It’s All In A Day’s Work…Top 5 Nutrition Tips For the Office
Eat Breakfast – It may sounds cliché but this is the most important meal of the day. It also sets the tone for your digestion, metabolism, mood and food choices that you will make for the rest of the day. Some good ideas are: Oatmeal with ¼ cup fresh berries and tbsp slivered almonds, Nature’s Path cereal with ½ banana sliced and tbsp walnuts. Ezekiel English muffin with almond butter and honey, or a Fresh Smoothie: 1 cup almond milk, 1 banana, ½ cup pineapple, ¼ cup organic vanilla yogurt, tbsp flax oil and tsp cinnamon; blend and enjoy!
Graze Throughout the Day – The single most important thing that you should focus on daily with regards to food is eating often enough and making the right combinations. You should be going no longer than 3-4 hours without something. Your meals and snacks need to be a balance of complex carb, lean protein and healthy fat, ex: Salmon, broccoli and brown rice or Apple with 2 tbsp raw cashews.
Don’t drink Calories – Sweetened beverages such as pop, juice drinks, coffee drinks and tea may satisfy your thirst, but give you lots of empty calories. What’s worse is that, unlike eating solid food, drinking liquid calories doesn’t make you feel full so you won’t eat less food afterwards. Simply cutting a can of pop a day can help you lose 15 pounds in a year! Diet or zero-calorie pop offers no nutritional values either – it’s just water added with artificial sweeteners and caffeine. Drink water instead. Carrying a bottle of water with you will encourage you sip it instead of reaching for sweetened beverages.
Snack Between 1-3pm – This is the classic, “I need chocolate, coffee, a doughnut or muffin time of day followed by “I could also use a nap”. To help diminish these feelings and cravings work on your first 3 goals diligently, and…keep a bin in your office of “healthy treats” like The Kind bars, Luna Bars, Larabars or Nature Bars. These bars taste great, like you are having something you shouldn’t be, but they are in fact quite healthy. More importantly they are all well-balanced and will help towards stabilizing your blood sugar so that you don’t hit a slump and crave the junk. They are even simple enough to made by YOU!
Prepare, Prepare, Prepare – Look at your week ahead of time, before you grocery shop, so that you can meal plan and base your grocery list off of this. Be honest, be realistic and be consistent. Not only will having a plan make you choose healthier options it will also save you money on take-out and fast food.
Get Up & Move! – Set a timer in your office and every hour stand up and do a few stretches, take a few deep breathes or squat to tap your chair 25 times. This little bit of movement requires little effort, no change of clothes or major sweating, but it will give you that second wind or little boost of energy you are looking for. Plus…performing 25 squats each hour would average you somewhere around 360 squats daily!!! That’s is one tight, firm tushy you could have:)