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2008/07/26, 04:48 PM
Hey there everyone! Ok, let me get started by saying that I'm glad to be here and I hope that I can achieve my goals.
As for needing help.... I work 12 hour shifts on a 3-2 split, so I do pretty good on the days I'm off, its the days that I work that I have trouble with. Let me just outline a typical work day for me and then I'll go on from there. 4:15-4:30 I get up, sometimes exercise for 10 minutes (if I get up on the early side) and then hit the shower. 5:00 eat breakfast - usually cereal (hot of cold) and yogurt. 5:45 out the door to work (I usually stop at Starbucks on the way and get a venti Iced Green Tea - unsweetened (its bad that they know what I want when I start to order). 7:00 my shift starts (I get to work early - I'm usually there by 6:30, it gives me time to see whats going on, what needs to be done, and to just chill before I start my work day). 8:00 usually eat a "2nd" breakfast - or a snack - usually something not so good like a biscut from the cafeteria, but I'm starving by then so anything is good (even if the food doesn't taste all that well). 12:00 go to lunch, I have 45 minutes, but I never take it all. I try to bring my lunch, but even if I do its not the best stuff. A sandwich on whole wheat bread, fruit (applesauce is my standby), a string cheese, and usually chocolate out of the vending machine. 3:30/4 - I try to eat a snack: almonds, string cheese and a few crackers...but I work in an ER so this isn't always easy to do. 7:00 leave work, 7:30 usually home, if I didn't stop at the drive through to pick up something to eat. By this time I'm so exhausted I don't want to cook and its so late it would be almost 8:30 by the time I ate and then I'm going to bed.
So as you can see I need to set myself on a schedule of some sorts. My job can be hetic - I work as a registration clerk, but still I never know what is going to happen. I don't get to sit in my chair all day, I'm usually up and down all day long and in the afternoon I take the laptop we have and go back to the emergent side to get ambulances - I usually end up standing most of the time (1-7pm most days). I try to drink water throughout the day and I don't drink soda unless I'm so dead tired that I use it to help me gain some energy which I know is bad. Anyone have an suggestions? Maybe I should try 6 small meals a day instead of trying to eat a breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 snacks?
Heather
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2008/07/26, 07:50 PM
Hi Heather, welcome to ft :) It really doesn't look too terrible, with a little additional planning you can optimize your meals/snacks and eat a little cleaner. Then you have to figur eout how to fit in some structured exercise like weight training and cardio.
On your off days you need to cook en masse:
Oatmeal with cinnamon, splenda and vanilla
Chicken breasts
extra lean ground beef patties
turkey burgers
make taco meat with lean ground turkey or extra lean ground beef
cut and prep whatever vegetables you enjoy
portion out nuts into snack size baggies (between 12-24 almonds depending on what else you are eating)
The key is to pack up meals for every day - a 3-4 oz serving of lean protein, a 1/2c of complex carbs like oats or brown rice, or sweet potato, or whole wheat pasta, and a generous serving of vegetablesor fruit.
Apples make an excelent portable snack, pair an apple with some lowfat string cheese and a handful of almonds - great snack.
If you want to get results and make changes to your body, it takes a new way of looking at things, a re=structuring of priorities and some extra responsability. If yuou want it, you will do it. this means you carry a cooler with you from now on, this means you take your kunch break and eat a healthy lunch..and this means that somehow you carve out the time to workout.
I know of bodybuilders who work in every job and every shift imaginable, including ER doctors, they find the time to eat 5-6 small meals a day and workout..you can too ;)
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Argue for your limitations, and sure enough, they\'re yours.
Richard Bach
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