Guest Blogger: Mara

Today’s super helpful post about balancing a healthy lifestyle with a stressful schedule is brought to you by Mara, author of the “What’s For Dinner” blog. Go check out her blog and say “hi”: it’s full of absolutely mouthwatering & deliciously amazing recipes!!!

I’m so excited to be writing a post for a blog that I read so religiously! Lindsay’s blog was one of the first that I got really “into”, so this is a huge honor… ok, I’ll stop gushing.

I’m a teacher. A wake up at 5 a.m., dress up in “teacher” clothes (minus theme sweaters), carry bags full of papers to grade, meeting-attending teacher. I’m in my 6th year of teaching now, at my 2nd (and hopefully last!) teaching job. So many people say things like “wow, it must be nice to teach! You get home at 3 and have the whole summer off!”

Sure, that’s all nice stuff, but what a lot of people don’t know is that a teacher’s work is not done once she leaves her school building! I grade papers and plan lessons almost every afternoon, and attend meetings multiple days over the summer. Needless to say, there’s the added stress of the job which is, for me, teaching 180 middle school students every day!

Let’s rewind a minute… before my current teaching job, I worked on the South Side of Chicago in a not-so-typical Chicago Public School. I taught 500 kids every week, 22 different classes ranging in age from 5 to 14. My first year of teaching was a whirlwind of stress and craziness, with learning ALL those names and getting used to being a “grown up.” I let the stress get the best of me and managed to gain a grand total of almost 75 pounds from day 1 to the time I decided to join Weight Watchers. I had let comments from my students get to me as well, and rather than working to change something about it, I would go home and order a deep-dish pizza. After deciding to join WW, my stress came not only from work, but from trying to figure out how exactly to teach, plan, grade, AND plan and cook nutritious, weight-loss friendly meals.

At first, it was a struggle. I felt like I “didn’t have the time” to shop and plan my meals along with my lesson planning! Then I finally realized that I was making it way harder on myself than I needed to. Who said I had to cook EVERY night? I discovered the wonder that was Sunday cooking. I’d make a casserole and a couple other smaller things on Sundays, pack them up for lunches, then make a second thing that would be dinners. Sure, I got a little bored with some of the foods, but I was losing weight!

Fast Forward to today: I’ve learned to make my meal planning and shopping a part of my day. If I need to go to the grocery store, I tell myself that I’m not going home until after I go to the store. Luckily, I pass tons of grocery stores on my route home from my school, so it’s not like its out of the way. Now I cook every night!

One of the other things that has taken some major getting used to is my schedule. All through college, I could eat when I was hungry, restaurants were open late night, and I could go anywhere on campus for a meal. Being a grown up means following someone else’s schedule! I now have a very set eating schedule that I rarely break, even on weekends!
7:00 a.m. – Breakfast (oats, other hot cereal, protein bars)
9:30 a.m. – snack (usually a latte)
11:30 a.m. – lunch (usually the night before’s leftovers)
3:00 p.m. – snack (usually fruit)
5:30 or 6 p.m. – Dinner

Dinner is where I can get creative, hence the reason for my blog! I’ve learned to, rather than let the stress get the best of me, I’m getting the best of stress. If I have a bad day at work, I’ll make something that involves pounding out chicken for dinner! A day where I don’t feel well might result in a beef stew or chicken soup. I let the schedule of my school day help me take control of my eating rather than letting it bug me.

Oh, and the main thing I’ve learned? I need to stay out of the staff lounge when there are snacks!! It causes a whole other level of stress that I just don’t need!