How to Eat Healthy While Working in Healthcare
Eat as fast as you can, whenever you can.
This is how medical students experienced the prevailing mindset toward food, as Dr. Catherine Harmon Toomer discovered during her student years. “Without a good system in place to counteract it,” she explains, “unhealthy eating can spiral out of control, and that’s what happened to me.”
After medical school, things got worse for Toomer. By her second year as a family physician, she had gained a lot of weight and was diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and cardiomyopathy. At age 36, she suffered congestive heart failure and was told she likely had five years to live.
A moment she describes as “a huge wake-up call.”
Toomer is far from alone in struggling to balance her medical work with healthy eating.
“Physicians face unique stresses due to the ubiquity of junk food in the clinical setting, the easy use of food as a reward and stress reliever, and the lack of time to create better wellness habits while advising patients to do just that,” says John La Puma, MD, FACP, internist and co-founder of ChefMD and founder of Chef Clinic.
There’s also the medical culture that Toomer says disdains personal care. “Even with breaks, the patients’ needs come before our own.” You sit down to eat and an emergency arises. Your clinic closes for lunch, but the phones are still ringing and patients are still emailing questions. Charting takes so much time that “everything else gets put on the back burner.”
In this context, it may seem hopeless to follow a nutritious diet. But it’s not. Really. Here are some doctor-proven methods that will allow you to nourish yourself while accomplishing all your tasks.
Something is always better than nothing
Sure, you may not be able to eat a balanced lunch or dinner at work, says registered dietitian Amy Margulies, LDN, owner of The Rebellious RD. But try to focus on the big picture and take small steps.
First, make sure you eat something, Margulies advises: “Skipping meals can lead to overeating later and negatively impact energy levels and concentration.”
Lisa Andrews, MEd, RD, LD, owner of Sound Bites Nutrition, recalls one of her patients, a gastrointestinal surgeon, who suffered from reactive hypoglycemia and fatigue. “She was experiencing mid-afternoon energy dips,” she describes. It wasn’t until she started eating every 4 to 5 hours that her patient felt better.
Of course, that’s easier said than done. “When you’re running from patient to patient and trying to keep up with your schedule, you have very little time to eat and no time to cook or even reheat food,” recalls Hélène Bertrand, MD, author of Lower Back Pain: 3 Steps to 2-Minute Relief.
But over her 55 years of practicing family medicine, Bertrand found ways to improve (or perfect) the situation. She would eat nuts or seeds during the day or have a 95 percent cacao chocolate bar, which is higher in antioxidants and lower in sugar than a candy bar.
If you don’t have time for breakfast, try drinking a full-fat protein shake on the way to work, Toomer recommends. “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.” Likewise, if the only way to eat a high-protein, low-carb snack like hummus is with chips, go for it, she advises.
Basically, don’t be the A type who seeks perfection. quite good when you can and balance the rest when you have time.
Torpedo temptation
From free treats in the break room to the ever-present pizza for residents, high-fat, high-sugar, low-nutrient foods are a constant temptation. “I worked with a physician who would bring a healthy lunch to work every day and then reach for any treat he could find for his afternoon snack,” Margulies recalls. “The cookies, cakes, and doughnuts were starting to add up, and stopping at just one wasn’t working for him.”
What did Margulies suggests bringing a single serving of dark chocolate and fruit to enjoy during a longer break. “Bringing your favorite treats in appropriate portions can help you stick to your plan throughout the day,” she says, and it can make it easier to resist whatever’s in the break room. “When you’re craving a treat, tell yourself that you have what you need and don’t need to indulge in the ‘free food’ just because it’s there. You have the power to make your choices.”
What if you’ve been mistaken for thinking of cherry tomatoes as treats? It may sound unusual, but that’s exactly what one of La Puma’s physician patients did, displaying the fruit in a candy dish on his office counter. Not only did the strategy remind him to snack healthily, it also prompted his patients to ask about eating better, he says.
The preparation is Always Underrated
Many people find meal prep intimidating. But it doesn’t have to be complicated. For example, try buying pre-cut vegetables, cooked chicken breasts, or other healthy, convenient options. You can then combine them in packable containers to make multiple meals at once. For less busy weeks, consider cooking proteins yourself and making basic sauces (like pesto and vinaigrette) to jazz up your meals.
“I worked with a resident who was gaining weight every month,” Margulies recalls. “She would skip breakfast, have a random snack, and then wait until she got home to eat whatever she could find.”
Encouraged by Margulies, she prepared and portioned one or two balanced meals each week, which she then reheated. She also bought fresh and dried fruit and high-protein snacks, which she kept in her car to eat on the way home.
Similarly, Jess DeGore, a registered dietitian, nursing graduate, child and youth medicine graduate, diabetes educator, and owner of Jess Nutrition Dietitian, recalls an OB-GYN client who was constantly skipping meals and relying on vending machine snacks. To combat the resulting energy slumps, she followed DeGore’s advice to pack work lunches (like quinoa salads) on the weekend and bring fruit and nut snacks to work.
Automate as much as you can
If you already have healthy foods on hand, you’ll be eating healthy, Andrews advises. Stock up on snacks that focus on fiber and protein. Pack a lunch bag with an insulated bag if necessary. Here are some suggestions:
- Oatmeal bags
- Individual pots of Greek yogurt or drinking yogurt
- Protein bars
- Protein shake
- Fresh fruit
- Fresh vegetable sticks
- Nuts, dried chickpeas or edamame
- Trail mix
- Individual servings of hummus, nut butter or guacamole
- Dried Seaweed Snacks
- Whole Grain Crackers
- Hard boiled eggs
- String cheese
- Peanut Butter Sandwich
- 95% cocoa chocolate bar
Try a meal delivery service
Meal delivery services can be expensive, but they can be worth it. By bringing your meals to your office or having them delivered to your office, you won’t have to find time to go to the cafeteria and wait in line, notes Janese S. Laster, MD, internal medicine, gastroenterology, obesity medicine, and nutritionist and founder of Gut Theory Total Digestive Care. Instead, “you’ll have something to heat up and eat while you’re writing notes or between patients,” she says. Plus, “you’ll have no excuse to skip meals.”
Hydration yes, poor quality drinks no
Doctors know that hunger is a feeling of thirst, but they don’t always mistake it for something else: “Hunger can be confused with thirst,” Margulies says. “Staying hydrated will help you better assess whether you’re hungry or thirsty.” Opt for water over soda or energy drinks, she adds, to hydrate your body without unnecessary added sugars, sugar substitutes, calories, caffeine, or sodium, all of which can affect your health.
Defend your health
Convincing your institution to make changes can be difficult, if not impossible, but consider asking your workplace to implement initiatives like these to improve provider nutrition, suggests Jabe Brown, BHSc (Nat), founder of Melbourne Functional Medicine:
- Establish protected breaks during which physicians can step away from their duties to eat
- Add more nutritious cafeteria options, like salads, whole grains, and lean proteins
- Review of the vending machine offer
- Offer educational workshops on nutrition
Be persistent about eating well
For Toomer, that meant taking several years of sabbaticals to improve her health. After losing more than 100 pounds, she founded the TOTAL Weight Care Institute to help other health professionals follow in her footsteps.
For you, the path to healthier eating can be gradual: eating a more nutritious snack, spending an extra hour a week shopping or preparing meals, remembering to bring a bottle of water. Whatever form you choose, make realistic lifestyle changes that work for you.
You could even try eating an apple a day.
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