This article was written by Take The Magic Step™ staff writers Peter Pippig and Silvie Nohr. Both try their best to eat well while living and working in Berlin. The tips were crafted by Uta and nutrition advisor Dieter Hogen.

Welcome to the second part of our test series! This three-part series deals with the difficulty of healthful eating in a hectic and challenging daily life. In part one, Marie reported of her daily struggle for healthy food. This time we will find out about Sandra. For one week she has written down in detail the foods and drinks she consumed – without leaving anything out. She has been trying for a year now to eat as healthfully as possible. Most of the time, however, she is under too much stress and has too little time to prepare healthy meals.

In the second part of our series it will again become clear that there are still many deficits in Germany in regard to healthful nutrition – those who want to eat healthfully often don’t know how. Compared to Marie, Sandra might already have a better eating philosophy as she has been seeking information about healthy nutrition for a while now, but there are still many things about her diet she could improve. As in the first part of our series, we give our guinea pig one or two short, practical tips for each day. We again focus on one different choice she could have made each day, as the Take The Magic Step™ nutrition philosophy is based on slow, practical changes that can accumulate to significant effect. At the end, we also offer some overall advice that might help Sandra to improve her eating habits in the future. We hope that you’ll find some of our advice to Sandra useful in your own situation.

Sandra – 27 years old, employed full-time at a film PR agency, lives in Berlin-Prenzlauer Berg

Monday

9:30 a.m.: A large coffee with milk for a start – a ritual every morning while the computer is starting up and I check the first e-mails.

11:00 a.m.: For the last few weeks I’ve had fresh fruit salad for breakfast every morning. As there are scary amounts of calories posted on the Internet, however, I haven’t dared to add muesli to it in the last few days. So it’s only grapes, kiwifruit, apple, plums with nuts and yogurt – unfortunately with 3.5% fat, as I grabbed the wrong one. Well, my own fault, I guess! Still yummy and a sheer pleasure every morning! Just wish I would have had more time to eat, as the bowl of fruit is as always sitting between my computer keyboard and telephone, and I am eating while working. I don’t take time to enjoy it and am not satisfied afterwards. A general appetite remains.

2:00 p.m.: Would love to eat a large yummy salad with turkey breast, but this is of course nonexistent in the office fridge. Instead, there is whole-meal bread, cheese and turkey sausage. Well, as I fancy that as well, I’ll simply have that. Prepare two slices and take it outside for lunch. Sit down in the sun for a short while and enjoy my yummy sandwich. Left my mobile in the office on purpose.

4:00 p.m.: The head of our agency, Petra , bought chocolate, which has been sitting there for two days. As work is stressful and frustrating and all phones are ringing at once, I soon feel the desire for some substitutional satisfaction. Knowing the chocolate is there, I finally give in and have some.

4:15 p.m.: I nibble on three chocolate cookies with pleasure. Ringing phones don’t matter, the hormones of happiness rule.

4:30 p.m.: I feel bad and stout and hate this office job in which you are glued to your chair and through the lack of physical activity are constantly thinking about food, especially when the boss buys cookies!!!

6:30 p.m.: Cookies don’t fill you up. Consequently, I make myself two sandwiches with cheese, as still no salad has popped up in the fridge and I haven’t had time to go shopping.

8:00 p.m.: I go for a run and hope to make up for some of the cookies.

Tip: Okay, we said one or two tips per day, but we’ll make an exception here.

• Instead of drinking too much coffee every morning, experiment with different kind of teas that taste good to you; keep drinking your favorite kind of green tea throughout the day.
• A healthy alternative to industrially produced and often sugar-enriched muesli: soak oats from the health food store in soymilk and/or water overnight, add a teaspoonful of fine-ground flax seed and also add a few raisins and/or dried apricots. Eat a small portion of this mixture together with a peeled apple (eat the apple the way you want, whole or grated). You also can choose to eat oatmeal in the morning. (Read about oatmeal in our article about breakfast.) Muesli and oatmeal can be prepared easily and are very filling.
• Low-fat yogurt mixed with fruits is a great alternative for breakfast and/or lunch. You can bring a large container of yogurt and plenty of fruit of your choice and leave it in the fridge and mix it on a daily basis. This is a good alternative for lunch if salad, fruit or veggies are not available. These alternatives are easy to organize, so there is no reason to eat unhealthy food for lunch.
• For the afternoon, bring some fruit from home and leave it in the refrigerator. Have some nuts and nutrition bars close by as well.

