Nutrition for busy people

How much consideration do you give to what you are going to eat in the coming week?

Or is it something you think about at 6pm when you have just got in from work and are feeling tired, stressed and hungry?

The difficulty with deciding what you are going to eat at 6pm is that it’s probably about five hours since you had your lunch, so by this time your blood sugar levels have fallen and will be quite low.

This makes your brain and body tell you that you need energy quickly, so this makes you automatically reach for foods high in sugar like chocolate and biscuits as well as making you want a meal that can be ready really quickly too - like a ready meal or a takeaway.

Whilst occasionally eating these foods won’t do you any harm, relying on them on a regular basis means you won’t be giving your body all the nutrients its needs to function well.

So you then get more tired, more stressed and because ready meals often contain little protein, you will be reaching for something sweet again by 9pm ( because your blood sugar levels have dropped too low again).

Nutritional Therapy is about helping you to eat well but also taking into account that you may have a lot going on in your life.

Here are some things you can do:

• Do some batch cooking on a weekend. So make a big lasagne or cottage pie or get a slow cooker to make some meals. Then eat the extra portions that you have made during the week and just add some vegetables to it.

• Plan what you are going to eat during the week ahead and write a shopping list before you go shopping. This also helps you to have a variety of foods as you become more conscious of eating the same meals every week.

• Stock up on store cupboard essentials like pasta, tinned fish, pesto and eggs so you can throw something quick together like an omelette or a tuna pasta salad.

If you would like some more nutritional advice, get in touch with a nutritionist today.