Adjusting to working life

hatwell

Full Member
So I was very lucky and managed to get a job the day after I finished uni, and it's been going well. I like my office a lot and I'm delighted to have found work at all, but it is making it very hard to stick to SW.

This is for two reason.
First: it means I can't go to my meeting any more. I work from 9-6 (and sometimes past 6) and in a different part of London than where my meeting is and the only one near here that i could go to starts at 7:30. I don't especially want to hang around after work for that long, because it means the meeting will take up my entire evening.

Second: It's just really hard having a full time job and socialising and finding the time to cook proper meals. I also work in an office where there is free cereal, toast and biscuits so if I haven't had time to make myself a healthy lunch and pack snacks etc then I'll just indulge.

I definitely haven't been trying as hard as I could to stick to the plan but I am finding it really hard adjusting to working full time after being a student anyway and trying to organize SW as well seems impossible, but I've lost nearly 2.5 stone and don't want to throw it all away!

Please help!
 
Your BMI is well in the healthy range, so personally I'd not worry to much.

However, if you do want ot worry about it here are my tips - bearing in mind I commute to London (4 hours a day) - leave the house 7am - get back at 8pm I still manage to stay on plan all through the week.

The key I'm afraid is planning. No way of getting round this.

I eat lateish at about 9pm. Its the first thing I do when I get home from work. I cut up all my veggies and get whatever I'm making on the go. Whilst I'm waiting for that to do I will make my lunch for the next 2 days, and cut up all my fruit for brekkie. I eat my fruit before I leave the house, and a hifi bar or toast when I get to work. I bring my own bread to work to toast so I stay on plan.

I don't have a very big freezer so can't batch cook, but if you can - so it!

Also , get a slow cooker - in the winter you can chuck everything in before you go to work and it will be ready when you get home.

In my desk drawer I always have
Honey - for my toast
Mugshots
Small tins of baked beans
Mikado sticks

As for group -find a weekend one so it doesn't take up your whole evening.
 
Hi Hatwell.

Well done for getting a job so quickly :)

Whereabouts in London do you work? I work in Central London, and there are a few SW groups around lunchtimes so you could see if there are any like those near you.

As far as having no time, welcome to the real world hun (I don't mean this to sound nasty, it really shocked me when I left uni!). I graduated 4 years ago and I still feel there aren't enough hours in a day. Women who work, and have children, and run a home, absolutely amaze me!

You will eventually get yourself into a routine. I try to cook more food than I should and then take leftovers for lunch the next day. Soup is a great idea, you can make a massive batch and keep it in the fridge. If I forget to take lunch or just can't, I tend to pop to Tesco next door and just buy a JP and tin of beans and then some fruit - much cheaper than trying to buy lunch out!

Just because the cereal, toast and biccies are free, it doesn't mean you have to eat them - you can take your own in (I have bran flakes, all bran and weetabix in the cupboard at work for variety!).

With the biccies, which I know are hard to resist, it's all about will power sadly. But seeing as you've lost 2.5 stone already, there's no reason you can't keep up what you've done already.

It will take time to get yourself into a routine, but it does get easier. I promise.

Well done on what you have achieved so far, you should be very proud :)

xx
 
Women who work, and have children, and run a home, absolutely amaze me!
Could not agree more! They are basically doing 2 full time jobs! I just about manage with the full time job, and frankly, the housework often doesn't get done. We definitely still live like students in that respect :)
 
Hi there,
I work in the same environment, there is literally a "Tuck table" where the manager spends a tenner a week in the poundshop on sweets, crisps, biscuits and generally everything I want when I am sat at a computer screen bored... ahem... I mean working very hard and earning my pennies.
I find that if you have a microwave you can get away with very little planning, either by over cooking for the evening meal and tupperwaring the rest, or I practically live on the Uncle Bens Rice packets, 2 minutes and you are good to go, some of the flavours are easily nice enough to be a meal on their own and well worth the few syns, I also throw in sweetcorn or pre cooked chicken (HEX) and then you are all good. Plus free cereal isnt always bad, it means you can clear your HEX A and B straight away and also without cost! they literally can be counted as FREE foods (see what I did there!)
 
Although I have been working full time for years now, my current job is very hectic and tiring (I'm a youth worker working with troubled teens!). I tend to try and make dinner/tomorrows lunch/tomorrows breakfast all in one go so that I don't sit down after dinner and stay on sofa! So whilst I'm chopping veg for dinner, I make a salad for my lunch. Then whilst dinner is cooking I make my breakfast (magic porridge).

I tend to batch cook so only make dinner say every other night or two, and then eat my homemade SW meals from freezer other nights. So if you have freezer space I recommend this! I'm veggie so eat lots of hard boiled eggs, I make 3 or 4 at a time so I dont have to do it every night.

For days when I can't be bothered to chop stuff and make salad etc for lunch then I tend to have couscous (plain with added lemon etc) or ainsley harriot ones which are low syn. Or I boil some pasta and have it cold with low fat pesto (1.5syns per tspn).

For snacks, I buy bunch of bananas and bag of apples/pears etc weekly and take one of each per day. Cereal bars are a great easy snack for a HEB.

It takes a bit of practice to get it right, there are some days I forget to make my breakfast the night before and curse that I have to use HEB and HEA for cereal and milk! But once you get in habit of it then it becomes easier.

As for the treat table, can you try and see if they will provide better snacks like fruit and SW friendly stuff?

Good luck, oh and congrats on the job!

x
 
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