How to stay healthy during quarantine

How can you best stay healthy? What is the need to have and must-have if you are quarantined or just simply have to try to stay at home as much as you can?

Sometimes we all have to make adjustments to our life for the greater good. It is important that we follow our country’s guidelines and that we all do our best to stay healthy. In this post, we take a look at what you should eat and how, if you are quarantined or have to stay at home. 

Maybe you won’t be able to go outside. You’ll be a lot more passive than usual and therefore use less energy.

Therefore, it’s important to keep in mind that your body probably needs less fuel than usual and that you probably should eat less.

Remember, all below in this post is our personal advice, they do not replace or diminish the need to seek advice or help from health professionals. If sick, follow your country’s guidelines. 

Eat healthy

The key to staying healthy is eating healthy food! If you want a list of healthy foods you should eat that can boost your immune system, you should read our on how to boost your immune system.

Some of the essential things to eat are turmeric, ginger, chili, garlic, blueberries, raspberries, vegetables, bell peppers, green and white tea, kiwi and citrus fruits. 

These foods are high on C vitamins, beta carotene, vitamin K, and antioxidants. Several of them also have anti-inflammatory effects. So they are great to eat if you, for example, have a sore throat. Ginger, for example, is great for that! You can either make ginger shoots or tea on ginger, green tea, and lemon. Citrus fruits are packed with C-vitamin, and combined with ginger and green tea it will give you a real boost!  

Food prep

When you’re home in quarantine or just can’t leave your house you have to cook all your meals at home. This is very time-consuming and you’ll get tired of it pretty fast. Then it’s easy to start eating unhealthy things. 

Therefore, food prepping is your friend! Besides not having to spend so much time cooking another benefit of food prepping is that you’ll prepare a lot (only) of healthy food. This will make sure that you actually keep eating healthy food because it is easily accessible. 

Food prepping will also leave time for other things, such as work, or taking care of yourself if you’re sick, or take care of family or friends who are sick. 

Variation

Variation in food is important. Not only because it is more fun, but it is also important in order to make sure you get the right nutrients. Different ingredients will also make sure you don’t get that bored with food. Try to mix it up with spices or by one day making Italian, the other Mexican, then Indian etc. Try to not base everything on the same, you’ll tire of that very fast. 

A varied diet is also important in order to get a varied set of nutrients and vitamins in your body. This is essential right now! Food like salmon, chicken, fish, meat and lots of vegetables are really healthy. 

You should also have some good basic ingredients for cooking. These can be: 

Coconut oil, butter, olive oil, soy, curry, salt & pepper

Calorie restriction

During quarantine or time home you’ll be less active, so restricting your calorie intake can be a good decision. An unhealthy snack once in a while won’t be the end of the world, but don’t let it escalate. Rather, try to be creative with the snacks. 

Instead of eating cookies, chocolate, icecream etc try to eat rice crackers, fruits etc. 

Fruits also contain a lot of vitamins which is important to boost your immune system. 

Preservation

Another challenge during quarantine is how to keep your food. Some of the food you have to keep for a longer period of time, and you might not have room in your fridge. 

Foods such as onion, sweet potato, potatoes, rice crackers lentils, beans, eggs, chilis, garlic, almond and soy milk, hard bread, pasta, and oranges can be kept in a pantry and are packed with healthy vitamins, carbohydrates, fats, and protein. 

It can also be a good idea to keep frozen vegetables, meat and fish in the fridge. That way you’ll also have some backup. 

If you want to learn more about how to store food I’ve written a post about what food you should have when you are sick and how you should store it.

I really hope this post helped you to understand what you should eat to stay healthy. If you get sick and you want to know more about what you can eat you can read our post on what to eat if you get sick.

I hope you stay healthy and full! ?