ABA YLD

Lawyers Getting Healthier: #Fit2Practice through the ABA YLD
By:  Rusty O’Kane

You will begin that exercise program … just as soon as you put out a few more fires at work. You’re definitely eating healthy today, but the HR lady brought donuts and cake for so-and-so’s birthday celebration. Sound familiar? Figuring out how to get that extra hour to head to the gym or to stay on track with eating healthy can be difficult in our profession. CDC guidelines recommend 150 minutes of moderate-intensity activity per week—but I doubt anyone at the CDC ever worked as a young lawyer. The ABA YLD’s #Fit2Practice Initiative is geared toward making it a little easier to start down the path of a healthier career and lifestyle in the hopes of staving off some of the all-too-common health problems that affect lawyers.

Everyone knows that lawyers do not always place their own health at the top of the priority list. Collectively, we eat quick lunches at our desks, eschew exercise for extra billable hours, eat late night pizza while closing a deal, and sit at our desks for long stretches of time. In the process, our waistlines and mental health suffer. As we kicked off the new bar year a few weeks ago in Chicago at the ABA Annual Meeting, the YLD’s leadership announced that in addition to starting some great new projects, it would continue and expand the #Fit2Practice Initiative. Fit to Practice is the ABA Young Lawyers Division's yearlong health and wellness initiative.

Lacy Durham—the chair of the YLD—explained that her inspiration behind continuing to support the #Fit2Practice Initiative was the tragic passing of her friend Keith Krueger from complications with diabetes. The initiative is intended to improve health in the legal profession by encouraging young lawyers to eat right, get out and exercise, and pay attention to their mental health.

The ABA YLD #Fit2Practice website has a plethora of resources available to help promote a healthier lifestyle. There are articles geared toward staying active, even when dealing with other stressors in our daily lives—kids, billable hours, needy partners, and overall exhaustion. On the #Fit2Practice website you can watch videos from lawyers discussing their habits and routines, or you can upload your own videos to share with the YLD community. Alternatively, you can tweet updates using the (probably soon-to-be) famous Twitter handle: #Fit2Practice. Simply go to this website and check it out.

In the meantime, here are some tips for eating healthy throughout your day:

          1.  Many experts say eating healthy at work begins at home with a nutritious breakfast, including lean protein, whole grains, fruits and vegetables. Of course, none of these experts were up until midnight finishing that brief, have two kids who need to get to school, and a boss who already emailed four times with “urgent” requests. Instead of thinking of these recommendations as calls to make egg omelets with a side of fruit and toast, try some frozen breakfast sandwiches. They take only a minute to heat in the microwave, are made with egg whites and bacon, are under 250 calories, and can keep you full until mid- to late morning;

          2.  Bring your lunch from home.  This is the best way to stay on track with the healthy eating habits you practice at home. Gina Ryder, author of Huffington Post’s Food for Thought blog, suggests setting aside some time on Sunday to prepare lunches for the week ahead, rather than rushing to throw something together each morning. Crock Pot recipes are a lawyer’s best friend;

          3.  Find nearby restaurants with healthy options for those times when a client, associate, or partner wants to meet for lunch. If you do your research in advance, you can recommend a restaurant that won’t blow your diet;

          4.  Enjoy a healthy snack mid-morning and mid-afternoon, also from home, for greater productivity and to avoid unhealthy snacking. My personal favorites include oatmeal, beef jerky, Light&Fit Greek Yogurt, or SmartPop Popcorn (not together … that’d be gross);

          5.  Avoid mindless eating at your desk, which is the perfect recipe for overeating, warns WebMD. The medical website quotes the American Dietetic Association (now Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) research that 70 percent of Americans eat at their desks several times a week.

I’m not one to encourage talking in hashtags, or taking pictures of your food and posting it to social media. But in this case, I’d make an exception if you tweeted a picture of your healthy snack under the hashtag #Fit2Practice.