changing eatting habits

[KnottedYet]

Can you do some cooking or prep ahead of time for your busy days? Store things in advance in the fridge or freezer, and just nuke em when you're ready to eat?

What about cutting/washing a bowl of fruit the night before, and putting it in the fridge to wait for breakfast? Cooking up a pot of rice pudding with nuts and brown rice works well for us too, you can eat it cold or nuke it in the morning. Keep some yogurt cups in the fridge: instant food that might do more for you than pop-tarts. My son loves the "drinkable yogurt" in bottles for his school lunches, and sometimes I snag one of his bottles to drink as I drive to work.

For dinner you can prep a ziplock bag of veggies. (I love ziplock bags.) Put the veggies in a bowl with a little water and a plate to cover, nuke for 2 minutes or so. Now you have steamed veggies for dinner! Add a couple nuked (frozen) low fat chicken sausages and some nuked (previously cooked) rice or potato.

I find we eat a lot better if I prep stuff ahead of time. On the nights when I work very late the microwave is my friend. I use ziplock bags and Tupperware to organize my meals; servings of dinner or breakfast in the fridge or freezer all ready to go.

[sandy45]

that sounds great for mornings! the hard part for me is two nights a week i am at school till 10pm and i have to take lunch and dinner. and i only have access to a microwave at lunch. so what do i do then? the veggies and all would hold till lunch but then i have dinner to figure out...

[KnottedYet]

Dinner that won't go bad and can be eaten cold. Hmmmm.

Raw veges and aseptic-pack dip? (or make your own dip out of yogurt and stuff)

Sliced cheese and a couple handfuls of walnuts.

Single-serving canned fish and rice cakes or rye-crisp.

Drinkable yogurt or cup yogurt.

Smoked salmon, bagel, and squeeze-tube of cream cheese (aseptic)

Tupperware of frozen corn and frozen shelled edemame with salt and pepper. By dinner time it'll be thawed and it won't go bad.

Good ol' bananas for dessert?

[mtbdarby]

Sandy, good topic, I've been dealing with this myself these days. On the weekends, I cook larger portions and freeze them in individual size container. A frozen container in an insulated lunch bag should keep for most of the day, or you can heat it for lunch. Or put a small freezable pouch in the bag to keep a sandwich, fruit or yogurt cool for supper. On Wednesdays I do this as I get to eat supper in my car driving from town to town for class.

I also buy the baby carrots, trisquits and cheese are a good snack and I like the south beach bars or special K low fat ones. Apples, raisins and bananas travel well as do nuts - almonds, pecans, filberts (my fav!), etc. A healthier pizza with lots of veggies and or chicken also tastes good cold. And then I only pack 2 slices so I don't eat half of it....

Hope that helps!

[roshelleuop]

Sandy 45,

I have just recently discovered a wonderful way to make fresh veggies for dinner, without having to clean then, cut them up, boil/steam them, etc. They are already prepared and bagged fresh veggies that you throw in the microwave for 5 minutes and TADA you have fresh steamed veggies.

I found them by the salad area at Pick N Save, where the stir fry veggies kits, etc. are. I found broccoli/carrots and broccoli/cauliflower. They are about 4 servings per bag and are about $3.50. The shelf life is about 1.5 weeks.

For dinner at home, I will throw a bag in the microwave (5min), boil some whole wheat noodles (10 min), and heat up a jar of sauce (8 min) (last night it was sun-dried tomato alfredo~highly recommended ). All of this can be done in only 10 minutes and costs less than $10. It's really healthy, filling, and is easily feeds my family of 3 (my DH and I are both athletes, so we eat quite a bit). Or you can double everything, feed a family of 4 or 5 and have leftovers for lunch. Since there is no meat, you would be able to bring for lunch the next day without refridgeration

Roshelle

[Bicyclette]

If you only have access to a microwave for lunch - what I would do is make lunch my large meal ( heat up things that you have cooked ahead of time ) and then for dinner have something like Knotted Yet suggested - that's what I used to do - I took entire meals to work and heated them for lunch - pack them in microwaveable containers and nuke 'em up... and pack lots of healthy snacks

[miffy'sFuji]

I was going to suggest the same thing as bicyclette. Eat something hearty for lunch and eat a pb sandwich or something similar for dinner that doesn't have to be refrigerated.

I see you have a whole foods in San Antonio, have you been there? Some items there are a little pricey, but maybe 3 times a week you could have a premade salad with some meat (you could buy these ahead on the weekend)? You might check to see if they have any instant cereals for the morning like instant quinoa, kashi, oatmeal, etc. Those would provide more fiber than bagels or poptarts and should keep you feeling better satiated.

Instead of chips and a cookie at lunch, how about some dried fruit, trail mix or nuts?