Tuesday

9:30 a.m.: Latte!

11:15 a.m.: Fruit salad with yogurt and nuts. It’s still all good and I feel good.

3:00 p.m.: I make myself two sandwiches once again and nibble at a few cherry tomatoes, which are in the fridge all of a sudden. I am actually frustrated again because I wish I had some time to go shopping, make a big salad, sit in the sun and go for a short walk afterwards so that I could then go back to work energized and motivated. But no, instead it is sandwiches at the computer!

6:00 p.m.: I eat an apple, as, for some reason, candy is not appealing to me today.

8:00 p.m.: As I am at a movie preview and our director is doing an interview, Petra invites me for dinner. A glass of red wine, a yummy salad with warm goat cheese on whole-meal baguette with herbs. Mmmmmmmmh, wonderful. I am happy and satisfied. Afterwards I go out with a colleague and have three more glasses of red wine and, believe it or not, salted peanuts! I indulge in them as, after midnight , my stomach started rumbling again. Am not happy with myself!

Tip: Make it a habit to drink the same amount of water for every glass of wine you consume. Doing so makes it easier for your body to handle the alcohol, and you are less likely to be dehydrated afterward. In addition, you might drink less alcohol and at the same time reduce your craving for salty peanuts.

Wednesday

9:00 a.m.: I go to work. Here I drink half a liter of buttermilk, mixed with freshly squeezed juice to rinse off the bad taste from last night. Still hungry, so I have two slices of bread with cream cheese. Actually rather feel like fresh, juicy fruit, but unfortunately there is none in reach.

4:00 p.m.: The usual two slices of bread. I am just too busy to go shopping and to prepare something healthful.

8:00 p.m.: I lie on my couch, eat steamed broccoli with mushrooms, roasted fish, marinated feta and dried tomatoes. I am very happy with this. Have fennel tea afterwards and think: If only I always had that much time to prepare and have my food…

10:00 p.m.: Well, still feel like something sweet. Prepare a glass of freshly squeezed orange juice and end up eating half a bar of chocolate. At least it consists of 80% cocoa. Have a moderately bad conscience.

Tip: Again, let us offer a few additional tips.

• First thing in the morning, drink a big glass of water with the juice of half a freshly squeezed lemon. (By the way, this takes less time to prepare than a pot of coffee.) The lemon water will help your body rehydrate after the long night out, detoxify your system, and allow you to have a much better start for the day. After that, have your coffee, latte or tea, and eat one of your favorite breakfast choices.
• Think about the importance of staying healthy and how nutrition plays a key role in keeping you fit and energized, and allows you to work at your best. Try to keep this in mind rather than finding excuses for poor choices that compromise your ability to perform at your best.
• With the importance of good nutrition in mind, you should be able to find time once or twice a week for a 15-minute trip to the grocery store to stock up on apples, berries and other fruits to take with you to work. Also add some low-fat yogurt to your shopping cart.
• Instead of making sandwiches, take soaked oats from home, mix them with a spoonful of fine flax seed and a grated and peeled fresh apple (see muesli recipe above).

Thursday

Even though today was a beautiful sunny day, I have only consumed nutritional crap and felt terrible.

10:30 a.m.: The day began quite well with the thought of a fruit salad. But unfortunately, there is only fruit from last week left over. Due to all the stress, I didn’t have the time to go shopping. After a nerve-racking search for a parking place, I had to rush straight into the office to the computer. It’ll have to be less-than-fresh fruit then: a wrinkly orange and an old wrinkly apple. At least I found some hazelnuts, but no yogurt. Taste-wise not very satisfying!

12:00 p.m.: My colleague brought some cookies. Look great, go well with the hacking on the computer. Ate five cookies. Great taste, short joyful moment. Then nagging feeling of guilt.

2:45 p.m.: A director will be coming for a meeting any minute. This will go for a long time, so I better eat something quickly beforehand. Call after the trainee: NO WHITE BREAD ROLL from the bakery, but whole-meal with turkey and salad! She came back with a wheat bagel with butter, turkey and a slice of cucumber – and for the horrendous amount of €3.50. Too much money for too bad food! Am hungry so I eat it anyway.

