[Imagine that title in the tune of Where Have All the Cowboys Gone?]
In June, I got laid off. Pretty soon after that, my stomach issues returned from all of the stress.
in July, I started marathon training.
Some people have a hard time eating healthily in an office, but I find that so much easier because of the regular routine: bring oatmeal or English muffin + sunflower butter + banana for breakfast, bring lunch or stop at one of the healthy lunches around my office, bring healthy afternoon snack or just don’t have afternoon snack. I was in a regular routine, and I very rarely got some sort of unhealthy lunch just because it was easier not to. I usually walked over to the vending machine, realized there was nothing healthy (or even a worthy unhealthy “splurge”) and walked back to my desk. I was generally pretty good at pretending candy bowls didn’t exist, or actually stopping at just one.
These days, I have this staring me down for most of day:
And to be perfectly honest, it’s not easy to stick to my healthy eating habits at a not-so-easy time of my life with constant access to food.
While training for a marathon.
When I was overweight, grazing wasn’t usually my problem–overeating of rich and/or fried food was. But these days, it’s hard not to graze. Some tortilla chips and hummus here, some nuts there.
Between the tough times, the marathon training and the stomach issues, I’m definitely eating a little differently than I used to. More carbs, less vegetables. I’ve never tried to eat “perfectly,” because there is no eating “perfectly,” I’m not perfect, and I like unhealthy food just as much as healthy food sometimes, but I’m just not eating as healthy as I used to. With my upcoming marathon and current taper, it’s important to eat healthily–especially since I’ll be running less.
So, I’m going to try to bring some more vegetables back into my life so that after the marathon, I don’t gain a ton of weight from continuing to eat like I’m running for hours a day.
So you might start seeing more of my meals again. Oatmeal with almond milk, sunflower butter and a banana this morning.
Brown rice with a chicken burger, bruschetta and broccoli for lunch. (Dinner was pretty much the same, except I switched out the bruschetta for some pesto. Living on the edge.)
Also, I got a Brussels stalk at Trader Joe’s? Have you guys ever seen of these? It was so random, I had to buy it. Mostly so I could photograph it and blog it.
HE’S BACK! He’s been in NJ since Thursday because I had a busy weekend, but my sweet little boy is back.
So–if you work from home, how do you not eat everything in sight? If you do work from an office, what’s your biggest downfall–or your biggest secret to staying healthy at work?
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I stay busy!! Easy to do though, with a 3 to a 5mo and a dog!!
I can totally relate -- I work from home and it can be hard not to snack all day long. I try to keep water with lemon beside me at all times. If it's there, I'll drink it and be able to (mostly) avoid over-snacking.
Love the brussels sprout stalk! I bought one last year for the same reason. :)
My biggest temptation is when there are little snacks and treats sitting around at work - I'm usually pretty good at avoiding them but especially during marathon training would justify extra carbs, snacks, etc. Definitely cutting back now that the marathon is over and being extra careful about packing my own lunch and snacks!
I work in an office (I'm in sales) and I totally agree with you - it's so easy to bring my breakfast (protein smoothie), mid-morning snack, healthy lunch, afternoon snack and not be tempted by anything! My company stocks snack foods for free and it's not all that healthy... so I try to avoid it!
When I work from home, I definitely graze more, I think because it's so accessible! I'm a total grazer and sometimes graze my way through an entire's days worth of meals! My advice would be to try to stick to your normal office routine... at home! It may take a little while to develop a habit but once you do, I bet it'll be easy to keep up! Whenever I work out mid-day I usually eat healthier too because I know my workout will go a lot better if I have good stuff in my system!
Oh boy, this one sure is tough. I always go grocery shopping with the best intentions, yet by the time I'm checking out, a few uh-oh's have slipped in. I have to be really careful when shopping, so half of my purchases usually end up stuffed into the magazines and on top of counters so I don't buy them. I try to buy a variety of food- stuff that requires a bit of effort and imagination. Lots of produce because it is more expensive than packaged goods so I'm less likely to let it go to waste. With my light schedule at college right now, I have lots of spare time so I try to just have lots of healthy options. Wouldn't life be so easy if food didn't make you gain weight?
I struggle with not taking enough snack food to work because I don't want to snack, then ending up at the snack machine faced with animal crackers each day :/. I know I should take stuff and leave at my desk, but I generally like things that will go bad (fruit); and hate to waste money buying single fruit in the cafeteria. If I planned a week's snack in advance, I think it would be much better! Generally when I work from home I do better, since I have more freedom on when I can eat and what I can eat and it is just a few steps from my desk, so much easier to take a quick break than make a big production like when I have to go to the cafeteria to get lunch and decide how hungry I'm going to be for the rest of the day.
Yep, I'm a grazer, and I'd be lying if I said I didn't gain weight when I was looking for jobs. I was trying not to go out to save money, but then I'd be home eating a handful of granola here, a little chocolate there ... The one thing that worked was moving my daily coffee to the afternoon, because that was a treat I could look forward to. I'm definitely eating better in the office, but I'm also lucky that it's one with minimal snacky stuff around.
I've never had tasted Brussels stalk before, i guess i was in Ny when i first tasted Brussels stalk. Now i am big fan, I am not a great cook but I like to buy brussels sprouts on the stalk. They taste fresher. However, it's more work to cut them off the stalk and there is more trimming work than with packaged sprouts.
Oh man, I'm home a lot with two toddlers and it's hard to not eat a ton while they're napping. Sometimes that's all I want to do because I'm tired too. I just have to keep busy and plan my meals out ahead of time.
Brussel stalks? I've never seen them. They're cute though. :) I kind of want to decorate it. Weird.
I totally agree that it's harder to eat healthy when I'm sitting at home all day. If I'm out and about doing things, then I don't even think about wanting to eat but when I'm at home and bored well..I tend to graze a bit too!
And now thanks to this post I'll never sing the cowboys song the same :p