Working Women Healthy Life, Diet Tips for the Working Woman

Working Women Healthy Life

You must have heard it several times why it is imperative for working women to take care of your health and well-being. Moreover, they have a double work schedule - at the workplace as well as home! Diet is the cornerstone of a healthy lifestyle, and working women who seem to work round the clock, need to take very good care to avoid illnesses. My suggestion for them is to maintain a good diet for great health. Here are some diet and fitness tips for them.

1. Draw a line between home and work
This is easier said than done in today's world, when we carry our work around with us on our Blackberries, iPhones and other portable devices. It's hard to unplug and "turn off" your work duties you get home (or worse, if you work from home), just as it's hard to "turn off" worries about kids and home life when you are at work. Try this trick. "Download" the things that are on your mind before you leave work (or home). Write your "To Do" list on a piece of paper, or type it into your computer or Blackberry, so you remember the things you need to do when you get back. Keep your mind focused on the fact that this is the end of that activity, workday or tasks at home.  Then put away your "To Do" list and LEAVE IT until the next day.

2.Eat a Balanced Diet
Since women are prone to being anaemic, make sure that your lunch box consists of at least one leafy vegetable almost daily. One portion of raw fresh salad and one portion of calcium rich dairy food (either yoghurt, paneer or buttermilk) as women need more dietary calcium than their male counterparts.

3.Choose "good enough" over "perfect." 
All the pressure that women today put on themselves today to be the perfect mother, the perfect worker, and the perfect wife (with the perfect physique!), takes the joy out of motherhood and saps us of energy. Wouldn't it be nice if we could just give ourselves—and others—a break?  When something needs to be done, ask yourself: is it important that the job is just done, or done perfectly? 9 out of 10 times, the answer will be "just done." For example, Ginnie has always done the family laundry, and she's developed a system that works. However, now she's working full-time, she just can't handle that task in addition to everything else. She ignored her husband's offers of help because she didn't trust him to do it properly. Finally, after it had become a huge issue, she let it go. Her husband now shares the task with her. He doesn't do it her way, and she can still get irritated by the way he flings mangled baby t-shirts with their sleeves still inside out on the radiators, but she is learning to turn a blind eye.

4.Have enough water
 Always carry a bottle of water to office, and keep it filled at your office desk to ensure adequate hydration as dehydration can make you lethargic and tired.

5.Don't Skip Breakfast
Fiber in the morning means less hunger late in the afternoon, when you're most likely to feel tired and gorge yourself on sugar. My morning dose comes from steel-cut oatmeal, usually mixed with raisins, walnuts, and flaxseed oil. An early start on eating also keeps your metabolism more active throughout the day; breakfast eaters are thinner than people who just rush out the door.

6.Avoid processed foods 
It is very important to keep processed foods and drinks to a bare minimum. So, the first step is to clean out your kitchen and stock only fresh and natural foods. Snacks like bakery goods - biscuits, cookies, cakes, pastries must go out of the kitchen as well as all other foods containing white flour, extra salty, sugary snacks containing lots of additives and preservatives. All these foods are a precursor to lifestyle diseases.

7. Put on your oxygen mask first 
Moms, that means you need to take care of yourself before you can take care of others—including your kids, your husband, your aging parents. Take time out for YOU.  It's not selfish; it's necessary. Exercise, meditate, read, hang with friends. Schedule one night once a week that you do something that you enjoy. It doesn't apply to things you think will be good for you or things that your children or partner would enjoy. This is for you. Whatever it is - having a meal with someone, reading a novel in the bath or lolling on the sofa with a glass of wine, watching TV - make it non-negotiable. Turn off your mobile, don't check your emails, and screen incoming calls. Stick to it and don't put it off.