You know you need to eat healthy food every day to get the energy you need at work as well as doing all of your other routine activities, like exercising, playing with your kids, and doing household chores. When you’re working hard to juggle all your responsibilities, choosing healthy food should be your priority. No matter how busy you are, there are effective ways to still attain a healthy mind and body during your working day.
In this post, you’ll learn the step by step ways on how to choose nutritious foods that suit your active lifestyle.
Step 1: Know Your Nutritional Requirement
At different stages of a person’s life, there’s a nutritional requirement that needs to be met. It’s essential you know your dietary requirements so that you can then know the right foods to buy and identify any gap between your needs, food-buying, and eating practices. This step is crucial to avoid obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular problems.
You don’t want to miss out on getting the right nutrients your body needs just because you missed this critical step. That’s why it helps to keep healthy snacks from SnackNation at hand, so you can grab one when you’re hungry at work.
Here are the factors affecting your nutritional requirements:
- Age and sex: Men have different nutrient requirements than women, and so do young and active adults from older adults. Generally, adult men need more vitamin C, B vitamins, and zinc than women. Women, on the other hand, need more iron than men.
- Physical activity: Consider whether you’re involved in active work or if you’re working sitting all day in front of the computer. For active people, fat is a crucial nutrient in the diet, which comprises 20% to 35% of a person’s total energy intake.
- Physiological states: Bodily changes may include lactation or pregnancy, as well as the presence of any medical conditions.
- Climate: Hot or cold weather may affect your metabolism.
Step 2: Make A List Of The Food You Need
Before heading to the supermarket, it’s important to list down the food you need to buy. Of course, you have to try and choose healthy food from different food groups for a truly effective balanced diet. Making a list avoids compulsive buying of unhealthy food, such as junk food, processed foods, and foods too high in sugar or fat.
Here are some examples of food items you can add to your list to help you meet your daily nutritional needs:
- Breakfast: Eggs, berries, oatmeal, nuts, green tea, avocado, banana, multigrain bread, and Greek yogurt.
- Lunch: Fish, chicken, meat, fruits, and vegetables.
- Dinner: Salad, brown rice, burrito, meat, fruits, and vegetables
Step 3: Choose Healthy Food Substitutes
If the food or ingredient you want is not available or you’re too busy to shop, cook, and prepare food, you can order healthy foods online. Healthy meal kit delivery services are now available, offering easy to cook nutritious meals for the entire week. While having a great massage in your office, you can sit back and order a healthy meal using your smartphone, tablet, or laptop. Expect fast delivery and excellent customer service from trusted and reputable companies.
Here are some examples of food substitutes:
- Cereals or oatmeal bowls can be replaced with delicious and energy-giving oatmeal bars with low fat and sugar content.
- Substitute fresh fruits with dried fruits you can order online.
- Substitute french fries with healthy sweet potato fries or zucchini fries.
- Choose coconut milk rather than regular cream for your healthy food recipes.
Step 4: Cooking And Preparing Healthy Food
When you’re working hard, you might find cooking from scratch time-consuming and a huge hassle. However, you should not skip proper food preparation. If you don’t have the time to cook every day, you can prepare meals for the entire week through freezing. The food is preserved with freezing, including its nutrients, freshness, and taste.
Here’s how:
- Prepare and cut the ingredients, like meat cuts and veggie slices (for every meal) in a ziplock and place in the fridge. Airtight plastic food storage is preferred to avoid introducing oxygen that can quickly spoil the food.
- When you’re ready to consume the food, you can take it out of the fridge and cook, or place it in a bowl and cook in the microwave.
Conclusion
Once you’re able to practice choosing healthy food, it’s easier for you to create a meal plan every week. You’ll also develop good eating habits and avoid unhealthy food over time. Choosing the right food for your needs highly depends on your nutritional requirements, the type of food you buy, food substitution, and cooking and preparation.
*collaborative post
