I’ve recorded this email as a video as well. You can find it on Facebook or Instagram.
There seem to be various numbers floating around, but apparently the average person has gained 0.6 stone during lockdown. That’s just shy of 4kg!
Apparently a third of us have gained significantly more than this too, and some of the numbers floating around are from over a month ago!
It sounds like a LOT of weight to gain doesn’t it. But, let’s break it down.
Of course there is way more to this, but it’s said that to gain a pound, or half a kilo, you need to eat an extra 3500 calories.
So, to have gained 4kg, you’d need to have eaten 14,000 EXTRA calories.
Assuming we’ve been eating (and drinking) more for about three months, that works out to 4,666 extra calories a month, 1,166 week. And 166 extra calories a day.
It sounds much less ridiculous when you look at it like that doesn’t it.
Even if you’d gained the 4kg over two months, it’s still only an extra 250 calories a day.
A 250ml glass of wine is about 250 calories.
I’m grossly over simplifying here. Our bodies have clever ways to adjust to extra intake, and this is where simple calorie counting falls down – but it illustrates the point.
If you couple those extra glasses of wine with the more relaxed approach to food AND the enforced reduced activity most of us experienced, at least for a time, and we can easily see how we’ve added those kilos.
Getting back on track now life is starting to look somewhat more normal is the difficult bit. There are good habits from this time we’d like to maintain, and bad habits we’re going to struggle to lose.
What are you hoping to maintain from this time… And what are you going to struggle to let go of?