More eating right at work tips!
Yesterday, Dana, my guest poster had great ideas to eat right at the work place. I thought I would share some of the tips I do to help me stay on track at work.
The first thing is I ALWAYS eat breakfast at my desk when I get here. Obviously that doesn’t work for everyone, but if you work in a cubicle, or at a desk where that is an option, I highly recommend that..
The reason I do this, is by the time I get to work by 8:30, get settled in, get my coffee, etc..it’s already about 8:45 and if I am eating a bagel sandwich, or oatmeal, or quiche with fruit, it takes me a while to eat this, so by the time I am done it’s about 9:15 and I am full for a while, so no need for a morning snack. I’ve found that if I eat BEFORE I get to work @ around 7:30 ish, then I am starving by 10:00 a.m. and I am thinking about food, or worse, if a rep comes to our office with goodies, I’m tempted to have some!
This week, thanks to my sister who bought me 100 calorie bagel thins at an outlet store, I’ve had a breakfast sammy for work every day. Normally I will make it at home, wrap it in foil and then bring it with me, but sometimes it gets soggy. So I bring an egg, 1 slice of cheese, 2 slices of reduced fat salami and my bagel thin. I’ll cook the egg in the microwave in a small dish for a minute, toast my bagel so it’s nice and crunchy and warm, assemble it and it’s ready to go.
The other thing I do is stock my desk. I used to stock it with things like fat free pringles, pretzels, granola bars, etc… That isn’t real food of course, so I’ve switched to healthier choices. In my desk drawer, I have whole wheat angel hair pasta (you can cook that in the microwave at work in a big bowl in about 6 minutes!) I have in the freezer at work, many different kinds of frozen veggies. I’ve heated up snow peas and drizzled my thai peanut sauce on it for a snack. Or I can make soup by adding water, some chicken stock, the angle hair pasta, frozen veggies and cook for about 5 minutes in the microwave or until the veggies are as tender as you like. I also have nuts, cans of healthy choice soup, so I can eat that too if I get hungry at any point during the day. If I am craving something sweet, I store some of my totally deluxe healthy home made muffins in the freezer at work, and that can be heated up in 30 seconds with a nice cup of tea, that totally hits the spot! (Look under categories for “Muffins of the Week” to see the many choices of homemade muffins I’ve made).
One thing I will post more about tomorrow, is I have successfully started changing things at work, such as suggesting on swapping out our M&M, snickers laden vending machine with a healthier version. I approached the idea to the principals of my firm and they were all on board! It is being delivered to my office tomorrow morning! I’ll take a picture so you can see what it looks like. This is the company I found who is providing is with this service! So, if I am in a situation where I want candy, at least now I can choose a better alternative. And you can use your debit card, so no cash is needed!
The other thing I started at my company is a salad club. Every Tuesday, 5 of us bring a veggie or fruit to share as well as a bag of greens. Yesterday we had things like strawberries, carrots, zucchini, garbanzo beans, black beans, cucumbers, quinoa, walnuts, tomatoes, green peppers, etc… it was amazing! And there are usually enought leftovers to do that twice a week.
Do you work near a restaurant that has a salad bar? I sometimes will accessorize my lunch by bringing brown rice, then I’ll go to the restaurant, get some veggies for a few dollars and add that to my brown rice for a little stir fry action. I keep several variaties of my favorite stir fry at work, so that’s a great option.
The other thing I have been doing, is having a larger lunch 500-600 calories, this way I am still full for the rest of the work day, no afternoon snack needed and I just go home to make dinner.
It’s been super hot out of course, but when it gets cooler, several of the women in my office will go for a walk around the neighbrhood for 30-45 minutes. It’s a great way to get away from your desk, have great conversation and you are ready to face the rest of your day energized!
So, that’s some of the things that help me. It can be a rough enviornment when there is always other food around, donuts, birthday cake, candy at co-workers desk, etc… BUT, if you can slowy change your enviornment to suit your lifestyle better, it makes things a lot easier.