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Nutrition in a Work Atmosphere

This entire segment is going to be about lunch at work because it is so important and so difficult to get it right and there's so many factors there really can derail us that it's worth addressing head on I know this is a huge trouble point for a lot of people um so anybody read hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy like douglas adams lovett sci fi geek over here s o this is from that book this quote time is an illusion lunchtime doubly so right? I love this because one of one of the biggest complaints I hear from people is I just don't have time to eat a work screw healthy, you know, like that's right out the door, like if I could just get anything in my mouth, I'm lucky and we're going to talk about that why it isn't necessarily true and how to get around it. All right? So we talked about these two things in the last segment, but basically lunch at work is so important cause it's almost a quarter of your meals every week, so you really want to nail this one it's a big impact homecourt hab...

it if you get it right and again it's not a special occasion, I can't stress this enough is like just because work is stressful we feel like it gives us license toe have something really indulgent every day but that is not an attitude that's going to get you in the healthier direction like we wantto get these big impact things really healthy and then we can save our indulgences for when they're actually worth it like not with our co workers with our family people we love not that you don't love your co workers but too often uh also because of that there's so many factors here like we talked in the last segment about the power of your environment, right tio influence how much and how well you eat and we saw that when you sit down in a lovely table with with napkins and candlelight you make much better decisions you don't control these factors in your office, right? So we you're going to need to be extra vigilant and extra yeah, you need a few more strategies because you're going to be working against things like that instead of those things working with you like happens at home and does anybody here work in an office with a whole lot of junk food? No, you do I know you guys. You I've already heard people complaining about the star wars uh um jane sorry it's it's not constant but it's a it's a evan flow but there's always dove chocolate and I work at work right and and what's it like what also have been flows is your temptation right so right, it's really tough. I mean, I think and also offices tend to be the place where people come dump extra food that they don't want in their house. Have you guys noticed this? Like, like I baked cookies here guys have these? So are some other thing or, like here's, my kid's halloween candy you wanted out of my house and lives like dump it all over the place, and then you guys are left to eat it, and I know I used to do this all the time when anybody would bring me something I didn't really want to eat, I just like the pigs at work late it let's just take it in there on they would every time, but you know that if it's in your house, you'll eat it. So it's sort of this dumping ground. Um, and also, I'd love to actually love to hear the online audience if you guys have any, uh, I wanted I'd love to hear about your office like what makes it hard to you too healthy? They're what makes it difficult. What what good things is your office doing to make it easier for you to make healthy choices, I'd love to hear all those things. Another thing I hear from people all the time and this is this is start where it starts getting a little deeper you know how much I love psychology eyes that office culture can put a lot of pressure on you so I've heard people say you know any healthy sounds great and all but we eat lunch is a team and the team really values chevys whatever like generic restaurant down the street and we do this every day I don't want to be the person who looks like not a team player by like bringing in my own lunch because it feels like it's awkward it feels like I'm judging them or they start to judge me or or I just in general just feel like I'm breaking the culture of the office and I don't want to be that person and that's a real challenge because this isn't just like, oh, I'm independent minded and I do what I want to do like you have tio have a good relationship with your co workers and you have to I mean your livelihood is based on this so it's not it's not his trivial is just ignoring people in doing what you want you sort of have toe negotiate and navigate around other people's psychology in addition to your own which adds a whole nother level because it's hard enough to just control yourself when you're dealing with other people it's a lot tougher so we've touched on this a bit, but I think it especially comes into play at work because there's a lot of pressure work to perform I mean and it isn't even a working a job that's like super easy you don't have any of these pressures yeah, I didn't think so you know you got home you want me to work at home but I have worked in places where I've actually been chastised for reading on my lunch break I think my lunch break and I got just eyes for reading a book um so that's not cool but it happens and so there's sort of this expectation that if you can work carter you should be working harder and that's that's a lot of pressure um yeah, but and then on top of it there's deadlines right really important deadlines you have bosses to impress you have managers deadlines to meet all these things clients to deal with and ah I hear this all the time from people there like, gosh, I'd love to eat healthier at work but it's just way too crazy right now like I've got you know q one earnings reports I gotta put all these together they're expecting this on their desk next week, you know, and then on top of the other life's tough it can get really stressful, but one thing that we touched on briefly yesterday, but I really want to emphasize again today the cognitive aspect of eating well and the cognitive aspect of getting your exercise, because we would want it. We think I don't have time when I'm at work, you know, I don't have time to take energy for this stuff, but the truth is that when you do eat better, when you d'oh exercise more, your focus improves dramatically. It's not a little it's, not subtle, you have, like, if you ever have that, like you eat something, maybe a little sugary or a little indulgent in the afternoon, and then you have that crash that like, and you're just like head fog, and you can't concentrate when you eat well, that doesn't come that goes away. And so what you're actually able to do is squeeze a lot