[Artisan]

Hey Sandy, I second the Kashi cereal, YUMMIES! I love the Kashi Go Lean Crunch, may fav...but it makes me a bit gassy. I found it the cheapest at wal-mart. The things the ladies have listed here are fabulous, the yogurts with the fruit on the bottom are great snacks for in between meals. Whenever you have pasta or bread, try to choose whole wheat rather than white. Also since you have such long days, try to have something healthy to snack on so you don't have long stretches in between meals and end up being famished by the time you do eat.
One thing that I want to remind you of so you don't get discouraged is...Men drop way so easily compared to women so don't gauge how you are doing compared to him. My husband will just have to think about losing weight and it happens for him. When I wanted to drop a few pounds a few years back...it was more of a struggle for me.

[cherinyc]

Hi Sandy-
It is sooo hard to eat well when you're busy, but if you are willing to spend a bit of time prepping (say an hour at most) on Sunday - you can really help yourself out during the week.
BF and I are fairly healthy eaters, and neither of us have lots of time. We go grocery shopping on Sunday morning (before the produce has been picked over) and stock up on the best looking veggies and fruits - to make salads with.
We get the big sized box of Spring Mix (or baby spinach when it won't threaten our intestinal system). If you want to be extra careful, you can rinse it, but we get the Organic kind that says it's triple washed already.
The fruit we pick out (lately it's been strawberries, rasberries, blackberries and/or blueberries) gets put into individual paper-towel lined bowls right away b/c the produce guy told us that is how they keep longest.
The veggies all get cleaned and cut up into bite-size pieces (when necessary) and put into small tupperware containers. These usually include cucumbers, peppers, celery, grape tomatoes (already small enough), sugar snap peas, shredded carrot....you can pretty much put anything in a salad I think.
In the mornings, before work, first person up gets the containers out of the fridge and sets them on the counter. It's basically like having an at home salad bar. We also buy the golden raisins, and lightly salted cashew halves to sprinkle on top. I don't really use salad dressing, but BF brings a bottle to work and leaves it there.
I eat a lot of trail mix. Keeps me satisfied, it's very portable, and I feel better eating natural foods. I also don't have that sugar crash that can come from other snack-type foods. Lara bars are good to keep around b/c they are pure food as well. No added sugar or flour or any of that other crap.
Also, check out Costco for the bag of Frozen Salmon Burgers. They are mostly Salmon, not breadcrumbs and stuff, and you can cook them in the oven from frozen. 9 min per side. You can make sandwiches, or cut them up to put in salad or pasta. Cooking isn't so bad when you just have to put something in the oven. Make a whole box of whole wheat pasta (wheat fills you up more - and keeps you full longer) and put it in a tupperware. Throw a box or bag of veggies in the microwave to steam them. Keep some good jar'd pasta sauce around. You can mix the sauce, the veggies, and the cut up salmon burger - and put them over the pasta. maybe add some lowfat shredded cheese on top.
A good standby is the frozen, ultra-thin crust pizza. We like Palermo'shttp://www.palermospizza.com/Default.aspx?bFlashFound=1
The Margherita (tomatoes garlic basil) is our favorite. The thin crust makes it lower in calories.
I could go on forever, but this is long already.
Lastly - if you are getting chinese food - order your meal with the sauce on the side. I've never had a problem when I've ordered it like this, and you end up getting a steamed dish of protein and veggies. Order brown rice whenever possible. It will also fill you up faster, leaving some for leftovers.

I love finding new ways to eat healthy and conveniently.
I hope some of this info helps - Good Luck!!
cheri

[Kano]

Those long days are a bugger. It's hard to come home and "cook" after them, getting ready for the next day or two. I understand completely! I don't like 'em -- hard on my TMJ, but DH has taken to buying the bags of baby carrots that are all cut/cleaned, etc. to take for lunch. It's more expensive to buy the stuff that's ready to eat, but when time is precious, and cooking's not a priority, it's sometimes worth the little extra expense.

I'm starting to buy frozen meals for those get home late suppers -- those little boxed guys can be tasty, they're quick, and they're a finite amount of food! I haven't been worrying about "lean cuisine" or "healthy choice" but I am reading labels, looking for content not calorie count (haven't found any individual meals over about 650, which isn't unreasonable for something like a chicken/pasta/broccoli/cheesy sauce dinner) and looking for things I wish I had the time/inclination to make myself.

We're struggling with the change of habit too, and it IS hard when life is on the go!

Just had a thought -- got a cooler? Those blue things stay frozen a long time! Heck, water can stay frozen a long time in a cooler these days: I just had a cooler with ice two days later! They're also making coolers that can be plugged in to keep cool, but then you might just as well get yourself a little end-table type fridge and put it somewhere less-than-conspicuous (so you don't have to share it with the whole staff!)

Karen in Boise