Eating well easy when you’re at home with a fully stocked fridge and have the luxury of time to plan deliciously colourful and healthy meals, but this is far from the reality when juggling a flat out work schedule, early morning workouts, travel and eating out. All too often we rush down a sandwich, or say yes to the desk’s convenient burger take out; then later, weighed down with lethargy and a sugar craving, succumb to a 4pm pick-me-up trip to the vending machine. Even with the best intentions, we can trip at the first hurdle and at the time we need to be our most productive, we let our diets slip due to lack of time and resources.
The right kind of fuel helps to get the body working at full capacity. Well-balanced meals are key to keeping you energized and efficient whilst looking and feeling your best, no matter how hectic life is. We are big believers that the right supplements can do a lot to counteract the negative side of effects of a busy modern life, but nothing can ever replace the nutrients you get from the right food.
Though it will always require some responsibility on your part, with a bit of willpower, eating clean on the go is far more doable if you follow these easy rules:
- Get Creative with Meetings
If entertaining is part and parcel of your job, then eating out and client drinks will be too. Understandably it’s pretty difficult to eat clean in this kind of environment. Though it will often be unavoidable there are steps you can take to minimising exposure.
Breakfast meetings, by default mean less alcohol (unless you’re Jordan Belfort) and most places now serve eggs with avocado and rye bread or other healthy sides dishes to boost goodness.
If it’s appropriate, arrange meetings over a luxury manicure instead of drinks and kill two time-consuming birds with one stone. These days it’s also kosher to meet in high-end gyms/spa cafes or trendy juiceries, so don’t always go for the standard artisan coffee shop or cocktail bar.
- Have A Snack Draw
Most family homes have a treat draw (or if you were really lucky, a pantry) and these days most offices also have a ready supply of biscuits and other snacks. During a blood sugar low, these are virtually impossible to say no to, especially as we are essentially hardwired to crave sugar at times like this as we know it quickly gives us a burst of energy in the form of glucose.
Do yourself a favour and have some readily available, pre pre-packaged snacks in your draw so you don’t deviate. These can be sweet or savoury – we love protein rich Bounce Bars (which do contain a bit of sugar but hey, you have to live), salty roasted beans from The Food Doctor, salt and vinegar roasted broad beans from The Good Bean and Pulsin’ Protein Bliss Bars. Ocado sell all of these so stock up ahead of the week.
If you can get out for five minutes at lunch, think ahead and pick up protein pots from Pret, Itsu, Eat, Pod, Vital Ingredient or S.H.O.T (if UK based).
- Freeze Fruit and Veg for Smoothies
Everyone loves smoothies, but making them can seem like a real effort, especially first thing when you’re rushing out of the door. Sadly, the ones you get on-the-go tend to be super sugary and not the balancing healthy option you may be after. To save yourself time, buy veg and chop/peel into smoothie size portions and and freeze ahead of time in Tupperware. This quarters prep time and often reduces cost as well.
Things that freeze well include: pineapple, pears, apple, kale, spinach, berries, cucumber, banana, avocado, red grapes, papaya, orange and mango.
- Order In
And we don’t mean Dominoes. Benugo, Squirrel, Pod, The Mae Deli, SHOT, Farmacy, Good Life Eatery all deliver... ‘Nuff said.
- Don't Live on Caffeine
One of the reasons why we fail at eating well is because we have low energy. There are many ways to deal with this, many of which will be covered on this blog, but one thing is for sure, drinking too much coffee and tea will not help. We aren’t saying you have to give up coffee forever, but it’s never a good idea to replace coffee with breakfast or snacks as you’ll only pay for it later in the day.
The best way to manage this is to make sure you eat three meals per day, snacking between them if you need to, and limit consumption to one coffee and/or one tea per day. Replace with green tea (which contains caffeine, but not as much and contains many other health benefits) caffeine-free herbal teas, or simply hot water with lemon and/or ginger. If you already drink a lot of coffee, cut down slowly to prevent withdrawal and replace with a nutrient and protein dense snack if feeling low in energy to help nourish the body and give it a leg up.
For more information, contact us at info@equilondon.com
(Photocred: @happyskinkitchen - using Equi London Beautiful in her skin boosting smoothie bowl)