Healthy Eating Doesn't Cost Us Time - It Creates Time! (Learn from This Dietitian's Mistake)

In this weekly article I usually share a recipe, or some scientific evidence-based nutrition advice, or nutrition advice based on my 12 years of helping others. But today I wanted to share a reflection based on my own life. Consider it a lesson learned. Or, if you’re a fan of Rick Mercer like I am, consider it my rant.

One of the most common things that people say to me when I introduce myself as a dietitian is that they don’t have time to eat healthy.

Well today I re-learned a lesson that proves what I believe – that if you want to get more done in a day, then make the time to eat healthy. I say that I re-learned this lesson today because today I didn’t make the time to eat healthy, and to be frank, I felt like crap (yes, even dietitians eat poorly sometimes).

I didn’t make the time to grocery shop on the weekend and so I didn’t have the food in the house for the breakfast that makes my body the happiest. Now to be fair I’m currently living on a remote First Nations reserve where the nearest grocery store is a 30 minute drive away and I didn’t have access to a car. But I could have asked someone for a ride into town. As a result of my inadequate breakfast I arrived at the office feeling tired and so I drank more caffeine than my body likes. The result of which of course is that I crashed by lunchtime. My lunch was healthy (thanks to a co-worker who shared a delicious meal with me) but having crashed from my morning caffeine rush, I moved up my afternoon coffee by a few hours. To add insult to injury, for some reason I chose not to drink the amount of water that I know my body likes me to drink. The result of these bad choices was that by 4pm I was a sugar-craving zombie, ready to put my head down on my desk for a nap. Not wanting to drink more caffeine, I ate some sugar (along with some protein and whole grains) and zoned out in front of some Netflix and then got lost in Facebook for a solid hour. I did manage to rouse myself in time to drink several glasses of water and cook and eat a healthy dinner (a stew with black eyes peas and lots of veggies). The result is that I have now rebounded with enough energy to get something done. But it’s now so late that I needed to decide between writing this article, doing yoga, or getting to bed on time. Looks like it’s going to be a late night.

As you can see, the lesson here is that if I had made better choices with my food and beverages, then I would have had more energy and gotten more done in my day. 4-6 pm is usually a really productive time in my day. But because I made poor choices, all I achieved was watching a documentary and scrolling through Facebook.

Healthy eating doesn’t cost us time – it creates it!

I encourage you to learn from my mistake. Don’t let “I’m too busy” be a barrier for you to eat well. If you want more energy to get more done in your day, then choose to take the time to eat healthy.