Digitalks #19. Balancing Your Plate: Healthy Eating for Busy Workers
Best practices to develop healthy habits for busy workers
Digitalks is a virtual brown bag meeting by Breadnbeyond’s Digital Marketing team where all valuable information, feedback, ideas, seminars, and training sessions are shared.
Being a busy worker shouldn’t be an excuse to eat poorly.
No matter how hectic your day at the office is, having a balanced and healthy diet is necessary to keep your body fit.
We also often forget how important it is to have breakfast, drink enough water, and exercise regularly.
Breadnbeyond has the chance to discuss this topic with an experienced nutritionist, Firdananda Fikry Jauharany.
She shared the importance of a balanced diet and how to achieve that in our Digitalk #19.
Why We Must Eat Healthily
As busy employees, we might not be aware that we often consume processed food.
Firda shared the risk of consuming processed food while maintaining a sedentary lifestyle.
The two are the leading factors for underweight or overweight BMI.
BMI (Body Mass Index) is a measure that utilizes an individual’s height and weight to determine if their weight is within a healthy range.
The formula for BMI = weight (kg) / height (m)²
Those with overweight BMI are more prone to serious illnesses like heart attack, diabetes mellitus, and cancer.
You can also use the calculator here: BMI Calculator
Balancing Your Plate
Balancing your plate means consuming nutritional food and knowing the right portions for your meal.
Here is a list of food as a source of nutrients:
- Protein: chicken, turkey, fish, tofu, tempeh, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, and chia seeds.
- Healthy fats: avocado, walnuts, flaxseeds, almonds, salmon, tuna, olive oil, and dark chocolate.
- Minerals: leafy greens, whole grains, nuts, seeds, and legumes.
- Vitamins: fruits and vegetables.
The next question is,
‘How to know the right portion for your meal?’
It’s recommended to use a food scale to have accurate portions and measure the calories consumed.
However, you can also use your hand to measure your plate. You can refer to the following picture.
If you want to know your individual calorie intake, you can use online calorie calculators like this one.
Adopting Healthy Dietary Practices
We’ll dive into some other practices for adopting a healthy diet, including maintaining well-scheduled meals.
Breakfast is a vital habit for maintaining a healthy diet, and recommended workers have breakfast by 7-8 am.
A study revealed that those who skipped breakfast had a higher percentage of getting overweight and obese.
Here’s an example of a meal schedule:
Other practices of healthy dietary are:
- Balancing calories in with calories out
- Limiting fat intake
- Shifting from saturated to unsaturated food
- Eliminating industrially-produced trans fat
- Reducing sugar and salt intake
Food to Maintain a Healthy Diet
Some food for maintaining a healthy diet, which we’ve rounded up into the list below:
1. Fruit and vegetables: consume 400 grams (5 portions) every day.
- Always include vegetables for breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
- Eat fruit and vegetables as snacks.
- Eat various fruits and vegetables to try many flavors.
2. Fat: Reduce fat to < 30% of total energy
- Get rid of meat fat.
- Avoid frying food.
- Embrace steaming, boiling, or baking food.
- Avoid fast-food.
- Reduce high-fat food like cheese, ice cream, and fatty meat).
3. Salt, Natrium, and Kalium: Consume no more than five grams of salt every day.
- Limit salt, soy sauce, and fish sauce in your meal.
- Don’t put salt on your dining table.
- Reduce salty snack intake
- Choose products with lower natrium
4. Sugar: Limit sugar intake to < 30 grams per day.
- Reduce sweet food and drink with high sugar (including flavored drinks, carbonated drinks, cookies, cakes, candies, etc.)
- Eat fresh fruits and vegetables for sugary snacks.
A healthy diet is a life-long investment to reduce the risk of severe disease in the future.
If you’re a busy worker, developing a good and healthy habit is also a way of loving yourself.
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