Perhaps you’ve noticed others in your office who seem to have great energy, they’re in shape, and are nearly always in a good mood.
What’s their secret?
We’ll tell you: they eat right. They give themselves just a little more time to plan and prep to ensure this success.
Following just a few dietary recommendations will transform you and your performance at work. Here, we will cover eleven potential diet sins you may be committing and what you can do to get healthier.
You work hard. That’s no question. So, let us help you achieve more and feel better while doing it!
A few small tweaks in how you eat at work can lead to huge benefits and a smaller waist. Learn to eat right! CLICK TO TWEET
Control Portion Size and What You Eat
You think, ‘I just eat what I can, when I can.’
By not paying attention to what and how you eat, you are more likely to consume more calories than you need or get a balanced diet with the necessary nutrition your body requires.
What your slim colleagues do differently is they fill half their plate with vegetables and fruit and eat plenty of leafy greens.
The benefits are that these foods, in their whole form, provide the fiber you need to stay full. Not only that, the fiber helps offset the natural sugars these foods contain, especially in fruit. Leafy greens also help with concentration.
For more on improving concentration specifically, please read more on foods that improve memory and concentration.
One study found that diets that included prominently fruits and vegetables, among others (whole grains, nuts, seeds, and yogurt) were associated with less visceral fat.
From today on, control portion size and add vegetables or a salad into every meal to eat right.
Schedule Your Meals
You eat quickly. Sometimes it’s on the go. Other times it’s at your desk (you have no time otherwise!).
Even if you’re sitting at a table, you interrupt your meal for a call or email that comes in.
We get it.
There is always so much to do and there never seems to be enough time to do it.
Get imaginative with us for a moment. Your meal is an important client. It requires your full attention and just as it’d be rude to check your emails or answer your mobile while with a client, your meal should also get your full attention.
To eat right and avoid interruptions, please schedule your meals in the future.
Put them on your calendar and your waistline will thank you.
Slow Down for Faster Results While Eating
You’ve heard the idea, “time is money”.
While we won’t deny that, we do know that time AND money won’t matter without good health.
This includes slowing down when you eat.
We bet your slim coworkers with all the energy eat more mindfully and slower.
The benefits of chewing your food well and eating slower is eating less.
This is because we give our brain time to receive signals that the stomach is full. Then we are also less stressed, and we enjoy eating more.
If you do something as simple as slowing down and taking just a few extra minutes to eat and savor your meal, you’ll be pleasantly surprised what a positive difference it can make!
Eat a Healthy Breakfast at Home
You often skip your breakfast due to the lack of time or grab something from the vending machine at work.
You eat cupcakes, donuts, muffins, bagels, pastry…and feel awful half an hour later…and hungry again.
You’ve only been at work for an hour and already you’re distracted by your groaning stomach.
Your colleague who’s in great shape? That person likely eats a high protein breakfast like eggs, Greek yogurt, oats with nut butters, cottage cheese, etc.
Eat right and eat breakfast at home
We want you to conquer your tasks at work and impress your clients and coworkers – a breakfast high in protein will help you do this!
Eating a healthy breakfast, packed with protein, has been shown to reduce cravings and calorie intake throughout the day.
For tips on how to eat a healthy breakfast, read more here. And for the days you truly don’t have time in the morning, drink your breakfast!
For Lunch, Eat Lean Protein, Healthy Fats, and Veggies
For lunch, you don’t control your food choices. You eat whatever you want: hamburgers, instant noodles, rice, potatoes, or hotdogs. Whatever you can get quickly.
But then the inevitable happens: by early afternoon, you feel sluggish and the temptation to take a nap is a growing.
Yet your energetic coworkers seem unphased.
Why?
They check what they eat because they take into account they have to return to the office and keep working after lunch.
Therefore, for lunch, they eat lean protein foods, omega-3 fatty acids, vegetables and fruits every day.
By doing that they will not only satisfy their hunger, but also get the energy they need to finish the workday without gaining weight.
As we’ve mentioned, protein gives you energy and doesn’t add unwanted calories. Examples of good protein are lean beef, turkey breast, chicken breast, seafood, beans, peas and eggs.
Healthy fats, like omega-3 fatty acids, help your body metabolize that protein and support feeling fuller longer.
Satiation prevents you from craving and gaining weight. This type of fatty acids can be found in fish like salmon, olive oil, walnuts and seeds.
The benefits of fatty acids go beyond satiation. They decrease heart disease, improve your memory and cognition, fight depression and anxiety, improve eye health (executives can suffer from eye strain or computer eye syndrome), inflammation, and more.
Whenever possible, bring whole food lunches from home. There are many ideas on what to pack, but here are a few to get you started.
Do you tend to eat lunch out often with clients? We also have some great tips on how to eat right at meetings.
Dinner: Eat Just Enough to Hold You Over
For dinner, when you are stuck at the office until well after dark working on a presentation, you eat something from the nearest fast-food restaurant, such as a greasy burgers and chips. It’s been a long day and you need something quick.
But halfway through eating, you feel awful and would much rather go to bed then keep working.
