FAMILY DIET

Juggling a hectic schedule with healthy eating is often a struggle, so our columnist suggests ways to keep a balanced diet under pressure

Nadiya Hussain explains how to stay healthy when you’re busy

We’ve all been there and I certainly am always battling myself. Working long hours, and with food, means that I often feel I need sugar and caffeine just to stay on top of things. I am guilty of it and lots of us grown-ups are guilty of putting ourselves second where food is concerned. We’re not always good at thinking about what goes past our lips. I know when I am elbow-deep in recipe testing and knee-deep in laundry, all I wants is a bag of chips, a cup of tea and a bar of chocolate – and when I’m that busy, I have zero time for exercise. This is when life feels like it is utterly thrown out of balance.

Not eating well is a never-ending rollercoaster of sugar highs, blood pressure lows and floods of guilt that keep on coming. Of course, that only makes me less productive; the opposite of what I intend when I reach for the caffeine, carbs and sugar.

I love my job and I would not be doing anything else. But throwing myself into it so passionately can often be to the detriment of my health. Why is it that we’ll wake up to do something we love and not do the same to look after the body that allows us to do it in the first place? It’s because we’re human! Balance has never been my strong point. I’m an all-or-nothing kind of girl. I will either eat all the chocolate or none of it. I’m not good at the middle ground. Eating well is not only good for our bodies but also our neglected souls. So, just like we put an alarm on to get out of bed in the morning, we should have an alarm bell reminding us to eat well and prepare ourselves for that every day. Thinking about everything you will eat first thing and how you will eat, makes you much more productive and it’s less likely that, at the end of the day, you’ll have to tell yourself, ‘I really didn’t need another bar of chocolate’.

I’m all-or-nothing – I will either eat all the chocolate or none of it