Healthy Eating On The Go...

In a strange ideal world somewhere in time someone would perhaps create a couple more hours in the day and a little more motivation to do something with it...

During this time my extremely busy clients would plan their food for a week setting out what healthy and delicious options they were having at breakfast, lunch and dinner complete with healthy snacks in between...

They would then get onto Ocado buy exact quantities of food and prepare their meals in advance thus eliminating the challenges or pitfalls of eating healthy on the go and completely doing away with any excuse for failure...

Until this day, in the real world my clients are still sometimes too busy or too disorganised to plan and prepare food for the day and end up having to make the best of a bad situation and eating on the go or eating out. 

Therefore I’m sure you guy would love to know my top tips for eating on the fly...

I’m gonna level with you it doesn’t take two minutes to prepare a lunch to take to work and if you want to be in great shape you want to be in control of this stuff, BUT in reality some of you guys just struggle with this. And, lets be honest, sometimes you just get caught out.

So here are my top tips for eating on the go or eating out...

Make Better Choices - When all else fails just make better choices. With places like Marks and Spencer Simply Food and others you have closer to what I consider to be healthy convenient food to grab on the go. They have a variety of relatively healthy salads and some not so processed cold meat to choose from so do your best. I often opt for the sushi in these places because for me it is quite filling and tasty too. Failing this you default setting is to choose a smaller portion or if you’re in a restaurant leave a little bit on the plate. Again, this is not ideal, but needs must.

Add, Subtract and Substitute - I think it must be a British thing to be too polite to ask for what you actually want. If you are in a restaurant it will not be a problem for them to swap the chips or jacket potato for vegetables or salad. You could also ask for the sauce to be on the side of the plate or perhaps not at all. I have found when clients do this confidently and discretely nobody questions a thing. Doing stuff like declining a bread roll at the start of your meal in a restaurant is the way to go.

Avoid Starters and Deserts - I didn’t want to state the obvious but... These are called appetizers for a reason. They are often a knee jerk reaction. If you must opt for the soup of the day (without the roll!) or a salad to start and just have a coffee to finish.

Note: I have become pretty good at finding stuff for lunch on the go. I tend to always start my day with a good breakfast and rarely snack either. At lunchtime I tend to favour the independent cafes and delicatessen's as despite having to pay a little more they generally tend to sell better quality foods that fit in with my plan. Failing that shops like Waitrose and Marks and Spencer are normally your best bet for a healthy salad or sushi.

I generally avoid places like petrol stations as there is rarely any fresh food to eat. And steer clear of fast food. If I’m eating out and I’m being good I tend to make the best choice. Generally this is something with a portion of protein (meat, poultry or fish) to stabalise blood sugar and accompany this with salad or vegetables.

If you are keen maintain a healthy bodyshape planning and preparing is essential. Finding healthy cafes and delicatessens and thinking ahead is my top tip for eating on the fly.