How to eat healthy at work?
Do you work in a busy work environments. Do you find yourself short on time constantly juggling priorities.
Is it undermining your ability to eat healthy? Are you feeling the effects – poor concentration, lacking energy, low motivation?
To help you stay on track, here are 8 key tips for sustaining healthy eating when you are at work.
1. Build sustainable eating habits over time
- Focus on developing one new habit at a time; it will sharpen and direct your focus.
- Think longer term in creating new eating habits; aim for 3 months to embed a new habit.
- Focus on creating practical eating habits that can be incorporated into day to day your life.
2. Do not compromise on flavor
- Choose healthy foods you enjoy – you are more likely to eat them.
- Choose food that engages your senses – smell, sight, taste and touch.
- Adopt the mantra: Food is to be enjoyed … not endured.
3. Avoid restricting complex carbs
- Restricting foods or food groups may increase your risk of missing out on key nutrients.
- I too often discover all carbs being labelled as bad – not all carbs are created equal.
- Complex carbs are essential for optimal health – incl. GIT (gut), bowel, energy (blood sugar levels).
- For complex carbs incl. legumes, quinoa, brown rice, seed breads, starchy veg like sweet potato.
4. Protect your brain power.
- Your brain is one of the most energy hungry organs you have.
- In making a complex decision you can use up to 80% of your brain’s resources & 30% of your body’s energy
- Choose energy sources wisely. Coffee and added sugar do not create sustainable quality energy for your brain.
- Eat three balanced meals a day and snacks as required; fresh veg + quality carbs, protein and fats.
5. Do not inhale your food.
- Stop, sit down, focus on the food you are eating and chew your food.
- Your body systems will focus on what you are focused on.
- Healthy eating is not just what you eat, it is also about when, how and why you eat.
6. Do not skip meals.
- Long term skipping of meals can undermine your physiology.
- It increases risk of weight gain around your waist, loss of muscle & unresolved fatigue.
- Skipping meals is not a formula for feeling engaged, energised and motivated at work.
7. Be wary of the foods on trend or called super foods.
- Super food is a marketing term not a scientific term.
- Paying more for a food does not necessarily equate to it being healthier for you.
- Nature signals different nutrient combinations in foods by giving foods different colours.
- Aim to have three to four different colours of food on your plate at all meals.
8. Just eat real food
- The trend is clear, we are taking more supplements.
- And unfortunately these are often self-prescribed supplements.
- If you rely on supplements for key nutrients you are may be heading down the wrong path.
- Your gastrointestinal tract was designed to chew, digest, absorb and excrete food.
- It is simple – your focus is to just eat real food.
The final word:
Your body uses most of the energy it extracts from food to run your body systems – the systems you need to think, feel and do at work.
Healthy is fundamental to build sustainable high performance at work.