Easy food switches/exercises that are easy to stick to!?

[mentalbacon]

So once upon a time, I did some Olympic weightlifting, lost a bunch of weight, built muscle and felt really good about myself. I started a job, stopped going to the gym, started gaining. Left said job, and just never got back into the routine of looking after myself. Now don't get me wrong, I'm no gym bunny - I actually hate the gym and feel incredibly self conscious, but I forced myself because I saw results.

Fast forward a year and a half and I'm a stone and a half heavier and feel miserable. My daughter took a photo of me the other day and it hit home how much my body has changed! Problem is with all this covid nonsense and not a minute to myself for the last 6 months, I'm feeling pretty low to boot. I'm in no frame of mind to start hitting the gym (don't like the thought of that at the best of times, let alone with covid floating around) but need to do something.

I eat out of boredom so need some tips to make some easy to stick to changes.

I've stumbled across a couple:

1 - chewing gum to stave of the boredom eating, as it gives you something to do and puts you off eating if you're all nice and minty.

2 - and one that I did years ago - sugar free jelly. I've become a bit of a jelly sweet monster so intend to switch them for low cal jelly (I've already made 3 pints!).

3 - switching some alcoholic drinks for sparkling water and lemon (you could kind of, maybe, slightly convince yourself it's a G&T). I turn to alcohol most nights at the moment and whilst I wont be cutting out the wine completely until I'm de-stressed, I will try to substitute as often as poss.

What else have you got? Simple switches that don't feel to difficult to stick too.

Oh and as a relatively pain free bit of exercise, I tried parking my butt on the exercise bike in front of the telly for 30 mins this morning which seemed to work well and didn't feel too much of a bind. Any other ideas?

Usually when I'm health kick mode I go head on into it and do it "properly" but I just can't get myself in the frame of mind so need to ease in gently this time! Even if it's to halt the weight gain for now.