Healthy Eating While Working from Home

With it being the 1 year mark since the Belmar team has transitioned to a fully remote working environment, we thought it best to share some insights into what it has been like working from home. We collected tips from our team and consolidated them all in effort to make your work from home experience positive. As with many other occupations in which screen time is at an all time high, it’s even more paramount to be intentional about making healthy choices.

We’ll be honest, now more than ever, making healthier choices and watching our eating habits has been tough. We are able to eat whenever and whatever we would like in the comfort of our home. The fridge is literally steps away. This makes it extremely difficult to regulate our food intake, but also provides a lot of snacking temptations. If you’re encountering these same struggles, we’ve got some tricks for you!

Here are 10 of our tips to promote healthy eating while working from home:

10 Tips on how to eat healthier while working from home:

1. Drink lots of water — Seems pretty basic, but it’s often the most neglected thing when bouncing from virtual meeting to virtual meeting. Keep a water bottle on or next to your desk, so you can stay hydrated and avoid headaches. Aim to have at least 10 glasses of water a day. If you struggle keeping count, consider getting a big water bottle with measurements on the side.

2. Don’t work near the kitchen — The closer you are to the kitchen, the more you might be tempted to eat more frequently and pick up some unhealthy food items for convenience. Now this may not be possible, especially if you’re in a smaller space, but making a conscious effort to not work in the kitchen, may help to reduce this temptation.

3. Avoid buying junk food — By removing junk food from your house, you won’t be able to be tempted to eat some of the unhealthier food. This may be tough, so we’d recommend limiting yourself to one snack item when you go to the grocery store. If there’s less snacks in the house, there’s less chance of snacking. Simple, right?

4. Focus on whole foods — Purchase healthier foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts etc. to make better snack choices and healthier meals. Whole foods such can be equally as satiating as snack foods. This means that you’ll have the feeling of being full so as not to eat as much.

5. Reduce sugar, salt and oil intake — Avoid white sugar, try not to add more salt to foods high in sodium, and limit the amount of oil used for cooking. One cool tip for cooking is to use cooking spray instead of pouring oil over top. This ensures that there is an even amount of oil, but that you only spray what you need!

6. Meal prep lunches and measure snacks — Prep half the lunch or the whole lunch the night before and measure out your snacks into containers, almost as if you’re back at the office. This will help avoid eating too much and avoid unhealthy foods. Not only does this save time, but it also ensures that you don’t try to whip up something quick and unhealthy because you don’t have time to cook.

7. Plan out your lunch and snacks for the day — Allocate time blocks for lunch and snacks to ensure you eat and don’t miss any meals. While this may seem silly, if you were in the office, you would typically stop what you’re doing, and eat lunch. This doesn’t change just because you’re working from home. Do you have people who book meetings around the time in which you would eat lunch? Blocking off even 30 mins for lunch will ensure that you have some time to refuel for the 2nd half of the day.

8. Don’t work while you eat — Enjoy your meal take a proper break for yourself, this will help increase your productivity for the second half of the day.

9. Only order food for special occasions — Usually the healthier choice is cooking at home, so try to avoid ordering out frequently, as some of the high sugar, salt, oil meals will impact your health. By ordering food on special occasions, it becomes a novelty, and can be looked at as a reward for a week of hard work or healthy eating. Most importantly, don’t feel guilty if you don’t follow every single rule in the book. Healthy eating is a lifestyle, and should be looked at as a marathon instead of a sprint. We want to build healthy habits for life instead of tricks that are hard to sustain.
   

10. Watch health-conscious YouTube videos for cooking inspiration — Sometimes it is hard to come up with a variety of meals, so a great way to get some inspiration for new meals is watching videos on YouTube.

To get you started with some cooking inspiration, we have highlighted a few videos to help with quick, healthy and enjoyable meals.

Cooking Inspiration Videos:

1. Bento Box Lunch Ideas | Downshiftology | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m4jJsseY2Ic

2. Easy 5 Minute Lunch Recipes | HealthNut Nutrition | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePdr4pgvpD8

3. Healthy Vegan/Vegetarian Lunch Ideas From Monday to Friday | Erin Elizabeth | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KmzBwppxons

4. DIY Chipotle burrito Bowl | Fablunch | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PNAm7z9gOzk

5. Easy Healthy Lunch Ideas | Liezl Jayne Strydom | https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5px6tWvARA

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