Unsafe at Any Size

One of our most challenging environments to stay healthy is at work, because unless you work at home alone (which has its own challenges), you can’t completely control your environment.  If you work with other people, they’ll bring donuts for meetings, leftover birthday cake, leftover halloween candy, baked goodies, you name it.  And then some of us have to contend with taco trucks, vending machines and other purveyors of crappy food.

So how do you stay on track?  Here are 5 tips that have worked for me:

1. Make a rule: You don’t eat the junk food at work.  Period.  Not one taste, nothing.  Why?  Moderation is hard to come by.  If treats are an option, even if you don’t give in you’ll obsess and make yourself miserable.  Tell yourself you’re just not the kind of person who eats that food.
2. Avoid it.  If one of your coworkers has a candy bowl you can’t resist, ask to meet at your desk.  If you can get somewhere without passing the break room, do it.
3. Push it away.  I’ve literally moved cookies down the hall away from where I’d see them.  And… someone moved them back!  So, I moved them even further away.  This time those cookies didn’t find their way back.  If someone brings donuts to the meeting, push the box down the table away from you.  And block your view with a cup of tea.
4. Imagine it to be totally disgusting.  That’s not cream cheese for those bagels, it’s rancid Crisco.  Those chocolate chips?  Bugs.  Make it less than desirable in your mind, and you can stop thinking about it.
5. Make a deal.  If all else fails, make a deal with yourself.  Have some gum, drink some tea, and tell yourself if you still REALLY REALLY want it after 30 minutes, you can have a limited amount of it.  But you’ll have to track it.  With any luck, it will be gone by then.
6. Bring your own food.  I always have oatmeal, canned soup, etc so I can’t use the excuse that I’m too busy to get food.

Remember, it’s not a treat if it’s every day.  Even if you can’t control everything about your environment, you can control your responses and prepare yourself.

Meetings are a necessary evil.  There’s just no better way of getting a group of people to communicate, think about, and resolve issues if the meeting is well-structured.

I’m very lucky that at my job our meetings are productive… and few.  Nevertheless, it’s still challenging to handle my group’s departmental meetings.  My commute is twice as long, meaning I have no time for my usual exercise.  I also have less control over what’s available to eat.  And it’s stressful… I’m worried I’ll get stuck in serious traffic and won’t be able to pick my kids up in time.

I used a few strategies this time to good effect:

1. Snacks.  I forgot to bring snacks the first day, and found myself insanely hungry.  The first chance I got I went to the store to buy a nut mix.  Now, nuts aren’t my first (or second or third) choice for a snack ordinarily, but the protein and fat were great.
2. Breakfast.  Our VP thoughtfully catered our breakfast, a traditional one.  I brought a sandwich made of ww bread and some PB2 for breakfast (2 points!), but also had about an egg’s worth of scrambled eggs and a tiny bit of potatoes (because I love them so).  Having my own breakfast made it easier to resist the sausage and biscuits, but I should have brought more and passed on the buffet.
3. Exercise.  Having to sit in a car for 4 hours a day, on top of sitting in meetings, made me really regret having to miss my run or class.  I managed to take a ten minute walk around a park, though, during a break.  The sunshine and the breeze helped me.
4. Lunch.  We could order our lunch from a limited menu.  Given the “salads” were all mayonaisse based, I asked that be excluded from mine.  I also asked for no chips, and brought my own side quinoa salad.  But I should’ve thrown out the cookie that came with lunch so I wouldn’t eat it later.  I could’ve thrown out half the sandwich, too.  Next time, I’ll plan better that way.

I’ve got a few more tactics for next quarter… anyone else have any good meeting mitigation strategies?