic the break from restaurant eating could be positive when it came to nutrition.

We dont know, well have to see, but Im hopeful that people will actually be healthier than they were before. Theyre not eating at (restaurants), Mozaffarian said.

Here are expert tips on how to stay on the nutritional track during this time:

Trending stories,celebrity news and all the best of TODAY.

People may be disoriented by their new reality of staying at home all the time, so the No. 1 most important thing is to set up a plan for the day, Young said.

You dont just want to nibble on seven mini-meals. You want to set structured meals for yourself, she advised.

Set a time for eating breakfast, lunch and dinner. Limit any mindless snacking in between. Stick to a routine.

Take the time when youd normally commute and do an online exercise class or take a walk. Any kind of morning exercise sets you up for good structure for the rest of the day, Young said.

This is a time when people truly should be supporting their immune systems, Mozaffarian noted.

Theres good evidence that healthy diets improve the immune system and so if you want to fight COVID-19, eating foods that are rich in vitamins and nutrients especially many red and yellow and other colored fruits and vegetables can help the immune system, he said.

We have to try to make ourselves healthier COVID-19 is a reminder that healthy eating remains important.

Young advised buying healthy staples including:

Make your own comfort food by having whole -wheat pasta, red sauce and frozen vegetables, for example.

If you really want to have cookies in your pantry, stick to one type. Dont buy seven varieties of cookies because youll end up eating more of each of them, Young cautioned.

Eating snacks straight out of the packaging is a recipe for overeating. You dont want to spend unlimited time with that giant open box of crackers from Costco.

Instead, try portion control to limit how much youre eating. Its easy to do at home where theres usually access to a food scale or measuring cups.

Take the food out of the bag and figure out exactly how much you want to eat. Then you put it on a plate and you sit down and you enjoy it. You dont eat it standing while watching the latest news reports, stressed out, Young noted.

Young is a fan of what she calls the 80/20 rule, or eating well 80% of the time, and allowing yourself treats 20% of the time.

Its good to have something to look forward to, like air-popped popcorn, whole-grain pretzels or whole-grain crackers. Shes even OK with the occasional small portion of ice cream or macaroni and cheese. Just focus on nutritious food the vast majority of the time and sprinkle in any less-healthy favorites.

This is a stressful time dont make things worse by sitting on the couch and eating all day.

You think youll feel better after you eat, but then after you eat, you feel worse. It ends up being a totally vicious cycle, Young said.

You want to say: I want to be healthy, thats my goal right now. I dont want to get this thing and I want to stay healthy.

A. Pawlowski is a TODAY contributing editor focusing on health news and features. Previously, she was a writer, producer and editor at CNN.

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Coronavirus: How to stop overeating and avoid weight gain in self-quarantine - TODAY

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Home » Diets that Work » Coronavirus: How to stop overeating and avoid weight gain in self-quarantine – TODAY