It is hard to maintain a work life balance and sometimes the lack of it shows in our eating habits. Its true when one is really busy, food is sometimes the last thing we think about, and often we end up missing our meals at meal times. When we miss our meals we invite to our systems “binge eating”. This is because when we are very hungry it doesn’t seem to matter what we eat, anything will do even the wrong foods.
Why we do this?
To figure out why we do this, it’s important to review in a general fashion what a typical professional’s day is like:
On weekdays one tends to wake up nice and early, kids need tending and so one gets busy with that, the clock is ticking your adrenalin is pumping so sleep is pushed aside by having caffeine (Coffee/tea) with biscuits. This gives you your first insulin surge which gives a quick pick up and soon will plummet down, giving way to rightful hunger. Other things start to occupy your mind, for instance fixing your spouse’s lunch etc. Eventually you’re out of time for breakfast, what with having to get ready and getting to work on time and not to mention the late dinner last night that makes you feel full in the morning.
Once the day’s work begins, it’s hard to get out of the work net, emails to send out, and phone calls to make, meetings to attend and even bosses to please! At this point nerves are almost collapsing because of the adrenalin rush so you feel a gnawing hunger in the pit of your stomach, what do you do? Reach out for the cream crunchy biscuits (the cream sugar and white flour give you another pick up surge and the extra sugar rush gets stored as fat).
Then comes lunch time and the food might not always be appetizing, it depends on how much time you got to pack lunch. This is one meal after which one tends to slow down and feel a bit lazy, this is so because carbs are almost always part of lunch. But the day must go on, so another dose of caffeine is a must, giving your nerves the needed jolt to go on! The day does start to come to an end at the office, its time already to organize for the next day, so one gets busy with notes and filling etc.
Coming home means the emotional guard is let down and to cope with distressing you eat non-stop. It could be anything from namkeen bhujia, bread, nuts, biscuits and many a junk food options. This is considered as emotional eating, when the stress hormones “over ride” real hunger signals and overeating occurs. One has to know since one is starved during the day one justifies overeating (a sudden food load on a starving stomach is the quickest method of fat storage). Once you are numb with food and the only feeling is of a stretched stomach, Crashing into bed is the only agenda! Till the next day the madness starts all over again.
A rough nutritional index of a day like the above is:
Calories: 1800
Vitamins: deficient in vitamin B complex, vitamin C, vitamin A and iron.
Minerals: Stress related imbalance of many minerals, possibly phosphorus, calcium, selenium, zinc and manganese.
Fat content: 35 to 40 Gms.
High glycemic index foods: Most foods that we take in binge eating.
Fiber in foods: very low
Processed foods/fresh foods: 50/50
This is no way to lead a healthy life, so one has to at some point incorporate healthy eating habits into their busy work schedules. Or else there is no end to the lifestyle diseases one will have to endure. On the up side our health is everything and eating right or exercising can actually be fun!