I’ve had a few clients say to me “I’m working out more but I’m putting on weight” recently, so I want to address maintaining weight loss in a lockdown in this week’s blog post.
On first glance, this may sound like a strange situation - how can it be possible? Once we dig into the data a little bit more, it begins to make sense.
A typical AdMac Fitness client pre-lockdown was doing 4 x gym sessions a week. If we assume they’re burning around 350 calories per workout, then that’s around 1400 calories a week in the gym alone.
But there’s more to that…
Throw in daily life. They’re hitting around 8k steps a day, which adds an extra 2000 calories burned a week. That brings us to 3400 calories burned from steps and exercise combined.
An excellent weekly calorie burn, combined with healthy eating and good sleep. They’re kicking arse, feeling good, lean and fit. Daily life is easy, they’re getting stronger and fitter all of the time.
Throw in a lockdown and restricted movement…
Now they doing essentially zero walking. Even if they are doing 6 workouts a week from home, they’ll be burning around 2100 calories from steps and walking. They’re down from a usual peak of 3400 calories burned every week.
That’s 1300 calories per week that they’re not burning now. Over time, that’s going to have a larger and larger effect on their fat gain, so it makes sense that despite the fact that they’re working out more, they’re gaining weight. We covered the importance of walking in this blog post previously.
How Do We Lose Weight in a Lockdown?
The principles of weight loss remain the same. Your body doesn’t change because it has been told to stay indoors. We have to address the calories in versus calories out.
I could tell you that all you need to do is reduce your food intake (and it’d be right advice), but life is already tough enough in a lockdown. Instead, I’m going to suggest you increase your calorie burn and there’s a good reason for taking this approach.
Let’s assume that your diet hasn’t changed that much. You should still be eating healthily. Perhaps tighten that up a bit - maybe drop 100 calories per day. You’ll barely notice it.
But that’s not all.
At AdMac Fitness we would encourage you to go down the route of burning more calories due to the positive impact on mental health. Getting out of your four walls will do a huge amount for you both physically and mentally. It will help to get rid of the feelings of claustrophobia and make this whole thing far more bearable.
When it comes to the extra movement to burn calories, unless you are someone who is used to doing a massive volume of training each week, adding in more intense training probably isn’t the answer. It may work for a week or two, but the injury risk and damage to long-term motivation is just too high.
What we suggest is either a very slow steady jog/cycle to burn extra calories or find a way to get the steps up by walking. Perhaps you could combine the walk with calling loved ones/friend or listening to a podcast. To observe social distancing measure you should pick a suitable time to do it - we suggest mornings and evening walks or runs if you can do them (when the streets are quieter).
You have to be safe first. You don’t want to be the fittest person in the hospital.
Jump on my Home Workout Classes
To help the AdMac Fitness members stay on top of their fitness whilst under lockdown, I’m offering two online zoom sessions a week. These are held on Monday’s and Thursday’s, 6.30-7.30pm.
Each class is £5 and free for NHS staff members.
To enrol, send me an email or WhatsApp (click the link and it’ll let you do it) and I’ll send you the meeting number and passcode to access the session.
AdMac Fitness is keeping the world active during this, you can rely on us!