Eat healthy in quarantine, the nutritionist’s advice

Staying at home for a passionate sportsman, for a person accustomed to living his free time in the open air, seems almost like a compulsion. In recent days we have seen how you can train and keep fit thanks to the advice of Marco De Gasperi, for running in the mountains; of Nico Valsesia, for the bike; and of Federica Mingolla, for climbing.

In addition to training, it is fundamental to maintain a healthy lifestyle also from the point of view of nutrition. Spending too much time in the home, getting bored, stressed, are all factors that can lead us to go overboard with food. To have too caloric snacks and meals. We talked about it with a nutritionist biologist Andrea Fossati.

Andrea, today we are all obliged to reduce our physical activity. What impact does a physiological impact have on a person accustomed to doing sport every day?

“Calorie consumption varies little. This is because more than 80% of a person’s daily calorie consumption is responsible for maintaining body temperature. We are homeothermic mammals, therefore we have a constant internal temperature (36.5 degrees on average) independent of external factors. To maintain this we consume calories. “

So why is it easier to stay weight at home?

“Basically because we pass in front of the fridge or pantry several times.”

So you should do more physical activity and open the fridge less …

“In reality, even this myth is to be dispelled: physical activity does not make you lose weight or at least not as significantly as we all think. I give a practical example. If I run an hour in the morning, in these 60 minutes I would consume about 300 kilocalories. In the first 25 minutes, ‘burn’ the sugars, the muscle glycogen, which are restored at the first meal. In the remaining 35 minutes (if we are below aerobic threshold) I consume fat instead. We are talking about 180 calories, which by weight means about 18 grams of lipids in one hour of running.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, our body has a very high yield and consumes very little. Sports activity therefore serves to consume (little), but not only. It is essential for maintaining the health of the cardiovascular system, the whole body and maintaining a fast metabolism. “

So how can we dispose of the extra pounds that many of us will accumulate in this period?

“With a low-calorie diet combined with a specific physical activity, in fact, limiting itself only to eating less than what is actually needed, the body could react by activating a series of useful reactions to decrease the basic calorie consumption: the body temperature drops and with she also blood pressure, in other words, the body ‘slows down’. “

So diet and physical activity, is it better to practice aerobic or anaerobic activity?

“Aerobic activity helps to consume fats, but we have seen that these are negligible quantities. With very intense anaerobic activity (squats, bending, quickly climbing 4 or 5 flights of stairs), I greatly accelerate the metabolism by counteracting the phenomenon we were talking about before. Obviously the calorie consumption is sugar, but I keep my metabolism fast. So absolutely a lot of anaerobic activity in this period. “

We come to the diet, what do you recommend to eat during these days?

“We start from a due distinction between hunger and satiety. These are two independent mechanisms. Hunger is linked to blood sugar: I have not eaten for many hours so the brain, which ‘works’ thanks to sugars, notices the lack of these in the blood and triggers the feeling of hunger. Satiety is not linked to blood sugar, but only to gastric filling. A mechanism linked to volume and not to what I put inside. Obviously if I fill the stomach with nutella I take 2000 calories, if I eat salad instead I take only 50. This is what we nutritionists play on, in short we try to provide foods with low calories but a lot of volume. For example a classic salad. In addition to this we try to stimulate a reduction in the volume of the stomach with many small meals, snacks. In doing so, I avoid doing the flips that make the stomach dilate. It is important to never skip meals. ”

Thanking you for your time, we ask you the last question. Is there a link between nutrition and the immune system?

“In general when we talk about nutrients we refer to macronutrients which are proteins, carbohydrates and fats. Molecules that serve us as fuel or spare parts. However, our body needs a whole new set of nutrients in order to function well: micronutrients. Vitamins, mineral salts, phenols, unsaturated poly fats such as Omega-3s, trace elements and many others. Substances that allow a ‘lubrication’ of the chemical reactions that take place in our body. Good nutrition cannot be deficient in these, a deficiency of these elements can lead to a series of pathologies, vitamin C for example, is very important to keep the immune system high and at this moment it would not be bad to integrate it. Right now I would recommend supplements for vitamin C, but also in general a polyvitamin that also contains mineral salts and various trace elements such as Selenium which is also important for immune defenses. You can find them all in the pharmacy. ”