Can anyone help me with my eating habits?

alyth

I'm wondering whether anyone can come up with any suggestions as to my work/life balance and how I can improve my diet! I'm 39, on an access course, have obtained a place at uni this year so have to pass my highers to get onto my degree course.

My problem is time and I'm strugging some days to eat properly - I seem to live on breakfast bars and bananas. My timetable is:

Mon - work 5-9
Tues - college 9-11 and 1-3. Work 4-9.30
Wed - college 11-4 right through, no break - work 5-8
Thur - college 9-11 and 3-5
Frid - college 9-12
Sat - work 1-9
Sun - work 12-4

It might not look that bad, there has been an occasion at college where I fainted recently through not being able to eat for a few hours. Even on a Monday if I eat before work, I'm hungry again by the time I get home at 8.15. The same applies for Saturday - I can have soup before work at 1, but I work in a shop and can only maybe quickly eat a roll at 5pm, by the time I get home I am starving but have lost the will to eat anything.

Tuesdays are awful - I can get something to eat at college around 12, but then I'm not really able to eat anything in the shop, again I can grab a roll, but by the time I get home at maybe 9.45 the notion for eating has gone.

I've put on two stone since September through not eating properly, there are no facilities at college for even heating food up, at work I can't even really get a coffee as I have to be at the till all the time (the shop is a small local one).

Breakfast is always porridge, I eat probably three bananas a day, and end up scoffing breakfast bars in any break in classes because I get light-headed from not eating. Thankfully I don't like chocolate otherwise I would have put on even more weight!

Can anyone come up with some solution as to how I can eat better, lose weight with any luck, and just generally get healthier? I have exams soon and I need to get the balance right, last night I ended up eating spagetti bolognase sauce that I had made on Friday night, at 10pm!

Thanks in advance.

bertiebots

I suppose a lot depends on your cooking skills. What it sounds like you need is food that is going to keep you going and quick to prepare. Do you have a rule always to eat breakfast?. Muesli is great for filling you up and keeping you full till lunch. If your on a tight budget home made soups and stews would be a good idea ,are healthy and can be carried in a flask to take with you . They can be made in advance and frozen etc ...if you head over to the old style board there are 100's of recipes and advice on packed lunches etc. They are really helpful and probably have loads more suggestions than me!.

alyth

that's one of the problems - I hate cooking, if there was a pill that I could take to fill me up I would take it!

Yes I always have breakfast, always porridge - I have no interest in food so tend to eat the same things over and over again -I can't so much as make an omlette, even at my age!

I'm really struggling, I can't even take a flask of soup into college with me as I can't have it as some of my classes are back to back, some in an IT suite, etc. I'm more than willing to batch cook, the problem is that I have six lots of exams between now and Easter so any spare time I have is spent studying or researching.

soupface

I'm like you. Unless I've eaten a really big meal or a biiiiig bowl of porridge, within about 2.5-3 hours I'm hungry again. But it's more of a "brain" hungry, like I feel vaguely peckish physically but mainly it's lightheadedness, restlessness, panic and/or irritability and sometimes headaches. I think it's your blood sugar. Fruit is really good for you but essentially it is sugar, especially bananas, and cereal bars are absolutely packed with the stuff - your blood sugar's going right down, then spiking up, then dropping like a stone again. That's what makes you feel faint, not a lack of energy!

I usually snack on fruit, but after a while it started to make my blood sugar go haywire too, so I started adding in a few of those little Swedish dry toast-y baguette-y things. All supermarkets do their own versions of them and I think they're actually pretty nice! They don't taste like cardboard anyway. They're low in calories (about 50 per toast) but they're high in fibre so they calm your anxious tummy a bit. A couple of those have the same amount of energy as a banana but nowhere near the amount of sugar. And they're small so maybe you could put a few in a little tupperware and keep it near your till?

JBD

It sounds as if your 2 main problems are lack of time and not being able to cook very well. Having a quick glance at your diet it seems as if you're not eating very much protein. some quick suggestions-
ready made hummus,can eat with pitta breads, raw carrot sticks, slices of pepper.
Stir fry-packet of pre prepared vegetables, add some diced chicken/cashew nuts, flavour with soy sauce, add easy cook noodles.
Buy good quality wholemeal bread for sandwiches, use chicken, tuna fish, cheese etc. Add salad vegetables if you like them.
Mini packets of dried fruits, nuts and seeds can be quite filling and handy when out.

JoolzS

What were you eating before your current timetable? Perhaps you could try that!

Putting on two stone in three or four months means you are stuffing yourself - stop doing that. If you really lived on "breakfast bars and bananas" then you would probably have lost weight unless you are eating enough for a large family.

Julie

seven-day-weekend

If you like them, I find sardines on toast really filling and you could always have a piece of fruit as well.