My name is Erin Blake and I am worried about your health!
Working for the Caribbean Public Health Agency has raised my awareness of the growing problems with obesity and associated diseases. The go to axiom in public health is ‘the health of the nation, is the wealth of the nation.’ Well, I think that is also true for evaluators too. We need to take care of our physical and mental health in order to do the best job possible for our clients and stakeholders.
Many of us (myself included) struggle with our weight and maintaining our health. It can be hard making good choices when travelling frequently, working long hours, under stressful deadlines, in places where food options are limited and/or working in locations that have no facilities for exercise.
So how can we better take care of ourselves when we are on the road?
Hot Tip: Do your research. When booking accommodation, look for places that have facilities for exercise or are close to places you can go for a jog/walk/swim. You don’t have to take exercise seriously, just regularly. Thirty minutes a day!
Hot Tip: Be prepared. ALWAYS pack your gym gear and swim wear when you are heading out on the road. Be prepared to exercise in your room. Sit ups, push-ups, squats, yoga, dancing, star jumps and many more exercises don’t need a gym. There are loads of resources on the web that can help you identify exercise that can work for you.
Hot Tip: If you can’t measure it, you can’t manage it. Download some apps for tracking your calories and exercise (or just write it down!).
Rad Resource: MyFitnessPal is a free app (available for iPhone, Android, Blackberry, and Windows) that includes a daily diary for tracking your nutritional intake and calories burned. It has a surprisingly large database of different foods and their nutritional content which is particularly handy. It also has some fun graphs for your inner data viz nerd!
Get Involved: I want to encourage more AEA members to share their experiences and tips for maintaining their health.
Do you have questions, concerns, kudos, or content to extend this aea365 contribution? Please add them in the comments section for this post on the aea365 webpage so that we may enrich our community of practice. Would you like to submit an aea365 Tip? Please send a note of interest to aea365@eval.org . aea365 is sponsored by the American Evaluation Association and provides a Tip-a-Day by and for evaluators.
Thanks for the tips! Myfitnesspal is a great resource. I learned that @ 65% of our weight loss is attributed to what we eat vs exercise. (I couldn’t figure out why I wasn’t losing weight running only!) Some other ideas: Try to eat protein with every meal, pack food with you or shop at a grocery store when you arrive, of course – drink lots of water.
Great tips!