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Cut the junk from your crazy hours
July 2, 2009
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The You Docs
Q. I work in a hospital emergency room, and the hours are crazy. I get up at 2:30 a.m. to be at work by 5. I "munch" through the day and go crazy when I get home about 12 hours later. My weight is out of control: I'm 5-foot-3, and weigh 210 pounds. Is there a plan I can follow with my crazy schedule?
Anonymous
A. There's plenty you can do, and there's a new, compelling reason why you should eat right: A diet filled with saturated or trans fats can further disrupt your circadian rhythms.
So – Goal No. 1: Wean yourself from fast, saturated and trans-fatty food by planning what you'll eat and when. It's going to take a week or two until this becomes a habit, so grab a buddy at work with your same goals, and get to it. Goal No. 2: Eat breakfast, plus two other meals and two snacks every day. Have the right food – it's no harder to open a bag of carrot sticks than a bag of potato chips. For an easy lunch, consider soup and salad with walnuts and dried cranberries.
You and your buddy should get out of the ER and walk on 10-minute breaks – even going to a different floor to visit a patient. Extend this to a 30-minute walk to burn calories whenever you can. Try using a pedometer to compare steps.
This way you can still work in 30 years rather than be pushed into the cardiac monitoring station in six years.
Check up on the You Docs quirky but practical advice in tomorrow in Living.
Toronto Star
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