BACK-TO-SCHOOL NUTRITION FOR TEACHERS: HOW TO EAT WELL WHEN THE DAY ISN’T YOUR OWN
Yes, this post is written with teachers in mind, but there are a whole lot of professions (and professionals) that find themselves in scenarios like the ones described below! Even if you are not an educator, I think you will find something relatable in the post below.
This post comes from the heart and with a whole lot of personal experience backing it up. Before I was a nutrition coach, I spent over a decade working in elementary schools as both a teacher and administrator. Which means I am VERY familiar with the concept of looking at the clock at 1:47pm and realizing the water bottle sitting next to you is still almost completely full. (Better yet, when the coffee tumbler beside it still has the last couple of sips of that morning’s brew, too…)
I’m all too familiar with packing a great, balanced lunch that you’re excited about...and having approximately 13 minutes to eat it. Or planning to eat a snack during your prep period, only for your prep period to become a meeting, a phone call, helping a student, making copies, responding to emails, and somehow also fixing the copier (IYKYK).
Teachers don't necessarily struggle to take care of themselves during the school day because they don't know what they "should" be doing. Sometimes the systems in place aren't even letting you get to the starting line.
And while we probably aren't going to overhaul the structure of the school day in this blog post (sorry, I don’t have my hands in that pot anymore!), we can look at how to make your nutrition work a little better within it. Here are my top 6 nutrition tips for teachers.
1 | BUILD BREAKFAST AROUND YOUR ACTUAL MORNING
"Eat breakfast before work" sounds simple enough. Teachers also have notoriously early start times, and have also already done a lot before students arrive, both personally and professionally. So instead of starting with what you think breakfast is supposed to look like, start with this: When and where am I actually willing and able to eat?
Maybe you eat at home. Maybe you eat during your commute. Maybe breakfast happens at your desk before students arrive. Once you know the when and where, you can choose the what: foods that actually fit the situation.
A yogurt bowl with fruit and granola might work beautifully if you're sitting at your desk. A smoothie, breakfast sandwich, overnight oats or protein bar with some handheld fruit (apple, banana, etc.) might make more sense if you're trying to get out the door quickly or eating on the go. The optimal breakfast isn't particularly helpful if the logistics mean you consistently don't eat it.
2 | CONSIDER HOW EASY/HARD YOUR LUNCH IS TO ACTUALLY EAT
Teacher lunch is a fascinating concept because on paper, you have a lunch break – usually 25-30 minutes. In reality, you have to get your students where they need to go, probably use the bathroom, heat up your food, answer the question someone asks you in the hallway, and perhaps accomplish one or two other tasks before you finally sit down.
And now your 25-minute lunch is...not 25 minutes. This is where convenience can be a nutrition strategy. When you're planning lunches, consider not only what you're packing but how much friction exists between opening your lunchbox and actually eating it.
Helpful questions might be:
Does it need to be microwaved? Does it require assembly? Do you have to walk to another part of the building to get it? Can you comfortably eat it in 10–15 minutes if that's all you end up having?
There is absolutely nothing wrong with leftovers or a beautifully assembled lunch that comes from multiple tupperware containers if those work for you (I’ve been there with the salads that I would mix together/shake up/inhale while grading papers!). But sandwiches, wraps, snack plates, frozen meals, pre-made salads, individually packaged foods and other convenience options aren't somehow nutritionally inferior simply because they make your life easier. Sometimes making lunch "better" means making lunch easier to eat.
3 | DON’T ASSUME YOU’LL JUST “EAT WHEN YOU’RE HUNGRY”
You can't exactly tell 23 first graders to hang tight while you go find yourself a snack. (Though I used to, and completely encourage you to have a snack when your students snack if it is part of your classroom routine!)
If you know there's a huge stretch between breakfast and lunch or lunch and dismissal, consider whether there's an opportunity to intentionally add something in between, even if you aren't ravenous at that exact moment.
Maybe that's during a morning planning period, when the kids go to specials, as you’re walking to recess duty, or during another predictable transition in your day. This doesn't have to be a full meal. Something like Greek yogurt, fruit/cheese, a protein bar, trail mix, jerky/crackers, a protein shake or whatever combination is easy to keep around can bridge the gap.
Your hunger cues still matter, and acknowledging and embracing that your schedule may not always give you the freedom to respond to them whenever they appear can be really powerful.
4 | HAVE A PLAN FOR THE AFTER SCHOOL HUNGER
The students leave. The adrenaline wears off. You sit down at your desk or get into your car and suddenly realize: I. AM. STARVING.
It's easy to interpret coming home ravenous and immediately rummaging through the pantry as a problem with self-control. But before we jump to "I need more willpower around snacks," I'd zoom out. What (and when) did you eat before these feelings struck?
