We know what we should be eating for our health and wellbeing, and nutritionists are all too aware just how hard it is to change those habits of a lifetime. This month we look at healthy eating but not “what” you eat, rather the “how” and “when” of your eating habits. This can have a tremendous impact on your health and may be an easier starting point for developing different habits.
Start with breakfast
Do you remember when you last ate a really healthy breakfast, sat at a table, relaxed, chatting with others or idly reading the paper or listening to the radio? Probably on holiday, or as a birthday treat but for most of us breakfast is either a gulped down bowl of sugar-fix cereal, a tub of gloopy porridge or a slurp of coffee or tea. Or worse, nothing at all, with a passing thought that we might grab something later. We say we simply do not have the time for anything else.
What a negative start to the day! Indigestion, rumbling tummies, lack of get-up-and-go first thing energy, and no time to collect our thoughts. Just a mindless rush to the desk or to the door, a hurried shout of farewell and off we go, ill-equipped for the day ahead. The whole experience leaves us grumpy, our energy levels depleted, and our bodies prone to inflammatory attack. Out of control inflammation has been linked with many serious chronic medical conditions such as heart disease, diabetes, COPD and stroke[1].
Nutrition research reinforces one common finding: what you eat is closely aligned with health and performance – those who want to perform well must also eat well.
Currently we are facing crisis levels of type-2 diabetes and in many cases it all starts with our breakfast. Our reserves are depleted in the morning and if we do not take in protein, fibre and yes, glucose in the right amounts, in a steady, calm and controlled way then we plunge into a sugar fix mid-morning. We have not given our bodies enough time, enough attention or self-care so our mood suffers, concentration levels fall, and we lay ourselves open to pre-diabetes which if it is not checked, leads to type-2 diabetes. Have a look at the very practical and constructive NHS Healthier You Diabetes Prevention[2] if you feel this describes where you are and see how you can turn things around.
So, could you find ten minutes in the morning to sit quietly, a small, tasty and appetising meal in front of you and preferably free of scrolling through news headlines on our smartphones? Turn the start of the day into an “enjoying ten minutes of me-time” before you prepare for the challenges and activities you face ahead.
Onto lunch
It has become another meal more of us are skipping or rushing. By lunchtime we have normally driven ourselves at full speed through four or five-hours of demanding work and yet barely stopped to draw breath. It is another of those meals we eat on the go, sitting at our desk or parked up in a lay-by, spooning something vaguely nutritious into our mouths, a pasta bowl or a non-specific wrap, barely conscious of what we are eating as we make yet another telephone call, hurriedly check our smartphones or dash to the shops in what is laughingly called our “lunch-break.”
Time was when lunch was the main meal of the day – a time to sit down, perhaps with work colleagues or friends, catch up on the news, pause a moment or two with our own thoughts, and take in enough nutrition to set us up for the afternoon ahead. Just as important as what we eat is the fact that lunchtime was the time for a proper break – giving us the time to reflect, to absorb what has happened so far in the day and prepare ahead. Research shows that we are much more productive in the afternoon after taking a proper break.
“Doing lunch” –sitting with a friend, talking, thinking about what we would like to eat and eating slowly in a congenial atmosphere, is for most of us a “treat” or a “luxury”. But it is a luxury we can and should afford ourselves. It could be in a pleasant little café somewhere, equally it could be sharing sandwiches on a park bench with a friend, preferably before or after a stroll around the park. It could even be as simple as moving away from your desk, leaving your phone behind, and sitting quietly with others on a wall outside watching the world go by. We have been restricted for months from doing these things and so all the more reason to get back into the habit of re-connecting and feeling the positive benefits.
But take care, sitting down too much can be a risk to our health; it is thought to slow our metabolism which affects the body’s ability to regulate blood sugar, blood pressure and break down the body fat. So, remember to take a short walk, or sprint up those stairs before lunch. Physical Activity Guidelines[3] recommends breaking up long periods of sitting time for just 1 or 2 minutes. Tips include:
- Stand on the train or bus
- Take the stairs and walk-up escalators
- Set a reminder to get up every 30 minutes
- Stand or walk when on the phone
- Take a brief walk every time you take a coffee or tea break – aim for 10,000 steps a day
See if you can build this into your day.
We shall skip looking at Afternoon Tea as a meal except on those infrequent occasions when we reach a milestone birthday or occasion. Wonderful to think of dainty sandwiches, toasted muffins, two types of cake, and three types of tea. Let’s keep it real. This is not the script for Downton Abbey. Although taking an afternoon break is not a bad idea, stretching our bodies, giving our busy minds brief respite.
The evening meal
For most of us our next significant food intake will be the evening meal. We are tired, probably irritable if we have had no time for ourselves and sufficient nutrients, and almost invariably we are running late. For so many of us, that evening meal, the crowning glory after a busy day, is on a tray in front of the TV, hungrily taking in a heavy meal far too late in the evening for our bodies to digest our intake and cope with the late evening increase in blood sugar levels. We may find ourselves eating and drinking rather too much, feeling vaguely guilty but unable to stop ourselves since our resistance is low.
And the later we eat, the less time our body has to prepare for sleep as the muscles that digest and metabolise our food have to keep working when they should be resting. This can delay our ability to fall asleep and can prevent us waking feeling refreshed, alert and ready for the day ahead.
The picture presented so far may seem a bit of a horror story, an exaggeration perhaps but for many it will have more than a ring of truth about it. We can find ourselves slipping into these bad habits so easily and then finding it almost impossible to break them again. We know the consequence of these for our physical health, the strain we are putting on our bodies, and what we eat and how we eat also affects our mental health and our general wellbeing.
Our eating patterns now are leading us to less and less time for positive and relaxed social contact – connectedness with others which is so important to our personal, family and social wellbeing. It also leads us to being mindless rather than mindful. We simply do not know what we are eating, when we last ate or if indeed, we did eat. Our attention to our inner needs, our ability to care for ourselves, is being compromised and that time for reflection as the opportunity for a pleasurable experience squeezed out totally and consigned to special rare occasions and events.
Three changes for better eating
Being realistic we cannot change everything quickly, and old habits inevitably are hardest to break. But please try these three changes this month:
- Try giving yourself 10 minutes for breakfast. Lay out the space the night before, put things ready. Turn off the TV and phone and give yourself a proper, calm start to the working day.
- Take lunch away from your workplace or desk. At least twice a week take lunch with a friend or colleague, perhaps out in the fresh air. Give yourself thirty minutes.
- Stop work on time if you possibly can, at least twice a week if not every day. Eat earlier in the evening, a lighter meal, and try to eat with others, sat down and just enjoy being together.
You may not manage it every day, but give it a try.
In conclusion
How we eat needs to be a celebration, not only of the actual food, but of the time it gives us to be in touch with ourselves and with others. That celebration should be each and every day as an affirmation of life itself.
Live life well – you deserve it and so do the ones you love.
[1] Giugliana D,Ceriello A, et al. The effects of diet on inflammation, emphasis on the metabolic syndrome. J Am Coll Cardiol. (2006)
[3] UK Chief Medical Officers’ Physical Activity Guidelines report
Photo by Melissa Belanger on Unsplash