Yet you notice the light on in your coworker’s office and they’re happily finishing up their day. For dinner, when they are stuck at the office, they eat a yogurt, bananas, and apples with peanut butter as snacks in the office at night. Then, at home they eat some protein (fish or lean meat) with veggies. Notice how they eat just enough to hold them over, then round out their nutrition needs with a light meal at home.
So after work, eat right at night. Choose foods that are easy to digest (veggies and fish) and snacks at late hours at work that will help stabilize your blood sugar (legumes, yogurt, fruits and vegetables).
Don’t worry, we’ve got you covered with some healthy ideas for what you can eat when working late.
We hope you’re starting to see how a few small tweaks in how you eat at work can lead to huge benefits and a smaller waist.
Add a Lot of Fiber to Your Diet
You often have constipation issues as you eat white bread, refined carbohydrates, and drink fruit juices. All of these foods lack the necessary fiber your body needs to collect and push waste through your body.
Notice that smile on your coworker’s face when they come back from the water closet? They eat whole bread and whole fruits to get enough of that precious fiber.
They also avoid sugary foods: like pastries, cupcakes, white bread, fruit juices, condiments, sauces, chocolates – all of them are empty calories and will do your body no favors on keeping your waistline under control.
Beyond that, you may also have issues with your heart, cholesterol or type 2 diabetes and this is directly correlated to eating too much sugar.
Fortunately, it’s so simple to reverse these issues.
The best thing you can start doing now is adding fiber to your diet.
For instance, make at least half the grains you eat whole grains (always check food labels) and always eat fruit in its whole form as it contains all its own natural fibers.
There are still some fruits, even in their whole form, that should be limited because they naturally have a very high sugar content.
We have great resources to guide you on high fiber foods to add to your diet.
Battle The Vending Machine
During the workday, you often have a lot of work to do and sometimes you go to the office vending machine to kill hunger pangs because you have nothing at work to eat.
Eating these snacks only provide empty calories which lead to unwanted weight.
Your coworkers that seem to get through their day without their stomach groaning always have on hand yogurts, fruits, nuts, crackers or lean turkey to eat as a snack in the office.
Having healthy snacks at work will drastically reduce your waist circumference, boost your energy and save you from those overpriced vending machine options.
To eat right, keep up these healthy snacks when at work to help you stop the bad habit all together.
Avoid Drinking Sugar. Drink Water!
You drink sugary drinks at work and at home, with or without meals. This can include fruit juices from the vending machine, sugar in your coffee, sodas, and more. These drinks have no benefits and will only grow your waistline.
Your healthy colleagues are drinking water. Water, water, and more water.
It has no calories, so drink lots of it!
To lose weight, you can also drink water a half hour before meals. One study showed that drinking water a half hour before meals increased weight loss by 44% over 3 months.
Water also has numerous benefits as it is our body’s ultimate hydrator.
Learn More About the Benefits of Drinking Water at the Workplace!
Say No to Alcohol
At least when it comes to weight loss.
You often drink alcohol at lunch or at dinners with customers. It almost seems rude not to, right? It helps everyone relax a bit. But besides creating a large bill at the restaurant, alcohol creates a large waist.
Alcohol, in all forms, is high in calories and is best to avoid. It can also disrupt your sleep which hinders your work performance. Poor sleep quality is also linked to weight-gain.
Your slender coworkers pass on alcohol and choose water instead.
Like with the sugary drinks mentioned earlier, drinking water instead of alcohol will not only hydrate you but help you lose weight and stay in shape!
So stay confident when saying ‘no’ to alcohol when out with customers and enjoy your refreshing glass of water.
Eat Healthy Even When Traveling for Business
During business trips, you eat premade sandwiches at the airport, candy bars, cookies, muffins, snack cakes or chips.
You drink alcohol served by the stewardess.
Then, at the hotel or during dinners with clients, you add a lot of sauces to your food.
All this processed, high calorie foods will only hinder your energy and add unwanted calories to your daily intake.
Maybe you don’t see what your healthy coworkers are doing when travelling for business, but we have some ideas of how they stay on track.
During business trips, they take their own healthy travel-friendly snacks to eat on the go.
During business dinners with clients, they say no to alcohol drinks and sauces, gravy or fatty foods.
They keep healthy snacks at hand, such as nuts, fruits, seeds or raw veggies.
And they certainly don’t drink alcohol on the plane as they understand the negative side effects just aren’t worth it.
Traveling can be tiring enough as it is, by following what your healthy coworkers are doing, you’ll feel your best even when on the move and you won’t gain weight when traveling for business.
At your destination, eat healthy:
– Choose fresh instead of processed food at the airport,
– Choose a healthy breakfast at the hotel,
– Avoid the pastries served at meetings
– Avoid greasy foods at night to sleep well.
If you’re wondering what this looks like specifically, here is more information about healthy eating when traveling. Please also have a look at our post about healthy snacks that will keep you feeling great and satisfied while traveling.
Now It’s Your Turn
Don’t be left out of greater business success and satisfaction you can obtain simply by making a few changes.
Let these simple tips be your go-to guide for not gaining weight and looking your best.
How you eat has a powerful impact!
Do you want to know more about how to eat right and healthy dieting? Please check out our shop of healthy diet books for executives and busy people.
And don’t forget to leave a comment below!