6 Ways To Improve Your Diet At Work

I generally eat around 7 AM, 10 AM, 12ish, and dinner when I get home anywhere from 4:30 to 6 PM, then I'm pretty much done for the day. I rarely want anything in the evening.

I learned to carry fruit when I owned Bushel & Peck Produce Company with my husband way back in the 80s. We lived upstairs so I'd just take a bag wherever I went with an apple, grapes, and whatever was in season that wouldn't squish. I'd also carry a small baggie of granola mix that I'd put together with a bit of granola, nuts, raisins, and so forth. That habit helped me get into the best shape of my life.

Granola mix is high in fat and calories but when you think of it as "survival food" then you will be reasonable in how much you eat--at least that's what I do. Same with jerky. Think: Survival food. A little bit goes a very long way.

Excellent post.

Thanks for the tips. I found them to be really timely for me because I start my first real 'post grad school' job in about 6 weeks, and I know it will be a challenge to maintain a healthy lifestyle at first.

The best thing I've found when trying to maintain a good diet (or when dieting) is to plan ahead. It's when I don't plan ahead, and I wait until I'm crazy hungry, that I end up eating not only bad food, but too much bad food. A tip to incorporate into the ones in this blog entry is to buy everything you're going to eat for breakfast and lunch on Sunday. Then bring it in Monday morning. That way you'll have everything you need througout the week, instead of finding yourself in a starving craze and ending up at McDonald's.

I work first shift (I usually get in at around 5 am) and I eat breakfast at 8 or 9 am. I generally pack my own stuff for breakfast...plain instant oatmeal packets, fruit, etc. One of my coworkers buys cereal and keeps it at work and buys milk and keeps it in the work fridge. Hey, whatever works. It sure beats donuts or muffins or some garbage from McDonald's.

I've long brought in egg beaters, with some softened frozen spinach in a liquid-tight container to work for breakfast. Pop that in the microwave for a minute or so, stir in a wedge o' cheese, and it's delicious and healthy and carries me over to lunch. Co-workers look on in amazement and envy, and yet I've never seen anyone duplicate it. So easy.

Thanks for the post! I'm about to start an internship where I work the normal 9-5 and was getting worried about what kinds of foods I could bring to snack on.

These are all great suggestions. My work schedule varies so it's always tricky!

Other ideas for at-work food include:

- Instant soup cups
- Whole grain crackers and peanut butter
- Homemade whole grain muffins
- Dried fruit
- Sunflower seeds

egg beaters and spinach, Its my favorite breakfast, i use fresh spinach and spray butter, i also have some grapfruit along with that.

For J.J., there's no need to substitute eggs for egg beaters. Dietary cholesterol does NOT harm your cholesterol levels.

Anyways, My diet ain't perfect, as I still crave on bowls of whole grain cereals with a banana both for breakfast and for before bed. However, for lunch, usually is a vegetarian sandwich and an egg salad (Not the egg-and-potato salad, but with two boiled eggs with raw spinach leaves, pickes, and mushrooms with olive oil and balsmic vinigrette, and unfried fish with vegtables for dinner. I usually have apples, some dark chocolate, and nuts for snacks. Yes, they serve fruit at the cafateria, but I brought in a tub of mixed raw nuts that I mixed myself, but if I forget, they do sell nuts, but it's roasted, and has a little salt in it.

I bring in bags of vegetables and munch on these instead of heading for the chocolate and crisps. I generally go for things that are either at least partly preprepared, or normally eaten whole. Initially, people give you strange looks for munching on stuff like fresh peas, broccoli florets, mangtout etc but the idea is slowly catching on.
I also keep a large glass of water always to hand, to make sure I drink enough.
At lunchtime, I go for the best meal available from the canteen - not always easy on the days when there is only a choice between fish+chips or a baked potato with a mayonnaise-laden filling! I always follow this by a piece of fruit.

