Nutrition When Working From Home

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Working from home can bring with it new challenges and opportunities. It’s important to build productive and effective routines early that form healthy habits.

This blog will focus on Nutritional Strategies when Working From Home.

An important thing to remind yourself of is that you are in control and to think of the things you CAN do.

Here are 4 things you can control with your nutrition:

Remember just because you may not be training the way you normally would, it isn’t a licence to forget about your nutrition.

It’s more important than ever to stay healthy with a diet focused on Protein and Plants. 

Not caring about your nutrition simply because you can’t train optimally is just like spending all your money because you don’t have an income.

Both a relevant right now.

Don’t write them off.

It’s even more important to take care of your nutrition and your savings.

With working from home or being home more often, there will be new challenges and temptations. 

Try to use this time to develop skills in identifying barriers, problem-solving and coming up with possible solutions to test out. That’s what we all need to do now - identify barriers, test solutions.

Being at home a lot more could lead to these barriers with these potential solutions:

Barrier: More temptation to eat being near the kitchen >

Solution: Creating a supportive environment starts with shopping. Buy foods which support you (protein & plants) and limit purchases of foods which you struggle with appropriate portions. With your indulgences, if you do have them at home, keep them out of sight. 

Barrier: Less routine leading to more snacking > 

Solution: Maintain your meal schedule. How many meals do you usually eat in a day? Continue your usual habits with meal frequency. Me personally, it’s 4 meals around 4 hours apart. That gives me a solid time structure with my meals and if I’m thinking about food in between meals, it’s just a time to test hunger and see that it does come and go.
Solution: Calorie-free liquids. Boredom hunger can often be quenched with a glass of water or a sugar-free soft drink/cordial.

Barrier: Overeating is easier, as there is always something else to eat. Eg. you find yourself going for seconds, adding a dessert to more meals than usual > Mindful eating - eat slowly, taste the food, try to focus on the flavours, try to notice how it makes you feel and when you start feeling full.

Solution: When you portion out your meals put all the leftovers away before you start eating. It’s tempting when the food is still warm in the kitchen to have another plate. 

The next blog in this series will focus on 7 Tips to Build Healthy Habits when Working From Home.

If your circumstances, goals and schedule have changed recently, it might be time to get some more individual guidance to help support your nutritional needs. An FNC Coach can provide you with strategies that suit you and your lifestyle to help you remain in control of your nutrition and stay on track with your health and fitness goals.

Click the button below for more information on our 1 on 1 Coaching service.

The next blog in this working from home series provides you with 7 Healthy Habits.

To read, follow this link

Find The FN'Sweet Spot: Goals, Values & Convenience

Shocking Facts:

• You can eat a healthy meal that tastes good

• You can eat a healthy meal that is cheap

• You can eat a healthy meal that doesn’t take much time to prepare

• You can eat a healthy meal that doesn’t require high levels of cooking skills

• You can eat a healthy meal that aligns with your culture

• You can eat a healthy meal when you go out or are with friends

• You can eat a healthy meal that you enjoy, that tastes good, is aligned with your goals, aligns with your values and is convenient.

Can you consistently consume meals that tick the 3 boxes of Goals, Values and Convenience?

Now termed the FN’Sweet Spot.

A new term and strategy to help promote adherence and sustainability for your way of eating.

This is a truly vital component of healthy eating because “Healthy eating is an important determinant of health, but adherence to dietary guidelines remains a public health concern.” [1]

*NOTE: We are using the term healthy eating to mean eating for your goals.

In the research, common influences on healthy eating are:

• Social and cultural factors

• knowledge

• social media

• the relevance of information

• peers, taste

• convenience [4, 5, 6]

Alongside those are common barriers to healthy eating such as:

• Social

• heritage (perceived to lose heritage/cultural component of meals)

• poor taste

• expense

• lack of information

• cooking skills

• confidence

• time

• effort

• convenience

• cost

• support

• availability

• competing priorities

• ease of access to unhealthy foods [2, 3, 7, 8]

One study had expense and taste coming in the top 3, just after willpower. [2]

One study even showed a common reason being eating healthy is not a masculine/bloke thing to do. [3] (Clearly an Aussie study).

From this list, we’ve placed them in 3 categories:

Goals, Values and Convenience.

We can try to improve our adherence and consistency with our diet by ticking all 3 boxes.

Under each category we have:

Goals - Education, Informed Decisions, Legit Knowledge, Goal Aligned

Values - Taste, Culture, Social, Physical Health, Emotional, Personality, Enjoyment

Convenience -  Time, Effort, Energy, Money, Cooking Skills

Why is important to tick all 3 boxes?

If we just tick the goals and values box eg. they are healthy and taste good - they might not be convenient, it might be expensive, take too long to make, have too many ingredients.

If we just tick the values and convenience box eg they are tasty, enjoyable, cheap and easy - they might not be goal aligned.

Then if we just tick the goals and convenience box eg they are goal aligned, cheap and easy - they might not be very tasty or enjoyable.

We know that taste certainly goes a long way when it comes to rewarding. From previous webinars and blogs, we know that the reward is an important final part of the habit-building sequence. We are more likely to continue the behaviour that provides us with immediate rewards.

How do we put the FN’Sweet Spot into practice?

If you feel like struggling to adhere to your diet, do a check-in with yourself. 

Use the FN’Sweet Spot graphic as a guide. Do most of your meals tick all these boxes?
If there is a constant theme of a certain box not being fulfilled, look at some strategies to try and improve that area.

