Haarlem Gallery Opening

The Lockdown 10 (or15!) I’ve heard it called… hands up if you’re carrying more pounds now than when the world first locked down in March of last year? Now that’s a lot of hands! Some people have been busier than ever during this Pandemic, but even some of them may not have escaped the extra pounds, despite being more active. There’s a number of factors that have contributed to the thickening waistlines of our nation: 1. Restrictions on movement: despite our daily exercise hour, the gyms and sports facilities have mostly been closed, many of us have walked a few steps to work at the kitchen table instead of a brisk walk from the bus stop or car park to work. And then our working day may’ve been spent in dangerous proximity to the fridge or kitchen food cupboards. And whatever you think of the ‘calories in versus calories out’ view of weight control, the truth of it is that if your life becomes more sedentary and you continue to eat the same diet, you’d be really lucky if you’d escaped without gaining a few pounds. 2. These restrictions have left many of us bored, cut off from leisure or work activities which normally take place outside of our home. Lots of us have significantly increased our TV viewing over the past 18 months to fill this ‘leisure gap’ and what goes well with watching TV? It’s snacks of course? You might still be eating good healthy well balanced meals and still have found your trousers getting tighter because of the snacks and alcohol that go well with watching TV or participating in Zoom Quiz Nights! And if you’ve been hard at work, still outside of your home, your leisure time has been just as affected as anyone else’s. 3. And then there’s perhaps the biggest factor of all… emotional eating. When the world feels like it’s spinning off it’s axis, when everything we know is changed beyond belief, when we’re isolated from our loved ones and support networks, when we may have personally been impacted by grief, loss and ill health.. I could go on and on…. we’ve been overwhelmed by a tsunami of feelings in response to all of this. ALL of us have. And how we deal with uncomfortable feelings differs from person to person. Some can, or have taught themselves to face them, to accept them and to work through them until they are ‘processed’. Many use things like work, hobbies, alcohol, gambling to distract themselves from how they feel. And these strategies often compound the issue by causing other problems. And as I’ve said, some of those things haven’t been available to us during the pandemic anyway. Others turn to the fridge or the snacks cupboard to ‘self sooth’. We learned at our Mothers knee didn’t we that a sweetie or a biscuit makes everything better (“there, there, don’t cry”)? And sugar certainly does provide a short term boost of energy, but it’s followed a couple of hours (or less) later by a ‘crash’ that leads you back to the biscuit tin. So it’s not surprising that the two main reasons people are contacting me for help with is Anxiety and Weight Control. I’m going to share with you one of the tasks that I set people who want to stop mindless or emotional eating. It’s very simple and very powerful and if you’ve got a smartphone you can do it for free. Download a free photo collage app like Photogrid and then find yourself a buddy who is also looking to lose some weight. As you go through the day take a quick photo of EVERYTHING YOU EAT OR DRINK. The odd handful of something … every drink… everything. Then at the end of the day it’ll take literally moments to use the app to make a photo grid of your food and drink day. Send it to your friend and they send you theirs. What does the day tell you about your eating habits? What can you learn from it? This little task completed for a minimum of 10 days will not just reveal the things that will help you lose those pounds, but importantly shift your eating out of ‘mindlessness’ into ‘mindfulness’. If you try it, I’d love to know how you get on.. let me know at sarah@sarahkallend.com.

Sarah is an Associate Therapist at So Healthy Chiropractors in Matlock, dealing with emotional health and behavioural change. She is based at Ogston Reservoir as well as seeing people in their own homes. Find her at www.sarahkallend.com or on Facebook @theheartspeaker