You start your day with just coffee and a piece of bread. There’s nothing wrong with it. But there’s so much more you can do better.
How can a teacher eat healthily is to help you find out how simple and interesting it can be to provide healthy food as a part of your plans. If you put a piece of fruit in your bag every day or bring tasty water to work all the time – you’re doing good!
Now let’s see if you can perfect the things below. If you do, then you have been enjoying delicious food at work. But if you’re guilty and looking for another chance to treat yourself to good food, read on.
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>>> Curious as to how to pack food healthily? Begin with our favorite lunch boxes for teachers!
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How Can A Teacher Eat Healthily
1) Do Not Skip Breakfast
You may be getting up as early as 5:00 a.m. and start your brain busy as soon as you get out of bed down through the night. If you’ve been skipping breakfast, have you ever felt how your body feels?
While eating breakfast isn’t everyone’s thing – note that it is still the best way to feed your body with energy. Breakfast kick-starts the body’s chemical reactions that keep it alive. It sustains your metabolism to help you get things done at work or at school. This is the reason why it’s the most important meal of the day.
When you eat breakfast, it supplies nutrients and oxygen to your heart and brain to your muscles and skin. The right food forms brain-boosting powers that help your heart and reduce metabolic syndrome. Since your body is getting enough nutrients, you are less likely to develop eating disorders.
Skipping breakfast may be bad. In fact, many studies prove how it is associated with high blood pressure, heart disease, and sometimes diabetes.
Have you ever stared off into space at your desk, feeling blank and wondering why you can’t focus? This could be a sign of complications you never know are developing if you always start the day with nothing in your stomach.
Fresh fruit, a piece of bread, cereal, yogurt, nuts, and yes, granola are quick-to-pick food to start the day right. This thoughtful care will encourage better memory, concentration, and drive that you wish you always had.
2) Provide Some Healthy Snacks
Don’t believe that snacking is bad. Why on earth would it be? The “bad image” tag for snacks is due to people eating the wrong food leading to weight gain. Whatever they say, remember that snacks can be a lifesaver for teachers.
Healthy snacks nearby can feed your hungry stomach in the middle of the day. If your body starts displaying the need for food, don’t wait until lunchtime. It’s your body telling you that it is hungry and it needs attention. Ignoring snacks (when you need them) can end you up eating more calories than you need.
When you do a lot of talking, thinking, and collaborating, it’s normal to feel hungrier because your body and brain are working. Snacking sustains your hunger levels in balance.
If you’re hesitant about snacking, supply some healthy “nibbles” like dried fruits, a piece of fruit, mixed nuts, or dark chocolate, and treat it as a “me time” between meals. Trust me, it will keep you from overeating when mealtime comes.
Above all, make it fun. I have 8 snacking ideas you will love, here.
3) Take delight in Power Lunch
Many teachers find it a “struggle” to pack a nutritious lunch. But you should also know that teaching is busy and often hazes you with activities. There is no other way to reach your dream of eating well but to plan ahead well enough.
I am sure you have had tiring days leaving you staring at your lunch and wishing you could have prepared something flavorsome. You find yourself repeating the same meals, let alone eating lunch!
Taking delight in packing your lunch will give you the flavors that make you excited to eat. It also saves you money from buying ready-to-eat meals. Think of healthy food that you like and then go marketing. The easiest may be salads but it can be tiring for every day – as in boring – which is true.
Then spruce up some tasty chicken or lean protein recipes a day before and put them in the freezer. Simply re-heat and throw a meal in a lovely lunch box. The secret is – if you know that you like the food waiting for you at lunch, you will be eating with delight. You might even not mind it’s cold.
You know there are simple but delicious lunch ideas you can copy from the internet. You only have to take the first step so you can add some variety to your school meals.
4) Cook a Nutritious Dinner
Dinner time! Again, you don’t have the time to prepare something nutritious. Let me ask you. If your body will one day tell you that it will stop working because it’s sick. Would you be able to continue soaring a great teaching career?
If you have papers to grade the moment you get home – use the slow cooker technique. Throw every ingredient into the cooker, turn it on and let it cook. By the time you get home, simply enhance the food and you get something delicious for the family by dinner time.
