When you arrive to a place abroad you’ve never been before for a long period of
time, one of the biggest challenges that you face is what to eat? Many find it difficult to continue with the type of food and eating habits they had back in their home countries because you may not find the same stuff to eat for your breakfast, lunch or dinner. You might have to change your snacking habits a little as well because it is difficult for you to decide what you need to stock in your house that you can always snack on. My suggestion to all those living away from their families is that try to make some positive changes in your lifestyle and particularly your food habits. If you were planning to start following a healthy diet plan by cutting on processed foods, excessive sugars, saturated fats, high calorie carbs then this is the time and opportunity for you to do so. Remember that after spending some time, you’re going to go back to your country and you will be able to find the local food you’re craving here so better wait until then and take this opportunity to switch on to a healthier diet plan.
Once you’ve decided to take a step further to change your lifestyle, you may realize that you are undecided or unclear on the type of changes you need to start making in your daily life, particularly what to eat for breakfast, lunch and dinner that doesn’t add to the number of pounds you’ve already scored. Well, here are some suggestions that might be useful:
1- Replace your white bread with wholegrain bread and eggs with organic eggs. You may like to have wholegrain oatmeal bread or wholegrain wheat bread or you may go with multi grain bread, the choice is yours. These breads are rich in fibers with a high nutritional value.
2- Use whole milk instead of skimmed or low fat milk, your body needs all the natural ingredients present in the dairy products so let the nature take care of your body’s nutritional requirements.
3- Add cheese to your food and take out cookies, chips, fries and other high calorie processed and junk food items.
4- Limit your meat intake to one or maybe two times per week. Having fish is even healthier and better to have wild caught fish rather than farm raised fish, if you are able to get it without much effort.
5- Stick to fresh vegetables and better to the green leafy ones. If you’re craving for a pizza on your cheat day, go for a vegetable pizza. If you are picking a sandwich from the rack, go for a vegetable sandwich.
6- Cut back on your consumption of alcoholic beverages and even carbonated soft drinks. You wouldn’t want to give your body a full load of excessive sugars and high amount of carbs.
A healthy lifestyle does include healthy food, but it is not just limited to that. You need to make certain changes related to your physical activities. Plan for a 30-45 minutes of workout session for 3 to 4 days a week. It will not only help you get in shape but will also help you lower your level of stress. If your workplace is at a 20-25 minute walk, do not opt for public transport to get there. Once in the office, most likely you’ll be spending all the time sitting on the chair with very less movement so take this opp
ortunity to walk to and from your workplace. If you’re not lucky enough to be able to walk to your office, that’s fine. Just take a movement break every hour or couple of hours, use stairs instead of elevator if you’re able to do so. If you find it challenging, no problem, you still have time when you get back to your place. If you have a park nearby, go for a walk and jog around for 15-20 minutes.
There are exercises you can do in your room if you don’t have a park or gym nearby. You just need a strong will to do so, as when there’s a will there’s a way. Think over the long term benefits of exercise and convince yourself to continue with your work out sessions.
You would definitely want to show a better version of yourself when you get back to your family. So plan, act, get better results and stay healthy.
