Okay...we all know that this is a tough one. Everyone likes to eat, it is just old-fashioned human nature. The problem is that we have access to some delicious and not so healthy foods in the workplace (and everywhere else for that matter) and it is so easy to make a bad call.
If we understand, however, that some foods have a very bad effect on us, we can find it easier to avoid them. In this section, we'll look at the way our food choices affect our outlook or mood, how they regulate our level of energy, and how they impact our body weight.
We will then look at the modern "food pyramid," which the USDA recently renamed the "food plate" and changed into a plate segmented into the different food groups.
Your diet and your mood
Now, you may say "I hate dieting..." and that is a reflection of your ATTITUDE towards dieting, but this is not the same as eating and your mood. The diet that you consume is not the restrictive "diet" that you follow to lose weight, but is the different foods that you eat throughout each day in order to stay alive.
So, you can forget about hating dieting because that is not the mood we mean. What we mean is the way that your food choices directly impact how you feel at the moment, and you may be surprised to learn that what you put in your mouth has a lot to do about the way you may feel about the world an hour later.
For example, let's say you are pooped out at 3 PM and go to the candy machine for your favorite sweet. You enjoy that little pick me up (even though you feel very guilty about the calories and fat you just consumed, and this plays a part in your mood in a little while) but you notice that the energy you received from the candy is quickly burned up and before 5 PM you are "dragging" again. You are also feeling a bit cranky and moody too, and annoyed at yourself for making such a fattening choice.
What just happened? You ate what are known as "empty calories". These are a form of energy that hits the blood stream right away. This causes the bodily organ known as the pancreas to secrete insulin (which is used to digest sugar properly) in order to prevent the blood glucose from going too high at once. Sadly, this fails and creates what we call a "backlash" that lets the glucose level plummet again, and always within two to five hours afterward. It doesn't end here though because each time blood glucose levels "crash" they force the body to generate too much adrenaline, which causes nervousness and irritability.
You can avoid all of this by feeding the body a steady supply of good foods that are of the "long slow burn" type. This means the good old complex carbs like bananas or potatoes.
Diet and Energy
Did you just have an "aha!" moment or do you know all of this already? Most people are well aware of the need to avoid those empty calories, but are not always sure how to get an adequate supply of calories either.
The answer is very simple - you eat all of the time! Well, you eat at least five times per day. When you sit at a desk, you are not burning many calories, so it means you have to choose wisely. It also means that you need to choose the things that give you a good amount of energy without also slowing you down. So, if you are what many diet experts call a "grazer" who eats fruits and vegetables, grains, lean proteins, and low-fat dairy foods throughout the day...well, you aren't likely to ever reach for the candy bars and coffee again!
It really requires you to start at the very beginning and understand how diet and weight work...
Your diet and your weight
If you need to know how to maintain a healthy weight, meaning you are hoping to learn how many calories you should eat each day, you start with the "BMR".
This is the basal metabolic rate, which is the amount of energy needed for your body to function in an "at rest" or "seated at desk all day" state. You will be happy to hear that around 60 to 70 percent of your daily calories are burned up by this activity.
Use the famous Harris Benedict formulas below to figure out your BMR:
- Adult male: 66 + (6.3 x body weight in lbs.) + (12.9 x height in inches) - (6.8 x age in years); or
- Adult female: 65 + (4.3 x weight in lbs.) + (4.7 x height in inches) - (4.7 x age in years).
So, you can eat that much and not gain weight? Not yet! You also have to know the "thermic effects of food" which are really the calories used by the body to digest food that it has eaten! The easiest way to determine YOUR thermic caloric burn is to multiply the total number of calories consumed by ten percent.
So you take the BMR and the thermic effect and use those to understand if you have eaten enough that day? Not yet, because you have to remember that you DO move around, especially if you do all of the recommended exercising at work!
You will want to go online and get a table of figures that shows you how many calories you are burning each day. If you eat fewer than burned, you lose weight. If you keep things on an "even keel" you maintain the body weight, and if you eat more than you burn...well, you gain weight.
So, what is the optimal way to eat? Let's turn the USDAs recommendations for a good set of guidelines.
Food Plates
Whether you use the American Food Plate or the British Eatwell Plate or any other food guidelines, you are going to find that most use "food groups".
Food Groups
These tend to consist of five standard categories that include:
- Protein - This will always include: Beef; poultry; fish; eggs; nuts and seeds; and beans and peas, split peas, lentils, and tofu.
- Vegetables and Fruits
- Dairy - Milk, yogurt, cheese, and soy milk
- Grain - Bread, cereal, rice, and pasta. Whole -wheat bread, oatmeal, and brown rice as well as any other "whole grain" foods.
- Fat - both polyunsaturated or monounsaturated are the preferred options
The food pyramid system tended to break things up, and the food plates emulate this model.
Note that grains are the dominant food and that fruits and vegetables are "tied" for second. Next in line is protein, followed by dairy and then fats and sweets are given a tiny place in the configuration. Today, the food plate doesn't leave any space for fats or empty calories, but you have to be realistic and accept that you use sugar in your coffee or enjoy the occasional goodie. It is simply a good illustration of the basic motto: "all things in moderation".
That's all well and fine you say, but how and when do I eat these things? Step One is to make an eating schedule that prevents you from ingesting foods around two hours before bed. This is because it disrupts sleep and prevents absorption.
by Luke Norman
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