more quality time out of your workday, and as a result, you feel better. I mean, you're just like your way less stressed about everything you do, much better work, you know, the quality of your work drastically improves. You can actually sometimes even finished faster, you know? You can just be more productive, and if you have to stay later, you actually have the stamina to do it, you know, you can actually power, power through and put in those extra hours like, you know, like I was talking about with my with my when I was building my website at nights while working in the lab during the day. I mean, I was getting by on very little sleep and and working well into the night, having to produce really high quality work without a good dinner and without having gone to the gym that day, I don't think I would have been able to do it at all because your your beat you're exhausted and you just don't have the stamina. So, uh, and and don't forget like other really important things like I've heard lots of people argue these days that creativity is the new literacy, right, and creativity often comes in much greater amounts when you're when you're in a good head space and exercise walking all these things actually improve. Creativity gives you a little your brain actually needs a rest at some point during the day and taking, you know, a half hour tow walk around the block can actually fuel more creativity to just give that little your brain a teensy bit of arrest and then add to what you're doing later, owen immunity and stress, too, by the way, you actually want to be at work. You know staying home doesn't help anyone or so it's absenteeism or what about president he is um you guys sort of this that's when you go to work and you don't perform all because you're actually kind of sick you should have stayed home but you know you felt pressure to come in you know when you take care of yourself all these things go away which which makes sense logically but we forget you know we feel like I just don't have time but it's important to think of it as an investment you know, health is an investment and it more than pays for itself more than I and and it's interesting you know if you talk to anybody who actually does this like they all say the same thing so for instance like I'd give a talk a couple weeks ago um I was speaking for like startups like like businesses and there's this sort of culture I think that you should be like staying up all night like doing these hackathons and drinking energy drinks and eating pizza like two in the morning well established companies are second generate shin founders people who have started businesses before they never take that approach and the reason is because they know better they know that you couldn't do that pizza and energy drink thing for a couple of months where you're getting off the ground but it start taking a toll on everyone and and any founder who's like, starts to move on and actually starts to build something really successful, almost always back pedals and says, I wish I had started this earlier, you know, I wish I would have brought healthy food into the office for my employees earlier. I wish I had encouraged exercise. I wish I had encouraged meditation and other things to build the health of your employees, because a, they're happier, but also they just work better, and they work more, and this is, you know, this is why google, you know, spend so much money on making sure their employees were healthy and happy because they know that that's essential for good business. So keep it in mind that health doesn't cost time, it improves your time, and I mean, this is like, straight up strategy here, like this isn't just like things you should do it like it affects your bottom line, you know? Yeah, from people online, one of things that people have been saying generally, though, is that it's become almost expected that you skip your lunch at work. Now, they expected to be at your desk. It senators, they're either trying to eat at their desk and taking a lunch break is really found upon, like you were saying earlier, when you were just he just wanted your own time but people are saying they had the lunches brought in but they didn't very rarely had a healthy option but now they have started adding salads into that but there's also big cultures of teams going out for drinks I said that you know throws people off etcetera um and this is saying there's a lot of snacks is or what a lot of candy around the offices well absolutely so I hear these things all the time from people and uh it is difficult that's really difficult and I'm gonna give you some strategies on how to think about how to think about those things and and address those one at a time so yeah that that mimics exactly what I hear all the time from my readers is the same problems I used to have a break time where everybody brought in cakes but you because you have two signed up for it she took herself off the rotor and that just solved that problem for her yeah so she s o she identified the problem identified a trigger realizes she didn't need it and it wasn't worth it and took the steps to get out of that situation so brilliant very food ist fabulous so just I just I want to provide a quick framework for how I would recommend approaching lunch at work s o like we've talked about before planning ahead is a big one so what happens when you're too busy aa lot of the time is you wait until you're absolutely starving and then you make you panic right? You like I need food immediately and you make bad decisions so just having simple things in the office even if they're your own you know, even if you have to spend an extra ten fifteen bucks a week to bring your own snacks in it's definitely worth it tohave you know, some almonds maybe cem carrot sticks or something just so you can munch on that's a little crunchy or I know I know some people really enjoy greek yogurt could be really, really filling and really satisfying and still quite healthy compared to a bag of chips or something like that because again those bad decisions were made when you're tired and hungry and you need to have a plan, you need to have something to eat and when I was working a lot but I never left my house without like some nuts or something in my in my back it's just it's so much easier and and, you know, even in a pinch the nice thing is like you can find a bag of almonds at any gas station you know? I mean it's not the highest quality almonds but it's better than plowing down a bag of chips so plan ahead and that will derail a lot of your bad decisions so optimized, though I said, again, I said before, work isn't a special occasion, right? It's it's, just not it happens all the time to be too often had to be a realist type of special