How To Eat Healthy When You’re Busy
A struggle in living in this on-the-go society is healthy eating. After all, you don’t see many drive-through options for fresh salads, cold-pressed juices, or even a simple turkey sandwich that isn’t fried to bits. Regardless of your career or lifestyle, finding time to eat healthy as a stay at home parent, CEO, grocery store employee, or dog walker is not easy. Is it possible to eat healthy when you are so busy? The answer is yes. The second question you are probably asking is, how?
To make more informed decisions on your food choices, you will need to do a little bit of preparation. This may mean that you invest a little bit more free time into preparing your meals or researching the calories and fats of dishes at restaurants you plan to stop in. There are a few other ways to help eat healthier with a busy lifestyle that may fit well into your lifestyle and not require any extra time. Although it may seem overwhelming, it is absolutely possible for everybody.
Prepare meals ahead.
This is probably the #1 way to ensure healthy eating when you are on-the-go. The simplest way to go about this is to prepare more for dinner than you normally would, and then bring that with you to your office. This ensures a healthy quantity, delicious food, and no extra thoughts or worries. Something that works for me is cooking large quantities of vegetables at once. That way, I have vegetables to add to pasta, grilled chicken dishes, or have with rice throughout the week. This leaves me with less things to cook throughout the week and typically covers lunch and dinner. It doesn’t get easier than that.
Another option is researching some healthy restaurants in your area to get take-out from. Most places have their calories online and will allow customizations to make your meal healthier (for example: ask for salad dressing on the side). Once you have researched enough over time, it will be a no-brainer. You will know your order at multiple places to fulfill whatever craving you have, while maintaining your healthy eating habits. The downsides to this method are that the money will certainly add up and the portions may be too large. If you keep those things in mind when you are making your choices, you will be one step ahead of the game.
You might be thinking, “But I don’t have access to a refrigerator or a microwave… and I am not eating room-temperature salad!” That is perfectly OK, I don’t want that either. If this is your situation, take it back to grade school. Make yourself a healthy peanut butter and jelly sandwich! Pack a piece of fruit, a handful of pretzels, and maybe some raisins. There is your healthy lunch! You can definitely find more by doing a little bit of research. If you are more of a snacker like me, you may want to pack a yogurt, a handful of trail mix, two clementines, some pretzels, or anything else depending on how long you will be out of the house. This brings me to my next tip.
Click the picture to see ten healthy lunches that don’t require refrigeration!
Snacks. Snacks. Snacks.
Having healthy snacks on hand is key to getting through a long and busy week. It will prevent you from getting hungry throughout the day and you will be less likely to settle for an unhealthy meal. The best part about packing your own snacks is that you know what you like. I personally can’t stand apples, but it seems that they are the most common snacks readily available at convenience stores. I make sure to never leave the house for a long day without trail mix and a banana. The nuts from the trail mix are dense with protein and fats that keep me full as I snack on it throughout the day. Bananas are just my favorite fruit, so it gives me the nutrients I try to consume daily.
Something that keeps me from giving into unhealthy meals is packing sweet and salty snacks. Sometimes I don’t want my bananas because I don’t want anything sweet. If I am in the office, I’ll find a vending machine and opt for a bag of pretzels or baked chips. This is still better than going through the drive-through line for a small fry, so I don’t feel bad for not sticking eating what I brought. The banana will be there when I am sitting in traffic later and want something to snack on until dinner. If you need help coming up with healthy snack ideas, check out Healthline’s 29 Healthy snacks to lose weight.
Start your day right. Do not skip breakfast!
According to WebMD, “nutrition experts have said that a healthy breakfast is a key start to the day.” The most appealing benefit of breakfast is that it jumpstarts your metabolism, helping you burn more calories throughout the day. Rush University Medical Center states that eating breakfast correlates with having a lower BMI, consuming less fat throughout the day, meeting recommendations for fruit and vegetable consumption, having higher calcium intake, higher fiber intake, and better performance overall (memory).
If you don’t skip breakfast, you are more likely to make healthier choices based off of what you want to eat rather than scrambling to find something to satisfy your hunger. If you know you have a busy day ahead of you, take care of yourself first by ensuring you are well fed before you begin.
The suggestion is to pair carbs with proteins. Some examples listed include: Whole-grain cereals or bread for carbs, low-fat milk, yogurt, or cottage cheese for protein, fresh fruit or veggies, again for the carbs, nuts or legumes for even more protein.
Since this meal is so important, it is good to be informed. Be sure to read the labels. A muffin and a cup of coffee sounds good, but 600 calories of sugars with 1 gram of protein is not going to keep you full. Reading the labels is beneficial when grabbing any snacks on-the-go, which is my next tip.
Read the labels. Know what you are consuming.
Something that always surprised me was how little nutritional value some of my favorite on-the-go breakfast items have. For example, according to wellandgood.com, Health Warrior Superfood Protein bars (specifically the Dark Chocolate, Coconut, and Sea Salt flavor) are the healthiest.
The article states: Superfood chia seeds are the protein powerhouse ingredient in this bar, and many of its other clean, whole-food, plant-based ingredients are organic. It has 10 grams of protein and 5 grams of fiber to balance out the sugar, plus an omega 3 boost you’ll get from the chia. “This is great for people who want something that’s crunchy and slightly sweet for a snack,” Hundt says (and for vegans!). “It’s delicious and well-balanced in terms of the ingredients.”
Much to my surprise, PowerBar ProteinPlus bars, and not healthy.
Hundt calls this bar “syrup, syrup, syrup” for its whopping 27 grams of sugar from a variety of sweeteners like cane invert syrup, fructose syrup, and malitol syrup. It’s also got lots of processed, non-organic soy, a combination that’s not likely to power you through any workout (or towards long-term health). “That’s going to cause you some digestive issues, for sure,” Hundt says. “I can’t see it sitting in your stomach well.”
You will most likely be able to find both of these bars on the same aisle in the grocery store, so it is important to know and understand what you are consuming! If you don’t know very much about nutrition, that is ok. If you want to skip the mental math, find yourself a piece of fruit, or foods with very basic ingredients. This will help you choose foods that have the least amount of preservatives and confusing dietary information, which are ultimately a better choice over processed snack foods. To learn more about reading nutritional labels, click the picture below.
Keep it simple.
This may be the most important tip. Try not to overthink it. Yes, I know we just discussed nutritional labels and that may seem complicated, but the bottom line is this:
In conclusion, we are all human and not destined to be perfect. Just do your best and brush it off when you feel that you could do better. Adequate planning, a little bit of research, eating breakfast, and snacking throughout the day should keep you happy and healthy during your busy week.
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Originally published at https://www.chargehealth.co.nz.