Here are some examples for each:

Goals: Improve your knowledge and understanding of nutrition such as food selection, portion control, energy balance, calories per bite. Make sure this is legit information too, not guru health. Make sure it is information that is aligned with your goals

Values: Can you improve the taste of your meals by using low calories sauces, herbs and seasons? Can you bring your culture and heritage into the meal creation? Can you invite friends over for healthy dinners or learn how to read menus and pick goal aligned foods? Can you still enjoy foods and flavours that resonate with your personality?

Convenience: Can you find easy/no prep protein and plant options? Can you shop smarter to keep costs down? Can you find recipes that are within your skill level and don’t have 10+ ingredients? 

So to reinforce the point from earlier, you can eat healthy meals that are tasty and convenient.

Take the time to find ways to make the experience and process of healthy eating a little sweeter by using the FN’Sweet Spot.

At FNC we can help you improve the consistency of each category by improving your knowledge and understanding of nutrition, providing you with convenient and enjoyable ways to create your meals.

Contact us today to learn more from our team

[1] https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs13679-016-0192-0

[2] https://academic.oup.com/jpubhealth/article/39/2/330/3002965

[3] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5675273/

[4] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15702586

[5] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15570680

[6] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/29892990

[7] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4276670/

[8] https://www.researchgate.net/publication/309314854_The_barriers_and_enablers_of_healthy_eating_among_young_adults_a_missing_piece_of_the_obesity_puzzle_A_scoping_review

Weight Maintenance

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Most people can lose weight. Most people who try to lose weight, do so. However, most people who lose weight put it back on within a few years (1). 

Maintaining weight loss is a challenge. The body can actually encourage weight regain by lowering the amount of energy burned at rest, impacting hormones relating to hunger and fullness (2)(3)(4). 

Weight maintenance does not have to signify the exact same weight every day . Long term maintenance of weight is defined as consistently being within 3% of weight (5).

Successful weight loss maintainers typically combine diet and exercise and may rely more on exercise to maintain body composition compared to the initial weight loss period (2).

The key to weight loss is a Calorie deficit, easiest through a reduction in energy intake. However to maintain weight loss, physical activity likely becomes more useful in conjunction with a sustained lower energy intake (2).

• Weight loss - reduce intake > perform some physical activity

• Maintenance - increase physical activity > maintain reduced intake

Community support can aid self regulation of diet and flexible restraint rather than strict restraint is likely to be more successful. 

• Eg: Have a community of like-minded people for ongoing support and learn to manage overall nutrition with flexibility, rather than following a meal plan. (6)(7)(8)

Weight maintenance is something that is not defined regularly and there is really only one main research article which is cited when defining weight maintenance as within 3% of body weight (5). 

Just because one day the scales show a slightly higher number does not mean you are not maintaining your weight. It does not mean you have “regressed” or “failed”. It’s expected. Normal. Part of the fluctuations of life. 

Weight maintenance does not mean the exact same weight every day. 

There will be times in the year where your weight is slightly higher:

• Holidays, the festive season, travels where food choices are harder to control, winter when we might be less active and seek some stodgy comforts. 

These times will be offset by:

• Times of high motivation for home cooking and meal prep, summer when the days are longer and we are typically more active, breaks from work when we have more control over food choices. 

It will be different for everyone but the point is that life isn’t the same every day, every week or every season. We can’t expect to eat the same thing every day and burn the same amount of energy every day. Things change, life is varied and so is our food intake, choices and movement. 

So what’s the point? 

Give yourself some flexibility with body measurements over time but also set yourself some parameters (3%) which will signify a time to focus more on nutrition and activity. Don’t worry if there are small variations to your body and weight during the year. Recognise if the slight change corresponds to your current situation, then plan for when and how things will be balanced. It might be committing to a mini-cut after a holiday, setting a date to return to meal prep and morning gym sessions after New Years or finding a new active hobby when motivation drops. 

Check in with yourself. If you notice your body changing away from what you want, take some measurements and averages. Don’t consider a daily weight fluctuation as part of weight maintenance (5). Take at least 3-4 measurements over the week and average them out. If the number on average has crept up to your 3% parameter, it’s just a reminder to make some little reductions in Calorie intake and/or make an increase in Calories burned.

Plan some steps (not just physical ones), some real steps with times, dates and locations, to ride the wave of maintenance back away from the little weight increase. “I will meal prep on Sunday in my kitchen at 2pm and I will cook Spaghetti Bolognese with zoodles and half a serve of pasta.” Make it specific, make it actionable.

Make sure you are confident in how you lost weight. Not just that it happened, but how and why and record what you did. Write down what works for you. Write it out in enough detail so that someone else could pick it up and understand without the need for clarification. You might need this refresher one day. 

If you lost weight but you don’t understand how it corresponded to energy balance (Calories in / Calories out) please take steps to have this explained. There is no nutrition magic - all weight loss strategies relate to energy balance. Understanding your “how” could help with long term maintenance. 

Social, community support may be a very helpful tool in creating nutritional awareness, habit/behaviour change and maintaining weight loss (7)(8).

At FNC, we’ve created an online community where all of our members belong to a community of like-minded people. The community offers educational videos and articles, meal inspiration and recipes as well as weekly opportunities to ask questions (even anonymously). It’s an opportunity to be part of an online group of like minded people, develop knowledge and ask about your “how” if unsure.

With the maintenance of weight loss being difficult, we give all of our 1-1 clients a full 12 months access to the community.

Reach out to us if there is something we can help you with in 2020!

1. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16002825

2. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/30801984

3. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5764193/

4. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18842775

5. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16302013

6. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23265405

7. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3221350/

8. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18020940