If breakfast was coffee, lunch was eaten quickly and wasn't particularly substantial, and you haven't eaten anything since noon, being extremely hungry at 4pm is a pretty reasonable response from your body. Sometimes the solution isn't trying harder to eat less after school, but instead to eat more adequately (and sometimes more in general) during the school day. And even with adequate meals, an after-school snack may make perfect sense! Especially if you're heading to the gym, picking kids up, running errands, coaching a sport, or have several hours before dinner.
Rather than waiting until you're desperately hungry and grabbing whatever you can find, experiment with making that snack part of the plan.
(Inserting some personal experience here: I definitely had a handful of school years where eating lunch during lunch was hard. Sometimes it was the time of day my students had lunch, sometimes it was other scheduling, one year it was a single microwave for the whole staff to share – I just always felt like I was scarfing my food, and it took all the joy out of lunchtime. My workaround was reorganizing my meals and snacks throughout the day: I would be sure to eat a filling breakfast, would have a small snack as the students arrived, treated my lunch as an opportunity for a more substantial snack, and then would warm up and enjoy my lunch at dismissal before my (lengthier) commute home. I didn’t have to share the microwave with anyone, could eat at whatever pace I wanted, and I wasn’t ready to eat my arm when I got home.)
5 | WORK WITH (NOT AGAINST) THE BATHROOM PROBLEM WHEN IT COMES TO HYDRATION
"Just drink more water!" Cool cool cool, say all the teachers. Because what they really want to ask is “but when am I going to pee?!”
Hydration advice gets a little more nuanced when you can't simply get up and use the bathroom whenever you'd like. (I did have a bathroom in my classroom for a couple of years and that was dreamy.) Rather than expecting yourself to sip enormous amounts of water all day, look at the rhythm of your schedule.
Some questions to ask: Could you drink more before leaving home when you know you'll have a bathroom opportunity before students arrive? Could lunch be another hydration anchor? Could you intentionally drink more toward the end of the school day?
If forgetting to drink is part of the issue, make your environment do some of the remembering for you. Put your water bottle somewhere you can actually see it rather than tucked behind your computer or inside a cabinet. And if at all possible to have a buddy system with another teacher or two to give bathroom breaks throughout the day, I’d highly recommend.
6 | CREATE AN “EMERGENCY” FOOD STASH
This one has nothing to do with making the perfect choice, but simply making sure a choice exists: keep some backup foods in your classroom, desk, office or wherever you have access to them. It could be protein bars, crackers, tuna packets, jerky, trail mix, applesauce pouches, nuts, dried fruit, oatmeal cups…I think you get the picture. Whatever you genuinely like and will eat (and shelf-stable is helpful, too).
There will eventually be a morning when you leave your lunch sitting on the kitchen counter. There will be an unexpected meeting. There will be a day when the lunch you packed simply isn't enough. Your emergency stash doesn't need to represent your ideal meal. Its job is to prevent "I have nothing" from being the only option, and to be filled with enough choices that pairing a couple of them together can create some sort of balanced something, even if it’s not an aesthetically pleasing combination or if the tastes don’t “go together.”
That's environment design in its simplest form: make the helpful option easier to access when you need it. (And a pro tip: when you deplete something from your stash, replenish is ASAP!)
Especially at the beginning of the school year: lower the bar.
I’ve talked before about using the beginning of the school year as a seasonal shift that lends itself to some new beginnings, or fresh starts. This is true. And and and. The beginning of a school year is a transition.
As a teacher, your sleep schedule changes. Your morning routine changes. Your commute changes. Your meal timing changes. Your activity changes. Your mental load DEFINITELY changes. And as much as you can prepare for it, inservice week and then the first week of school can smack you in the face – whether it is your year 1 or year 10 or year 25.
You don’t need to implement all the things you want to accomplish in those early weeks. I’d ask: what are the couple of things that would make the biggest difference right now? (Maybe it's eating breakfast. Maybe it's packing enough food for the school day. Maybe it's putting a snack in your desk. Maybe it’s relying on convenience options so that sleep can be prioritized or your workout routine can remain steady, and then layering in additional nutrition options in week two. Start with those smaller-feeling things, and build as you feel the routine become more established.)
Successful nutrition isn't about proving that you can force the "ideal" strategy into your life and live optimally all the time (this goes for all professions!). It's about finding strategies that work within the life you're actually living.
For teachers, that life includes bells, duties, meetings, limited bathroom breaks, very short lunches, approximately one million decisions a day, and a whole bunch of people who need something from you. Your nutrition deserves to support you through that, not become one more assignment you feel like you're behind on.
YOUR NEXT STEP
Does this blog post resonate with you? At Front Porch Nutrition, I coach real people through real-life nutrition — thinking through what your wants, needs, and goals are, and working together to make changes that last not just in the moment, but for the long haul. Get started with 1:1 nutrition coaching today!