Just before coming home, excite yourself with the idea of fixing something great for dinner. Tell your mind how happy everyone will be that you spent time cooking. If you can do this – you have ranked yourself higher – not just a great teacher but a wonderful mom or dad, too!
Still, you don’t have the energy to do that? You’re that busy? Well then, like your lunch, put together a freezer dinner meal for the weekend. Just pick nice recipes to show thoughtfulness. You deserve every good taste, of course.
5) Be Cautious of sweetened drinks
Coffee, juices, soda, bottled, and energy drinks are probably the world’s quick refreshers for busy individuals. Sugary soda is addictive. Sweetened juices are thirst-quenching, I agree. You too probably rely on coffee throughout the day. If you prefer coffee without lots of sugar, it’s possibly not that bad.
The problem with sweetened drinks is the deceptively chockful caloric punch. There is a stimulatory effect in high caffeine intake. If you’re fond of drinking energy drinks per day, they may contain extremely high doses of caffeine that may lead to heartbeat rhythm.
The best drink remains water. Get yourself a nice water bottle so you can infuse fruit into your water. You can refill it a few times and switch fruit essences. Your body will not only thank you for saving it from a ton of unnecessary calories, but you’ll also thank mother nature that water is abundant and life-nurturing.
6) Eat a Variety of Foods
If you handle a variety of activities well every day, you should be able to manage to eat a variety of food, as well. Different food groups render a variety of essential nutrients into your food.
When trying to follow a good diet, don’t limit yourself to chicken, or fish. Incorporating a wider variety of foods combines more substances needed by the body. If you eat beef today, try turkey the next day or fish in between. Experts recommend eating fish at least twice a week.
Lettuce after lettuce can get unexciting – so go for glorious blends of spinach, Romaine, mixed baby greens, or try sharper zests like arugula, watercress, or dandelion leaves. Dress them up differently. If you go for yogurt today, serve yourself some balsamic vinaigrette, avocado, lemon, or honey mustard for the next few days.
A speckled diet can be as interesting as colorful drinks. Imagine supplying your body with the major food groups: carbohydrates offer energy and calcium. Proteins act as building blocks for repair and growth. There are vitamins A, B, C, D, and B12, plus dairy products for healthy bones and teeth.
Teachers are real people who need a spice of life and a variety of foods will add colors to their busy days. You will get radiant skin, bright eyes, and a healthy heart. You can never go malnourished!
7) Indulge in Occasional Sweets
I bet you’ll agree with me that being too straight can make you crazy craving for sweets. Have you experienced that? So it goes that eating once in a while is a lot better than overwhelming in sweets to your satisfaction.
The body needs sugar for energy. But it needs the naturally-occurring sugars found in fruits (fructose) and milk (lactose) that are incorporated into your diet. Sugars that may be detrimental to your health are those syrups or caloric sweeteners that are added to food during the preparation or processing.
If you ever feel irritable or tired after eating sugary food on an empty stomach, this is due to an imbalance from the lack of nutrients ingested by the “added sugar” at the time your body needs energy.
Sugary delights don’t curb your hunger. It can even lead you to consume liquid calories. Most sweet courses contain lots of butter and sugar, which, if you eat too much, is not good. Consuming too much added sugar can lead to weight gain, obesity, and high blood pressure.
Indulging in decadents and desserts is fine when in moderation. If you feel like eating chocolate cake or ice cream, go for it. Teaching puts all your effort into service and occasional sweets can serve as a reward for planning all those lessons.
If you treat indulgent foods correctly, you get yourself a lot of chances to enjoy them anytime.
A word of advice…
To save yourself from the confusion of what, which, and how much food you need to eat healthily, be conscious of nutrients, not calories. This way, it helps you focus on the nutrients in certain foods instead of monitoring your weight. Teachers need energy which depends on your ability to extract that energy from the food you eat. Eating a healthy, balanced diet is the solution.
Did you perfect the list? If you scored low, it’s not too late. Follow the tips above and enjoy your food.
Anything you can share about healthy eating for teachers? Leave them in the comments. Many educators will like it!
