5 Smart Ways to Eat Health During Office Hours

It can be a difficult challenge in today’s hustle-and-bustle society to maintain the habits that support our health and allow us to perform at our very best. As a result, we end up eating things we know we shouldn’t and a lot less of the things we know we should. We also skip our scheduled exercise sessions and don’t get enough high-quality sleep.

Managing all these habits on top of a regular 9-5 office job can become a complex juggling act, especially with the addition of life’s other responsibilities, like kids or those “networking” pub trips that you simply can’t miss out on.

One of the greatest challenges is eat health during office hours. When you’re up against tight deadlines and simply feel there aren’t enough hours in the day, it often feels like the right choice is to grab something quick that will enable you to get back to work quickly, or even to eat at your desk!

This leads to many office workers not bothering with the salads they’ve lovingly pre-prepared, or sometimes simply not bothering to prepare any in the first place. The store-bought meal-deals and greasy pastries keep on coming, leaving many office workers feeling far from optimal. This also often leads to an insidious form of weight gain, which can be difficult to get rid of, especially without the support of a personal trainer or an HCG injection program.

However, within this challenge lies great opportunity. For those that manage to develop and maintain a few key habits of healthy eating during office hours, half the battle is already won. They begin to feel better, the weight begins to fall off, and everything starts to get a little easier.

We’ve laid out the top 5 keystone habits that enable office workers to eat healthy during office hours, in a sustainable and enjoyable way.

Prepare Home-Cooked Meals for Work

Preparing home-cooked meals is the keystone habit number one. Without this habit, you’ll forever be looking for meals in the wrong places at times when you’re most stressed, which is a recipe for willpower destruction. When you’re at your busiest, you need to have a quick, healthy, pre-prepared meal available that you can tuck into without too much further effort. This is essential.

There are a few key considerations when choosing which meals you’re going to prepare for work…

Firstly, the meal must be something that you find tasty and enjoyable. There’s no point preparing meals that you hate because you’ll end up ignoring them and going straight back to the snack bar or vending machine.

Secondly, you must decide how often you’re going to prepare your meals and choose suitable ingredients for that time frame. For example, if you’re going to prepare your meals every single night, then avocado might be a workable and nutritious addition. But if you’re only doing meal preparation once a week, the avocado that you cut up on Sunday night is going to ruin your Friday lunchtime salad.

Thirdly, you must choose meals that make your meal preparation sustainable. It’s no use choosing meals that require 2 hours of preparation every night because you won’t be able to stick to it in the long run. Sustainability is just as important as preparation. In order to develop long-term habits, you must make the whole process efficient and enjoyable. Especially if you’re short on time.

Stay Away from Sugary Drinks

Most offices nowadays have at least one vending machine. Sugar-laden drinks are only a short walk and a small piece of change away. Many office workers use these beverages for a mid-afternoon pick-me-up. Some even use them for a 9 AM get-me-going. However, most people are aware that such drinks are awful for your health and make you feel worse in the long run.

Whether it’s sodas, juices, energy drinks, or even highly sweetened hot drinks, these beverages play havoc with your health and make you feel worse an hour or so after.

They cause a rapid increase in your body’s blood sugar levels, which is initially where the small pick-me-up comes from. Your body then releases large amounts of insulin, which forces your body to remove sugar from your blood and store it as fat. This has a double negative effect, as it causes a rapid drop in your blood sugar levels whilst simultaneously increasing fat storage.

After this blood sugar rollercoaster, you’re often left feeling lethargic, hungry, and unmotivated. At this point, many office workers turn to another pick-me-up. They also suffer the same insidious weight gain discussed above, which can be extremely hard to lose without professional help or programs. Personal trainers and HCG injection programs are two of the best ways to eliminate the fat gained from sugary drinks and junk food.

Drink Lots of Water

Staying hydrated is an essential health habit for so many reasons, not least as a replacement for all the sugary drinks you’ll no longer be drinking. Water supports so many of our bodily functions and processes, from our digestive system to our cardiovascular system. It also decreases cravings for sugary drinks and junk food, which is another added bonus.

Our hydration levels also have a significant impact on our brain function, hence the headaches and brain fog often experienced with dehydration. Staying hydrated keeps your body and brain functioning properly, allowing you to feel your healthiest and perform at your best.

Eliminate Junk Food

Vending machines increase the accessibility of all types of junk food in the same way as discussed above for sugary drinks. Crisps and sweets are two other commonplace items used for office pick-me-ups when workers are feeling stressed.

However, just as with sugary drinks, junk food will make you feel worse in the long run. Even if it doesn’t appear sugary, most junk food has a high glycemic index, meaning it will rapidly turn into sugar as soon as it’s digested. This will lead to the same blood sugar rollercoaster that you would experience if it was sugar.

Junk food is designed to create cravings, to keep you coming back for more as often as possible. However, if you can give it up for a short period, you’ll find that your taste buds reset and your cravings will dissipate, making it much easier to make healthier choices and eliminate junk food for the long-term.

People get hungry, especially when they’re working. It’s just how our bodies are designed. Unless you have some healthy snacks close to hand, you’ll be constantly fighting the urge to buy some junk food to satisfy your hunger, especially in the beginning.

Stashing some healthy snacks at your desk has a double positive the effect, providing satiety to support your efforts in eliminating junk food and offering you nutrition and nourishment, to keep you on the path of health.

Some excellent choices are nuts, berries, natural yogurts, and other fruits, which all contain a whole host of vitamins and minerals to keep your body and brain working optimally.

James Adams is a community manager at Hcg injections, he is passionate about website operations and learning the latest web trends.  When not working James enjoys working out at the gym and cycling.