Ideal working from home diet

By PW Nutritionist Grace Scott

Depending on whether or not your company imparted work from home rules before the government announced lockdown or after, some of us are now at week 4 working from home and others are reaching weeks 5 & 6. This far into the lockdown, you may be feeling lost in making good choices and unsure of what to eat to stay healthy during this strange and unprecedented time. Not to worry, PW are on it!

Now that we are all restricted to only one outing of the house a day, it’s very likely that your calorie expenditure has reduced compared to what it was when you had to commute the office, could go to the gym or that spin class, or even walk to high street because you fancied a browse at the latest seasons trends. Put simply, calorie expenditure is the number of calories you burn throughout the day via a form of activity, this is usually counted on top of your BMR (basal metabolic rate) which is loosely define as the number of calories that your body burns in a day in order to function correctly. Side note: there are many different factors into BMR but for now we are just going to focus on additional calorie expenditure rather than delve too much into the science of it.

The less physical activity we do the less energy we use. Due to this we may have to tweak our diets slightly as our body does not require as much energy. Easy things we can do to help with this are:

• Reduce portion size
• Have a high protein & fibre intake to reduce snacking
• Be aware of drinking your calories

A good place to start is by creating a routine; boredom is the one of the main reasons people open the cupboards/fridge and have a snack, not because you’re hungry or have just had a killer session at the gym, this can unintentionally add up empty calories causing weight gain in the long run.

A daily example of what your reduced diet could look like:

Breakfast: Porridge Oats and berries

Snack AM: Vegetable stick and hummus/Mixed nuts/PW baking item

Lunch: PW Shake

Snack PM: 2 Boiled Eggs/ Beef Jerky / Low fat yoghurt and berries

Dinner: A 400-600 calorie dinner consisting of 30% protein, 20% complex carbohydrates, 40% veg and 10% healthy fats so for example chicken or salmon skewers, sweet potato, Mediterranean vegetables with pine nuts. 

At least by this point in the lockdown it’s slightly easier to get staple foods from the supermarket, after queuing outside of course. It now seems to be the baking aisle that may as well have a tumble weed rolling down it because all the shelves are empty! We’ve got you covered on that front! For low sugar, quick to make and delicious treats check out our baking range including muffins, brownies and cookies. All low calorie so can easily be incorporated into your plan!

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