Self-isolating? Boost your immune system

If you’re currently at home self-isolating and social distancing, you could take this opportunity to boost your immune system and change your lifestyle.

Every day we’re waking up to more disturbing news from our own country and all over the world. With us all spending more time at home, perhaps we can take this as a positive wake-up call to encourage us to have a healthier lifestyle.

Healthy ingredients

Our immune systems have been seriously compromised through eating processed food. While in every cooking programme on TV or social media, 90% of the dishes include really healthy ingredients, sadly, instead of trying to reproduce these recipes at home we tend to buy pre-packaged meals instead.

We don’t make time these days to cook from scratch, so don’t know how easy it is. I often think a lot of people lack the confidence to cook, so now is the perfect time to experiment. It’s also a great opportunity to get your children involved and to create healthy eating patterns for them as well.

Food from scratch

Also, as well as not being sensible environmentally with all the packaging, these pre-prepared meals are usually packed with too much sugar, salt and the wrong fats. Not good for your immune system.

I hope people who are at home will have more time to prepare their food from scratch, without the time pressures associated with modern living.

Health documentaries

When I watch health documentaries, they all dwell on the high salt, sugar and fat contents in foods, but they never mention vitamin and mineral content.

Foods lacking vitamins and minerals over a long period of time will lead to many ailments from skin conditions such as eczema, acne and rosacea, and many more, to potentially more serious mental health problems.

‘the drugs don’t work’

The answer is not always anti-depressants. In fact, they can exacerbate the problem, as the Verve’s song goes ‘the drugs don’t work’.

Also, our modern fresh fruit and vegetables, because of the way they are grown, are sadly lacking in vitamin and mineral content, so we recommend taking a good reputable vitamin supplement and a probiotic to improve the gut flora.”

Vitamin C, A and D

With the threat of catching the Coronavirus with us daily, it is imperative that you support your immune system.

You need Vitamin C, A and D to name but a few, which will build-up your immune system. Always combined with a good diet, we need way more than the recommended five a day. It’s more like 25!

Pleasure from cooking

Visiting the supermarket recently for essential supplies, I was surprised how much fresh fruit and veg remained untouched, but all the processed food sections were raided.

Without the daily commute and the school run there should be more time to prepare a meal from scratch. Take pleasure from cooking for your family and yourself.

Keep healthy

So, keep healthy by helping yourself, change your ways, particularly if you are confined to home and are self-isolating. This is the ideal time to re-evaluate your lifestyle and start cooking from scratch again. Great too you can grow your own as well.

You now have the space to devote time to really thinking about how you live and what you eat. This is something positive to take away from the distressing situation we all find ourselves in now. If you’d like any expert advice about this, please do get in touch.