Unfortunately, it is an accepted norm that once you get involved in your professional lives, the concept of fitness & healthy eating takes a backseat. Stressful & late working hours, long commutes, erratic sleep patterns & lack of healthy ready-to-eat options, all add up. Even with some amount of exercise, most of us find it hard to manage our weight & fitness levels. Eventually, the majority just gives up.

I have lived through this cycle many a times. And yes it is difficult to break away from it. We have eating patterns & trigger points that induce unnecessary and unhealthy eating. The answer lies in identifying these eating patterns & trigger points and making sure that when you hit that point, you have the right & healthy food option around you. 

My own experiences taught me to carry a pack of low fat / high protein cookies along with a couple of fruits at any point of time. If I was to be at my desk the whole day, I would ensure to carry the yogurt or high protein cookies. If I knew I was going to be out, I replaced the yogurt / high protein cookies  with fruits. Carrying pre packaged coconut water was another option. But this was the easy part . 

The difficult part was when I didn't have the choice, in a meeting at the client office. Pizza for lunch & cookies during a meeting are the ready to serve options for clients. Both sinful enough to throw your diet off track for a couple of days, if not more. I taught myself to be slightly vocal and tell the client my lunch preference for something healthy like a sandwich from subway, or to not eat at all. Initially it did seem rude, but then, it was just a question of being honest.

Yes there are those cheat days, office parties, times when you let your hair down & indulge. But for me, these days are rare & hard to count now. The trick for me lay in letting such days be exceptions rather than the norm.

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