It has been a while since I posted a progress of my journey to a better me. The Covid-19 pandemic continues to have a tremendous impact on how I progress with the journey. Not only that I had to put on my lifestyle on hold, I have been spending considerable amount of time working remotely. Who would have thought that working remotely is as bad as working in the office? Remote working has significant impact on how much time I was able to spend in getting exercise.

The good news is I did not gain weight; but the bad news is I did not lose weight either. The pandemic has impact on a number of people as going to gym is being limited. Working out in the public comes with risk as more people are afraid of getting infected by the virus. The result is more and more people are gaining weight while being locked down in their homes.

The pandemic has taught me several things as I continue to keep my diet in check. Prior to the pandemic I made conscious decision to buy two different sets of groceries: one for the family and one just for me. To minimize the chances of getting infected, I limit the trips in going to the supermarket or groceries store. Instead of buying two sets of groceries I only focus on food for the family. However, keeping my diet in check continues to be a priority. If you have not read my previous post on how to maintain a good diet, please check this out.

There are few adjustments that I made to ensure I continue to keep my diet in check and to ensure I am not jeopardizing the progress I made so far. I no longer could afford to cut every bad food since I am eating the same as my family.

Minimize Red Meat

As much as possible, I limit the red meat in our diet. We only eat white meat such as chicken breast. If we need to make our dishes less boring, I would alternate red meat once every week. To control my diet, I would limit red met to only a small portion. Some may argue that red meat is essential and that it does not cause any harm when dieting. However, there are numerous study found that meat is carcinogen.

Small Portion

In my previous post I noted that one of the best way for diet is remove “white” ingredients from the diet. That includes white rice, white sugar and white flour as they contain high carbohydrate content that can be easily converted to fat. One of the best ways I found effective is limit the portion. I would alternate white rich and brown rice when I prepare dinner for my family.

No Sugar Drink – More Tea

Sugary drink such as soda and juices contain a lot of sugar. Not only they cause problem on our diet, they are a problem to our health as well. Unfortunately, my kids will occasionally drink them as they sometimes make the “boring” food we eat more palatable. Replacing sugary drink with tea is the best way. My family love Earl Grey tea and and it continues to be our best choice of tea. Other teas that we enjoy are fruit tea, Korean barley tea and Japanese green tea. Not only they have great taste they are full of antioxidants that may reduce the risk of many diseases including heart disease and certain cancers.

More Colorful Food

Food categories such as green leaves and fruits are important diet for our family. In each meal we must have at least one green dish. One of the best things about Asian food is “green” food is not only limited to broccoli, there are various type of vegetables suc bok choy, yu choy and bean sprouts. They are so much varieties that we can make our meal less “boring”. Other choice that we consciously make is replacing snacks with colorful food such as fruits.

Exercise Options

As the gyms went into lock down, getting the right amount of exercise is limited in our homes. We are no longer able to get all the required exercise we need but luckily we have a treadmill that we can use. Additionally, we also bought an elliptical machine that we can use in our home. While I am no longer able to put in some strength training I believe getting cardio exercise would be more beneficial as we continue to be locked down at home in these unprecedented times.

The pandemic upended a lot of lives and unfortunately taken a lot of lives. Not only it is a wake-up call for a lot of us, it also tells us that we are fighting a losing war with the infectious disease. It also makes me rethink how to maintain a diet in such challenging times.