Healthy Eating Outside of the Home

A good nutritional plan is one that we can put into practice. Unfortunately, life often plays tricks on us and, despite our best intentions, not everything is always that simple. Today I would like to raise an important issue: how to eat healthy when we are away from home. I am glad that we can travel more and more again, we go out to meet friends, to restaurants, cafes, cinemas, etc. Some of you have already planned your holiday trips and summer parties. It is worth considering a few issues related to nutrition in advance to avoid uncontrolled snacking, overeating, sudden hunger pangs and problems associated with it 🙂

 

At work

I believe that I don’t have to remind you how crucial regular mealtimes are. No matter how many meals you eat, it is extremely important to do so at appropriate intervals. Thanks to this, you will avoid hunger pangs and feelings of weakness during the day.

The meals you eat should be adapted to your lifestyle. If you can’t reheat them at work, pack food in your lunchbox that will taste great when served cold, such as a vegetable salad, a nutritious fruit smoothie and a tasty, healthy sandwich. Have a warm meal when you return home.

If you don’t have much time for a break at work, choose these convenient options: fruit and vegetable cocktails or smoothies, healthy snacks (bars, nuts). However, I encourage you to allot a quarter of an hour each day between your duties for lunch. You do need energy to work effectively!

Try to plan your menu for the next few days or at least for the next 2 days. It is a good idea to make a list of all the products you need to prepare dishes and use it when shopping: it is an additional saving of valuable time and you also avoid food waste. You can also use the Diet & Training by Ann application, where, apart from the diet, you will also find a ready shopping list (you can download the application HERE) ?

 

“In a rush” and on the move

How many times have you experienced a situation where, despite having carefully planned all the events of the day, something went wrong? Your doctor’s appointment was delayed, you had to do overtime at work, the traffic was terrible… we all know it only too well. Such events often make it difficult to stick to the eating plan you had previously prepared.

What can we do in such cases? I have my own methods and I’d love to share them with you ?

I always have an emergency snack on me, which does not require special storage conditions and works as a quick meal in the event of a sudden hunger attack, when my return home is unexpectedly delayed. What do I usually have? Most often they are healthy bars (HERE), ready-made smoothies with a good composition (HERE), mixes of nuts or dried fruit.

 

 

Another suggestion is a ready meal in the fridge – and I don’t mean prepackaged supermarket meals with an endless list of additives on the label! On the contrary, thanks to the good organization of time, I am usually able to plan my day in such a way that I have some time to prepare a dish in the evening that I can store in the fridge. Thanks to this, when I return home the next day, I can eat a wholesome meal quickly. Look for inspiration, among others on my blog (HERE). You will find plenty of simple and tasty recipes there ? 

Remember about water! When our timetable is full, we forget about drinking the right amount of fluids during the day. Being at home, it is easy to put a jug with water and a glass within sight and easy reach. It is a bit more difficult when, for example, we run from kindergarten to work, from the office to the store, then back to the car and suddenly the evening finds us, and we realize we’ve only had our morning coffee, tea and a few sips of water. How to prevent it? 

Make a habit of taking your water bottle with you whenever you leave the house. If this is not enough for you or seems to hard, use some helpful tools, e.g. my application, in which you can enter how much water you have drunk on a given day and check if this amount is enough.

Note that you should drink not only when you are thirsty! We should hydrate the body throughout the day, drinking several sips of water at a time.

 

Parties and celebrations

These are probably the most difficult situations for our diet, although I will try to convince you that it doesn’t have to be so! Of course, I am not going to persuade you to give up meetings with relatives and friends, because good relations and relationships with others are crucial for our well-being!

However, when such opportunities to indulge happen too often, it can actually translate into, for example, weight gain and the extra kilos. How can you avoid this?

If your friends invite you to a barbecue or a party, it may be a good idea to bring a gift in the form of a healthy cake, dessert or vegetable salad, which will perfectly match the hosts’ menu.

Such a salad is a source of fiber, which will make you feel full faster and eat less of not so healthy dishes. Maybe every guest could bring one dish? It is a very convenient solution also for the hosts, thanks to which they will save time and will surely be very pleased ?

If you have no influence on what the menu will look like, remember that you can still choose what lands on our plate. Follow this simple rule: the more vegetables, the better.

Don’t forget about water! 100% fruit juices without added sugar can complement our diet, but they shouldn’t dominate our fluid intake. If you ask for water, it won’t be a problem for sure ?

 

 

In restaurants, cafes, in the city…

Here, the choice is usually much greater. We are the ones to pick the place and the dish. Fortunately, more and more attention has been paid to healthy eating, which somehow forced restaurateurs to take into account the fact that more and more people want to eat healthy. In addition, no one is surprised by the fact that the menu includes several (if not a dozen) vegetarian, vegan, dairy-free or gluten-free items. We have ever increasing culinary demands related to our personal choices or health.

It’s a good idea to review the menu of the place you are interested in before you go there, e.g. on the Internet. This way you can check if a place offers meals that are suitable for you. 

Also, don’t be fooled by the waiter’s courtesy ? We are often offered a dessert, another glass of drink, wine, etc. after the main dish. There’s nothing wrong with that  but it’s always a good idea to wait a bit after the meal and think if we are really hungry or maybe it’s just another craving. Our body needs time to receive the information that the stomach is already full.

I do hope that you will find these tips useful and they will help you maintain healthy habits every day,  no matter where you are and what surprises you. Good luck! ?