How to Eat Healthy While Working in Healthcare

Eat as fast as you can whenever you can.

That was the med student mindset around food, as Catherine Harmon Toomer, MD, discovered during her school years. “Without a good system in place to counter that,” she explains, “unhealthy eating can get out of control, and that’s what happened to me.”

After med school, things got worse for Toomer. By her second year in practice as a family medicine physician, she’d gained a lot of weight and had been diagnosed with type 2 diabetes and cardiomyopathy. At 36, she went into congestive heart failure and was told she likely had 5 years to live.

A moment she describes as “a huge wake-up call.”

Toomer is far from alone in her struggles to balance working in medicine and eating healthfully.

“Physicians face unique stresses because of the ubiquity of junk food in the clinical setting, easy use of food as a reward and stress reliever, and lack of time to create better wellness habits while counseling patients to do exactly that,” says John La Puma, MD, FACP, internist and cofounder of ChefMD and founder of Chef Clinic.

There is also the culture of medicine, which Toomer says looks down on self-care. “Even with break times, patient needs come before our own.” So, you sit down to eat, and there’s an emergency. Your clinic closes for lunch, but the phones still ring, and patients continue to email questions. Charting is also so time-consuming that “everything else gets put on the backburner.”

Sticking to a nutritious diet in this context can feel hopeless. But it isn’t. Really. Here are some doctor-tested, real-life ways you can nourish yourself while getting it all done.

Something Is Always Better Than Nothing

Sure, you might not be able to eat a balanced lunch or dinner while at work, concedes Amy Margulies, RD, LDN, owner of The Rebellious RD. But try to focus on the bigger picture and take small steps.

First, make sure you eat something, Margulies advises. “Skipping meals can lead to overeating later and negatively impact energy levels and concentration.”

Lisa Andrews, MEd, RD, LD, owner of Sound Bites Nutrition, recalls one of her patients, a gastrointestinal surgeon with reactive hypoglycemia and fatigue. “She was experiencing energy crashes mid-afternoon,” she describes. It was only after starting to eat every 4-5 hours that her patient felt better.

Of course, this is easier said than done. “When you are running from one patient to the other and trying to keep on time with your schedule, there is very little time for eating and no time at all for cooking or even heating up food,” recalls Hélène Bertrand, MD, author of Low Back Pain: 3 Steps to Relief in 2 Minutes.

But during her 55 years as a family medicine physician, Bertrand found ways to improve (if not perfect) the situation. She lunched on nuts or seeds during the day or grabbed a 95% cacao chocolate bar — higher in antioxidants and lower in sugar than a candy bar.

If you don’t have time for breakfast, try drinking a complete protein shake while driving to work, Toomer recommends. “It’s not ideal, but it’s better than nothing.” Similarly, if the only way you’ll eat a high-protein, lower-carb snack like hummus is with potato chips, go for it, she encourages.

Basically, don’t be type A striving for perfection. Take good enough when you can and balance the rest when you have time.

Torpedo Temptation

From free treats in the break room to always-present pizza for residents, high-fat, high-sugar, low-nutrient fare is a constant temptation. “I worked with a physician who would bring a balanced lunch to work every day, then find whatever sweet was around for his afternoon treat,” recalls Margulies. “The cookies, cakes, and donuts were starting to add up — and stopping at one wasn’t working for him.”

What did work was Margulies’ suggestion to bring a single serving of dark chocolate and fruit to savor during a longer break. “Bringing your favorite treats in appropriate portions can help you stick with your plan throughout the day,” she explains, and you’ll have an easier time resisting what’s in the break room. “When you desire a treat, tell yourself you have what you need and don’t need to indulge in the ‘free food’ just because it’s there. You have power over your choices.”

How about tricking yourself into perceiving cherry tomatoes as treats? That might be unusual, but one of La Puma’s physician patients did just that, displaying the produce in a candy dish on his office counter. Not only did this strategy help remind him to snack healthfully, it also prompted his patients to ask about eating better, he says.

Preparation Is Still Underrated

Many people find meal prepping intimidating. But it doesn’t need to be complicated. For instance, try purchasing precut veggies, cooked chicken breasts, or other healthy convenience options. You can then combine them in packable containers to prep a few meals at a time. For less busy weeks, consider cooking the protein yourself and whipping up basic sauces (like pesto and vinaigrette) to jazz up your meals.

“I worked with a resident who was gaining weight each month,” remembers Margulies. “She would skip lunch, grab a random snack, then wait until she got home to eat anything she could find.”

Encouraged by Margulies, she prepared and portioned one or two balanced dinners each week, which she’d later reheat. She also bought fresh and dried fruit and high-protein snacks, keeping single servings in her car to eat on the way home.

Similarly, Jess DeGore, RD, LDN, CDCES, CHWC, a diabetes educator and owner of Dietitian Jess Nutrition, recalls an OB-GYN client who constantly skipped meals and relied on vending machine snacks. To combat her resulting energy crashes, she followed DeGore’s advice to prep workday lunches (like quinoa salads) over the weekend and bring fruit and nut snacks to work.

Automate as Much as You Can

If healthy is already on hand, you’ll eat healthy, says Andrews. Build up a snack stash focusing on fiber and protein. Tote a lunch bag with a cooler pack if needed. Some suggestions:

• Oatmeal packets
• Individual Greek yogurt cups or drinkable yogurts
• Protein bars
• Protein shakes
• Fresh fruit
• Fresh veggie sticks
• Nuts, dried chickpeas, or edamame
• Trail mix
• Single servings of hummus, nut butter, or guacamole
• Dried seaweed snacks
• Whole grain crackers
• Hard-boiled eggs
• String cheese
• Peanut butter sandwich
• 95% cacao chocolate bar

Try a Meal Delivery Service

Meal delivery services can be pricey, but potentially worth the expense. By bringing meals or having them sent to your office, you won’t have to find time to go to the cafeteria and stand in line, notes Janese S. Laster, MD, an internal medicine, gastroenterology, obesity medicine, and nutrition physician and founder of Gut Theory Total Digestive Care. Instead, “you’ll have something to warm up and eat while writing notes or in between patients,” she says. Plus, “you won’t have an excuse to skip meals.”

Hydration Yes, Junk Drinks No

The following can be filed in the Doctors-Know-It-But-Don’t-Always-Do-It section: “Hunger can be mistaken for thirst,” says Margulies. “Staying hydrated will help you better assess whether you’re hungry or thirsty.” Choose water over soda or energy drinks, she adds, to hydrate your body without unnecessary extra sugars, sugar substitutes, calories, caffeine, or sodium — all of which can affect how you feel.

Advocate for Your Health

Convincing your institution to make changes might be difficult or even impossible, but consider asking your workplace to implement initiatives like these to boost provider nutrition, suggested Jabe Brown, BHSc (Nat), founder of Melbourne Functional Medicine:

• Establish protected break times when doctors can step away from their duties to eat
• Add more nutritious cafeteria options, like salads, whole grains, and lean proteins
• Overhaul vending machine offerings
• Offer educational workshops on nutrition

Be Tenacious About Good Eating

For Toomer, that meant taking several years off from work to improve her health. After losing more than 100 lb, she founded TOTAL Weight Care Institute to help other healthcare professionals follow in her footsteps.

For you, the path toward a healthier diet might be gradual — grabbing a more nutritious snack, spending an extra hour per week on food shopping or prep, remembering a water bottle. Whatever it looks like, make realistic lifestyle tweaks that work for you.

Maybe even try that apple-a-day thing.