Nutrition and Supplementation during Quarantine

Hello everyone, in this post, we are going to give you a series of tips about Nutrition and Supplementation during Quarantine in order to get through this.

We are facing an exceptional situation that will be recorded in history books of our grandchildren and future generations to come.

The governments are taking the necessary measures and we have to obey the rules.

Being confined in our houses can be overwhelming: breaking your routine, going to work, to the gym… all that has come to a halt.

But now more than ever, we need to stay calm, it is not about resignation. Rather, it is about accepting the situation and understanding that this is how things are now (quite a stoic way of looking at things 😉 ).

That is why we want to help you and encourage you to make the most of the situation with the following tips about a crucial aspect: our Nutrition.

We really hope that these tips will be useful for all of you!

Moderate your calorie intake

Evidently, not being able to go out is going to affect our calorie expenditure.

If you move less, you will spend less and if you buy too much food, you are probably going to eat more than you should. Consequently, you are gain to gain weight unless you control what you eat.

We know that we will have time to lose weight once again after all this is over. However, if you still want to stay in shape, you should pay more attention than ever to “dieting”.

Calculate your amount of calories

• Calories: multiply your body weight by a number between [30-35] to establish a normocaloric diet.

The result is called Nd.

Measure your macros

Protein:

• Multiply your body weight by a number between [1.8-2].
• Then, multiply the result by x4kcals and you will get the amount of calories from protein (P).

Fat:

• Multiply your body weight by a number between [1-1.2g].
• Like before, multiply the result by x9kcals and you will get the amount of calories from fat (F).

Carbohydrates: this is the way to calculate them:

• Combine the calories from Protein (P) + Fat (F), and we will call it PF.
• Nd – PF, and the result will be Hd
• Divide Hd/4, and the result will be H

Do not worry, here you have an example:

Rationalize or make portions

Without any doubt, the best thing we can do is to freeze equal portions of meat and fish.

For example, you can divide the meat in portions of 100g.

Frozen Vegetables

Vegetables are a necessary source of nutrients, which is why you should have some in the fridge.

They will last much longer if you store them in the fridge.

Stop mindless eating

One of the problems of being “bored” is that we rely on “nibbling” to entertain ourselves.

When you feel the need, make sure that you eat:

The following part has been written by Alfredo Valdés:

Supplements during Quarantine

A very common question in this period of uncertainty is:

“What should I do with my supplementation? Do I keep going or should I stop?”

Before anything, there are no food supplements sold within the European Union that can damage the consumers even if they do not do exercise.

Still, there are some supplements that have an ergogenic effect on physical exercise such as citrulline malate or inorganic nitrates.

If you have decided to rest completely and to take a break from your workouts, you can stop using those type of supplements.

But you can still use the rest.

Creatine or beta-alanine are supplements with positive effects on the sport performance. But we can only reach these effects by taking these supplements for a long time. Therefore, if you do not want to start from scratch, I would keep on using them 😉 (Trexler et al., 2015; Kreider et al., 2017).

Do you want more examples? There you go!

Vitamin D3

Why keep on taking it

During the quarantine, we will be less exposed to sunlight. Therefore, the subcutaneous conversion of 7-DHC to pro-D3 will drop too.

That is why it is important to have healthy blood calcitriol (D3) levels.

Vitamin D3 supplementation is a great product when we cannot go out to sunbathe and get some UVB.

Recommended dose during this period

Protein powder

Why keep on taking it

Not doing physical exercise is no excuse to avoid taking enough protein.

In fact, it is a key factor if we want to prevent the loss of muscle mass in periods of muscle catabolism.

The use of high quality nutrient sources is essential, specially now that there is barely any meat left in the supermarket.

I already have my Evowhey 2.0 home!

Recommended dose during this period

Caffeine

Why keep on taking it

Caffeine is not an useful supplement to improve the sport performance. In fact, it is also a psycho-stimulant:

Are you teleworking? Then, take advantage of the energy boost of caffeine!

Recommended dose during this period

Ashwagandha

Why keep on taking it

Staying indoors and a lack of social interaction has serious effects at a physical and cognitive level. In fact, it can lead to the onset of depressive symptoms and anxiety regardless of sex, age, socio-economic status or other factors (Ge et al., 2017).

Ashwagandha is an adaptogen that can relieve the stress and anxiety in healthy adults (Chandrasekhar et al., 2012). Moreover, it can regulate the endocrine-metabolic responses in stressful situations (Lopresti et al., 2019).

Ashwagandha can be extremely helpful in periods when there is barely social relations.

Recommended dose during this period

Bibliography

1. Cappelletti, S., Daria, P., Sani, G., & Aromatario, M. (2014). Caffeine: Cognitive and Physical Performance Enhancer or Psychoactive Drug? Current Neuropharmacology, 13(1), 71–88.
2. Chandrasekhar, K., Kapoor, J., & Anishetty, S. (2012). A prospective, randomized double-blind, placebo-controlled study of safety and efficacy of a high-concentration full-spectrum extract of Ashwagandha root in reducing stress and anxiety in adults. Indian Journal of Psychological Medicine, 34(3), 255–262.
3. Ge, L., Yap, C. W., Ong, R., & Heng, B. H. (2017). Social isolation, loneliness and their relationships with depressive symptoms: A population-based study. PLoS ONE, 12(8), e0182145.
4. Kreider, R. B., Kalman, D. S., Antonio, J., Ziegenfuss, T. N., Wildman, R., Collins, R., … Lopez, H. L. (2017). International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand: Safety and efficacy of creatine supplementation in exercise, sport, and medicine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 14(1), 18.
5. Lopresti, A. L., Smith, S. J., Malvi, H., Kodgule, R., & Wane, D. (2019). An investigation into the stress-relieving and pharmacological actions of an ashwagandha (Withania somnifera) extract: A randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study. Medicine (United States), 98(37), e17186.
6. Ross, A. C., Manson, J. A. E., Abrams, S. A., Aloia, J. F., Brannon, P. M., Clinton, S. K., … Shapses, S. A. (2011). The 2011 report on dietary reference intakes for calcium and vitamin D from the Institute of Medicine: What clinicians need to know. Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism, 96(1), 53–58.
7. Trexler, E. T., Smith-Ryan, A. E., Stout, J. R., Hoffman, J. R., Wilborn, C. D., Sale, C., … Antonio, J. (2015). International society of sports nutrition position stand: Beta-Alanine. Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition, 12(1), 30.