occasion, so, um, it's really is, you know, so while you have to understand that, like, find the help, tastiest things you can, but not at the expense of your health, that makes sense so in rather, for instance, and getting mac and cheese get something that is healthier really believe, at least have vegetables on it. You know, even if you're getting if you have to go toe to the office with, even after you go to the with the co workers to get pizza, just get a big salad on the finding, one piece of pizza instead of two like that, just a subtle change like that can actually really add up over the days and weeks and years and prioritize again. This is sort of that value based decisions we were talking about before works, not a special occasion, I can't say it enough health should take priority on most days. It's ok to schedule once a week where you have something a little indulgent, or maybe even twice a week, if your health style can absorb it but if you're trying to lose weight you know you might want to do one for a while until you get to your goal and then maybe twice a week you can see if that works for you but it's all about prioritizing and optimizing those things for your particular goals uh so this is another big one and that's sort of what I was getting I just hear quantify what you're doing so occasional slip ups or fine you know we've talked before about how it's ok tio not be a perfect saints and nothing but vegetables all day every day nobody expects that nobody expects that from you and also it's not necessary and you're just putting more strain on yourself than you really need so really taken to account frequency and quantity of your indulgences that makes sense so you know narrow like we talked about the scones before getting that down to once a week or twice a week is going to cut a lot a lot and then a little bit of a structure so I like to have like we said very, very black and white rules that just as ensure that I am vegetables every day you know I want vegetables in lunch and dinner they might not be the best tasting vegetables on earth if that were the case for me, I'd probably bring in some supplements you know, like an avocado or maybe cem meat or cheese or something that really, really make something boring taste really satisfying? We're gonna get some more tips on how to do that in a bit. So the other big issue that we sort of with asking the chat room a second ago, this is culture at work that can create a lot of pure pressure. And I just wanted to ask you, I want to throw this teo online and throw it to you guys. Have you ever felt bullied or ostracized for your food choices at the office and in particular there's, often at one particular perpetrator, one particular culprit that is sometimes responsible for leading the sort of ethos of the office culture in a very sort of negative, unhealthy direction? You know, since there's, um, because people have very, very strong opinions about food and health, right? And there's often one person that drives everyone to the pizza place every single week, so I'd love to hear from anyone who has had an experience like that. Anyone here, anybody, you have bullies, that work was really a pulley was a change in ceo the previous ceo, we always had every ethnic possible cuisine you can think of, which meant there was lots of vegetables hi calling protein some starch is when the new ceo came in, he was a pizza sandwich guy all the vegetables and all the ethnic foods went out the door and you could tell the energy and the place kind of went down with that well, he just wasn't down with it at all he didn't like it so that was it if munch was brought in there were new vendors who brought in food and there were none of her old vendors that is really tough but it's really of yeah him in our office there's no real break room so you're kind of in the middle of everything if you do decide in office and there's one individual who will always comment always find his way to that area at the time anybody's having lunch and always makes a comment oh not so healthy today oh you're making healthy choices today I mean he always has to have an opinion the judge er yes he's always judging so it's just it's you know once or twice you just like, oh, whatever that's who he is but you know, day in and day out it's just like, ok, I can't eat my lunch in the office because I can't take his judgments wow, yeah super comment and what a jerk exactly we're going to talk about we're going to talk about more about that um in a little bit so did anybody online of anything at this point you know we got some few people saying angela say my current offices much healthy and my last I found they almost never bringing doughnuts anymore which is a big change from my past employment and also catered foods have always given like gluten free options on not just salad another things so they are getting healthy options you know that's a trend I've heard a lot lately too is that it is getting a little better which is a nice like people are starting to appreciate the value of real food a little more and so one thing that's good is that sometimes you wolf have a sympathizer in your office like maybe your manager maybe if you're ceo is not necessarily providing the healthiest options you know maybe you can speak to a manager or someone else and say hey, you know, pizza and sandwiches are great but I really feel like I can't perform my best unless I have also some green options is there any way we could incorporate that you know, because sometimes you can go through another channel to sort of get get your way a little bit there um but this is a very uh it can be touchy right? Because it's it's you can't offend the people you work with and expects to have a happy happy work environment um join your colleagues in the chat room he said he wants to know what you're having for lunch like I'm gonna be in there with that camera they would know who he is. Tio that's, actually interesting point, too, so it sounds like you have, like a oftentimes the, um, the judge, er is somebody who's, very anti health. You know, somebody who's like things, dieting or watching what you eat or caring about what you eat is somehow a form of weakness or something that's not cool, and they'll be like, I don't get that kind of crap like let's. Go get some chicken wings like men on and but it but it can be just as obnoxious from a healthy judge. Er, you know, somebody who's going to come to you and say, you know, make you feel bad for things you like or things that you're you're doing that with your own decisions that you made for yourself as if you were a child or something, right, which is just is demeaning it's, not respectful and it's not cool and it's, great to have strategies to deal with people like that.