5:30 p.m.: The meeting is over. Short review. My boss Petra is coming around the corner with coffee and chocolate bars. “Look, sweethearts, I bought this just for you!” Was probably meant to lift the spirits. So we all have a chocolate bar.

From 7:00 p.m.: The reception for the Berlin Festival begins. Unhealthy appetizers on small pieces of baguette are being served and washed down with white wine. From a nutritional point of view, a day that can be deleted from the calendar!

Tip: Poor nutrition is often not a matter of time, but of organization. For example, you could find an instant oatmeal you like, and buy several months’ worth at once, so that they’re always on hand at home and in the office. The key to avoiding nutrition traps on a stressful day is being prepared. Take muesli bars, soymilk and a few apples from home. You could also pack some cut raw vegetable and a few nuts. That way, you can reach for them instead of chocolate bar when you start to feel hungry or just stressed out.

Friday

After a long night at the Berlinale I am quite hungover. After way too little sleep I fall out of bed shortly after 9:00 and jump into my festival clothes and onto the tram. It’s again much too late to be at work on time at 9:30. So again no chance to make it to the fruit seller, who is neither located on the way to the tram nor on the way from the tram to work. There are, however, about 23 bakeries on the way. I end up in the last one.

10:30 a.m.: The irritable stomach is happy about the whole-meal roll with omelet. The conscience, however, does not like the mayonnaise underneath it, which was hiding meanly in the roll when I bought it.

11:30 a.m.: Petra is coming from a meeting. As they are celebrating the carnival somewhere in Germany, we all get a traditional carnival donut with jam filling. I won’t even mention my conscience; doesn’t matter anyway anymore.

3:00 p.m.: On the way to interviews I briefly catch up with a colleague. We stop at a sushi bar. Perfect if you don’t have much time. The delicious little sushi rolls are moving smoothly past on tiny plates. After a 15-minute snack I run off – only to then sit at the bar in a hotel foyer with a cappuccino, to look after the interviews and to nibble at one little cookie.

From 8:00 p.m.: As I have cancelled all dates for the evening and jumped into my car due to dramatically diminished physical energy, I take the chance to go to a health food store. I buy three turnips, one pepper, fresh salad as well as some shrimp. After I have prepared it all, I light a candle and enjoy my dinner on my comfy couch. Taste great, content great: feeling great!

Tip: Again, a few minutes of preparation earlier in the week would help you have good options on a busy morning: prepared muesli, nutrition bars, etc. Today, you actually made it to the store, but didn’t take advantage of it. If time is difficult to find to get to a grocery store often, then take advantage of the opportunity while you are there and stock up on healthful food that will last several days and alleviate the problems of not having good food nearby.

Saturday

10:00 a.m.: Met the Berlinale people for a last time and said goodbye over a yummy breakfast. Apart from freshly squeezed orange juice, water and a latte, there was fruit, fresh vegetables, turkey, low-fat cheese, two slices of whole-meal bread, a boiled egg and some quark (a mixture of yogurt, cream cheese and ricotta cheese popular in Germany) on my plate.

3:00 p.m.: Catastrophe: Petra asks someone to bring her some candy, a colorful mixture of little chocolate pralines. I reach into the bag and eat at least five or six (or seven) of the little delicacies. They are very small, so only limited damage, I try to tell myself.

7:30 p.m.: Finally lying on my couch again and spoil myself with some roast turkey, zucchini and mushrooms.

Tip: Today’s breakfast was simply too big. Eating at least five small meals a day keeps you more energized and lean than eating fewer, larger meals with long amounts of time between them.

Overall tip:

Sandra already eats a lot of healthy food. She could improve her eating habits by being ready for the inevitable busy times. By having a good supply of high-quality products on hand, she won’t find herself famished and stressed out with only poor choices available. One brief trip a week to stock up on oats, low-fat yogurt, fruits, vegetables and salad items will more than make up for the time it takes her, because she’ll feel more energized and be more productive every day.

With today’s busy schedules, making excuses is a typical problem. It is not that Sandra does not have the time or that the food she should be eating is not available. The problem is that she is not taking advantage of the opportunities to buy the healthy foods nor bring them with her to work when she is fully aware that they are most likely not going to be in the office.

A positive attitude, a little effort and some planning will help you to eat in a more healthy way.