i'm happy to read that i follow this guide quite closely. I usually bring 2 pieces of fruit with me (usually an apple and an orange) and a piece of cheese as snacks. in the morning, i eat a good bowl of cereal and by mid morning, i am already munching on a piece of fruit. i think the guide above is missing something, DRINK WATER. keeping hydrated is good for your body and helps keep you feeling fresh. i try to drink at least 2 liters of water every day. i also keep a bag of trail mix fruits and nuts from Costco in my desk. this is for the late afternoon munchies. again, makes me thirsty for lots of water. i stopped drinking coffee and i have never felt better. coffee makes me experience highs and lows. i never liked that feeling much. i do like coffee once in a while, usually on weekends and in small quantities.

Great suggestions, Jim! I especially like the idea of setting fruit out on your desk so that it's constantly in your face as a reminder :). When I lost my first 25 lbs, I was making sure to bring my lunch most days, including a small snack for the morning (the gap between breakfast at 6:00 a.m. and 12:00 lunch made me woozy). I was usually okay for the afternoon, but I made sure to fill my belly with a satisfying lunch.

My big problem was water. I don't know why, I just have a hard time drinking so much bland, tasteless water :). Part of my problem was that after getting a glass of water, it would inevitably be luke warm by the time I drank it, instead of the nice cold water that came out of the cooler. I ended up solving that by taking a 2 litre jug of water and filling it every day with the cooler, and then sticking it in the freezer for about an hour or so. It was frozen enough by then that it thawed throughout the day, and I would always have cold water at my desk. No excuse that I'm too lazy to get up and get water, either :).

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day as it has an powerful affect on the rest of your day with eating and the way you feel. Give your day that energy boost and eat a healthy breakfast.

I love this entry. I work 9-4 in an office and have just recently began trying to become healthier and control my weight. I live with my fiance and his family, there are five of us all together, and it can be pretty hard to eat healthy at home due to the fact that many of the snack and food choices offered there are unhealthy and if i bring in something i rarely get any of it because it gets eaten by someone else. So to be able to eat healthier at work will be a good start. Also don't forget how good yogurt is, you can't go wrong with yogurt. :) Thanks for great advice everyone! Hope you have an amazing rest of the day!

egg beaters and spinach, Its my favorite breakfast, i use fresh spinach and spray butter, i also have some grapfruit along with that.

My big problem was water. I don't know why, I just have a hard time drinking so much bland, tasteless water :). Part of my problem was that after getting a glass of water, it would inevitably be luke warm by the time I drank it, instead of the nice cold water that came out of the cooler. I ended up solving that by taking a 2 litre jug of water and filling it every day with the cooler, and then sticking it in the freezer for about an hour or so. It was frozen enough by then that it thawed throughout the day, and I would always have cold water at my desk. No excuse that I'm too lazy to get up and get water, either :).

Also don't forget how good yogurt is, you can't go wrong with yogurt. :) Thanks for great advice everyone! Hope you have an amazing rest of the day!

I bring in bags of vegetables and munch on these instead of heading for the chocolate and crisps. I generally go for things that are either at least partly preprepared, or normally eaten whole.

Great Post! I never skip breakfast and I also bring an apple with me to work just incase I get hungry before lunch. The fiber in the apple is great at calming hunger.

Always always always I have a snack ready. Generally it's cashew nuts (I do low-carb) but sometimes I'll also have chicken or other meats available too.

And don't forget water! Water helps me resist hunger pangs as well.

Data points, Barbara

For me, at work- I vowed to never let my co-workers see me eating "junk".. At first, it wasn't on purpose, I was just trying to be healthier at work for a lot of reasons,.. then, I slowly began to realize that because none of my co-workers ever saw me pigging out or eating "junk" at work, they did not even bother me with morning donuts or afternoon McDonald's runs. It turned out that accidentally appearing to be a 'health-nut' really worked out in my favor! And now, I find even more pressure not to make a bad (food) choice because I know everyone is watching me. It is a great silent motivation-- so if you can, eat healthy at work all the time and soon others will just expect it from you. Nothing like a little pressure! ;)