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Home » Diets that Work » The exercise and diet mistakes we all made in Lockdown 1 and how to avoid them this time – Telegraph.co.uk

Like many fitness types, I went into the first lockdown planning to carve myself into Max-Cady-in-prison shape, using all the time I saved on my commute to do shirtless dips on my newly acquired pull-up rig. It sort of worked, but honestly, it demands the kind of dedication you might not want to worry about, especially since one of the key benefits of exercise is its mood-boosting properties.

This time round, Ill be aiming to do a little bit of physical activity every day: keeping an array of short, doable-in-a-tiny-bit-of-floor-space workouts handy so that theres always an option available. One favourite from Lockdown 1 is the press-up-and-lunge ladder: do one press-up and then one lunge on each leg, then two of each, and so on up to 10 or 20.

In Lockdown 1, I ate like a hobbit, treating myself to everything from a quick jolt of toast between breakfast and elevenses to smashing a packet of custard creams in the afternoon and calling it self-care. It certainly cheered me up in the short term, but over the long term, endless sugar is only likely to give you peaks and troughs of energy, ruin your moodand contribute to health problems exacerbated by not moving around much.

In Lockdown 2, my key rule will be to avoid keeping the absolute worst stuff in the house no more panic-buying bakewell tarts as if theyre going to run out and having three deliberate meals a day, aiming for a bit of protein and fruit or veg in each. No, I will not be making sourdough again.

I never quite became part of the G&Ts-at-5pm crowd in Lockdown 1, but it did get a little bit too easy to see out every day with a cheeky bottle of whatever fancy IPA Id bought to support my local beleaguered microbrewery: a little nightcap at the end of every groundhog day of work, rest and toddler-wrangling.

The trouble is, drinking every day isnt great for health even if you somehow still limbo under the NHS-recommended 14 units a week, it doesnt give your liver much chance to regroup, and turns into a habit thats difficult to kick. Public Health England recommends having at least two consecutive alcohol-free days a week, so thats what Ill be doing while using some of the money I save to upgrade to a nicer bottle of whiskey.

In Lockdown 1, it was tempting to think that time spent on social media was productive and even healthy a source of social connection and possibly even life-saving information in a period when everyone was under-informed about transmission vectors and droplet patterns. The trouble is, it doesnt help: social media is designed to be addictive, and with the news so uniformly terrible, it never takes more than 10 minutes to find something that can ruin your whole day.

Cal Newport, author of Digital Minimalism, suggests taking a month-long break from social media to readdress your relationship with it when you come back. That feels like a bit much, but Ill be going offline for at least two days each week to keep my mental health.

One of the biggest revelations when the first Lockdown eased was just how much I like the occasional commute: a chunk of time on foot or public transport when I cant sit at a desk or do anything deliberately productive. With the regulations on outdoor exercise somewhat eased for the coming weeks, Ill be making sure I go for a long walk at least once a day long, slow, distance exercise is underrated for fat loss, but getting out in green spaces also has well-documented positive effects on mental health and even productivity.

Read more:How to avoid working from home burnout during Lockdown 2

Read more: Your ultimate Lockdown 2 survival guide

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The exercise and diet mistakes we all made in Lockdown 1 and how to avoid them this time - Telegraph.co.uk

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Home » Diets that Work » The exercise and diet mistakes we all made in Lockdown 1 and how to avoid them this time – Telegraph.co.uk