good health
For women on the go
Dr Anjali Mukerjee

Dr Anjali Mukerjee

Women usually give priority to their family’s nutrition and health needs but hardly take care of themselves

Working women generally do not find time to look after themselves. Here are a few tips for working women to help them stay healthy and fit.

Start the day with a healthy breakfast: A good breakfast will not only help you to pull along the day without the afternoon slump but also prevent you from feeling famished, overeating and weight gain. If you are away on a holiday or business trip and find a little choice, opt for a glass of cold milk with cornflakes or fruits (any amount) or a sandwich without butter with cucumber and tomato or egg and toast with no butter or steamed idlis or dhoklas, or khakra and buttermilk. However, if you are the type who has just no time for breakfast at all and have to rush out of the house in the mornings then carry a fruit or two along with you and munch it in the car or bus or while walking.

Protect your mental and physical health by engaging in activities like yoga and meditation. This can help you manage stress at work and home

Sprouts are energising, alkalising and packed with enzymes

A good breakfast will prevent you from feeling famished, overeating and weight gain

Lunch is a critical meal because it is usually eaten when the mental and physical energy levels are low. Working lunches should be low in fat and high in protein as mental energy tends to ebb after a high fat meal, and fat takes longer to digest than other nutrients. Try to avoid rice and curry, rice and dal, burgers, biryanis, dosas, idlis and sambar, noodles, cream, soups, corn starch-based soup (in Chinese) fried starters whether veg or non veg, pav bhaji, vada pav, pizzas. These are the commonly available lunch time traps that most people tend to fall into and feel light headed and sleepy afterwards

Evening snacks: These should include any wheat biscuit or khakra, popcorn or just fruits, or vegetable juices or 1 glass milk with some cornflakes.

Dinners can be chosen according to your requirements

You can eat a dinner that will add to your productive hours helping you to keep active well past your bed time or you can eat a dinner that will work along with your biological rhythm easing you into a more relaxed and easy state of mind. Active dinner options would include chapattis with curd, vegetables and chicken or paneer or soup with pasta and vegetables. On the other hand, the dinner choices that help you relax can be rice, dal and vegetable with potato and salads.

Other healthful tips

Detoxify regularly: Inner cleansing or detoxification is a process of clearing toxins from the body thereby cleansing it of mucus and congestion. It makes you feel energised, light and revitalised. Drink at least four glasses of warm water in the morning and about four to six glasses during the rest of the day totalling up to eight to 10 glasses per day. Drink at least one glass of vegetable juice daily. This could be made from different combination of vegetables for e.g. spinach+ tomato+ carrot OR cucumber+ tomato+ onion OR tomato+ beetroot+ carrot OR coriander leaves+ tomato OR fruit may be added as in orange+ tomato+ carrot.

• Eat at least two calcium-rich foods every day — namely curd and whole beans (like rajma, chana), leafy vegetables, tofu, soybean, almonds, sesame seeds etc.

• Keep limes and lemons handy and squeeze them into your drinking water through the day. Use them generously as a salad dressing or on your dals. These have an alkalising effect on the body and assist the body in eliminating toxins.

• Always keep a few soaked almonds in the fridge. They form an excellent in between snack food. You can also use them in salads instead of croutons. Almonds, apart from being alkalising, are rich in protein, essential oils, calcium and magnesium.

• Include sprouts in your daily meals. You can sprout anything from wheat, jowar, soybeans, moong, beans, chana, black beans etc, sprouts are the best foods that you can eat. These have ‘life force’ within them which gets transferred to you. These are energising and alkalizing, packed with enzymes. The protein in the sprouted grain gets predigested into easily assimilated amino acids and their nutrient density shoots up.

• Don’t expect to lose weight by skipping meals. Your body thinks it’s being starved, so it slows your metabolism and stores nutrients and fats, it would normally burn. The best is to eat small portion of three to four nutritious meals and two snacks a day for an efficient metabolism.

Manage stress

Balancing obligations to your employer and your family can be challenging. Protect your mental and physical health by engaging in activities that help you manage your stress at work and at home. Such activities can vary from yoga, meditation to dancing and walking.

Eating out options

In case you eat out on weekend or during the week at restaurant you can choose from the following options:

Option 1: A whole wheat bread sandwich followed by a glass of watermelon juice (unsweetened)

Option 2: Steamed fish

• Greek salad

• Clear soup

• One slice of whole wheat bread

• Grilled / tandoori chicken

Option 3:Clear soup

• Any salad (with the dressing served separately)

• take a table spoon of a dressing and use it on the salad as required.

Option 4: A plate of steam idlis

• with coconut chutney

• followed by a cup of green tea.

• Exercise is a must. Cardiovascular exercise and more importantly resistance exercise (weight lifting) is essential for good long-term health. Muscles will increase your metabolism making it possible to lose fat, and resistance exercise has amazing benefits for your heart and other organs.

These eating guidelines will help you to maximise your performance all day. Use them to your advantage to focus your thoughts to concentrate better, to work smarter and longer durations, to avoid fatigue, to either delay sleeping time or even to relax at the end of an action packed day.

The writer is a nutritionist. She treats obesity and related health disorders online . She can be reached at ask@health-total.com / www.health-total.com

HOME