Let's Do Lunch !

Disclaimer:  I am not a doctor, nurse, or nutritionist.  I am just posting tips that I believe work for me.  Any changes you choose to make to your diet and/or exercise routine should be made in consultation with your physician.

Breakfast and midmorning snack have gone well for me.  I’ve settled on about seven choices I pick from for the first part of the day that are easy, inexpensive, low fat and low sugar.

Yogurt and nuts
Rice cakes and peanut butter
Kelloggs whole grain waffles and peanut butter
Kashi bars
Apple and cheese cubes
Cooked egg whites
Protein shakes

Eating something healthy every three hours has staved off that hunger and kept me out of the donuts, kolaches, and even the yummy looking egg casserole brought in for church this week.

I hope your morning eating plan is working out for you as well and you feel ready to take a look at lunch.  But maybe you’re not.  Maybe you had a long way to go from the every day bacon-egg-cheese biscuit to a healthy breakfast and you’re still working on it.  Or maybe you’re still trying to get a grip on that “eating every three hours” thing.  As long as you are making progressive steps towards healthy eating in the morning, I would encourage you to keep working on THAT part of the day another few days, another week if that’s what it takes for healthy eating in the morning to become comfortable before moving on.  What I tell myself is the point is to not get overwhelmed and defeated.  I am not in a foot race to see who gets to their weight goal first.  I am in a marathon, trying to develop healthy habits that will last a lifetime.

For me,  I’m ready to talk lunch.

I think lunch is hard.  Lunch is harder than breakfast.  There are PEOPLE around at lunch.  People who order out.  People who bring in phenomenal looking leftovers from home.  People who are looking to see what leftovers I brought from home.

And there’s the morning that I’ve had to deal with.  The pressure, the panic, and more PEOPLE bringing me more problems…

By the time I get to lunch some days, I feel I DESERVE TO EAT ANYTHING I WANT !!!!!

But in my heart, I know what I really deserve is to give myself a healthy body.

To get that, I need to plan ahead for lunch.  Because if I head into lunch with no plan…all bets are off on what I’m gonna eat.

Now if I’ve followed my plan for breakfast and midmorning snack and eaten healthy things every three hours or so, by lunch I’m only faintly hungry.  And a huge, fat-laden cheeseburger doesn’t even remotely sound good…well, maybe remotely, but it’s not so tempting I can’t get past it.

So, listed below are some of the choices I’m heading towards with lunch.  Again, low fat, low sugar.  And trying to work in lean protein and some fruits and veggies.

Lean deli ham rolled up with low fat cheese slices
Select Harvest Light Soups – there’s a lot of different varieties (these do have sodium)
Lean Cuisines, Healthy Choice, or other frozen entrees
Chicken of the Sea tuna or salmon packs with a little light mayo
Baby carrot sticks
Canned grapefruit or citrus salad
Fresh fruit
Frozen veggies that I’ve steamed the night before

A lot of this stuff is “grab and go”.  None of it requires much prep.

Fortunately, a lot of take out and eat in places are also offering some healthy choices for lunch.

So, where are you with lunch?  Are you ready to start moving towards healthier choices?  You CAN do it.  Google “healthy lunches” and pick out a few that sound good and would work easily for you.  Maybe try working in a healthy lunch three times a week at first.  Then progress to four or five.  Keep eating that healthy breakfast and midmorning snack and soon you’ll find you have half the day whipped!