5 Reasons to Pack Your Lunch

There are a lot of tips I could list for losing weight. I’ve detailed a lot of those things in my page on How I lost 100 Pounds. This post is specifically about LUNCH.

Working downtown, there are temptations at every block. From the trendy Food Carts, good restaurants, and delis on every corner–there’s food everywhere.

There’s a new sushi joint near my office too–and that’s definitely a weakness of mine.

It takes A LOT of willpower to pack my lunch every day. Especially on days when I’m tired of the food I eat and pressed for time. I think, “I could just get sushi…..”

But I stop myself. The reason? There are actually 5 good reasons. 🙂

1. Control: Packing my own lunch gives me control over exactly how many calories I eat during the day. I pack myself a morning snack (fruit or cottage cheese or Greek yogurt) and on days I run, I pack an afternoon snack to curb my munchies. Having specific food gives me control over the nutrition, the calories, the portion sizes.

2. Cash: How much money do I save by not eating out for lunch? Quite a lot! If a quickie to-go lunch is about $5, that’s $25 a week, $100 a month. If I pack lunch at home, it’s probably half of that cost depending on what I pack.

3. Calories: Portion sizes are humongous at restaurants–usually 2 servings. And who can just eat half a serving of freshly made, hot, greasy Chinese food? I probably can’t! Say I pick up a lunch of fried rice, spring rolls and chicken…that’s looking like about 900 calories in my estimation. My usual packed lunch is around 350 calories–tops.

4. Exercise: As many readers probably already know, I run at lunchtime whenever I can. This was a switch I made over a year ago and I love it! It has freed up so many of my evenings to do fun things I missed out on. When I run at lunch, I have just enough time to run and shower and then grab my pre-made lunch from the fridge. I definitely don’t have time to run, shower AND eat out!

5. Time: Some employers let their employees leave work early if they don’t take take a full hour lunch. Think how much time is saved eating a sandwich at your desk and then leaving work early!

I vary my lunches. Sometimes they are Lean Cuisines with some veggies, sometimes they are salads, sometimes sandwiches, or leftovers. I try to mix it up so I don’t get bored.

QUESTION: Do you eat out for lunch every day or do you pack your lunch? What is a typical lunch for you?

2 Pounds of Sugar?

Anyone else a Top Chef fan? I love the show. I’m not a reality show fan in any way but this show is the exception. I’ve been watching it for two seasons and am watching the current season now.

A few weeks ago there was a challenge to prepare a healthy lunch for grade school kids in the DC area. The contestant that went home was Jacqueline Lombard. She made a dessert — a banana pudding — that was a total and utter failure.

Jacqueline was eliminated because her banana pudding contained a whopping 2 pounds of sugar! It wasn’t nutritious in any way, and was not well executed (too starchy and too sweet). I’m glad she went home and when they were hyping the elimination round, I was yelling at the TV that if she wasn’t sent home, the show was rigged. TWO POUNDS OF SUGAR?! Oh my god! That’s incomprehensible to me. No adult should have two pounds of sugar in any thing they consume, let alone a kid!

Did anyone else watch the show? What did you think?

A new study out claims that Oregon is ranked 39th in obesity for the USA.  The 2010 report states that 1 in 4 Oregonians is obese. However, the good news seems to be that Oregon is setting a standard for having nutritional breakfasts, lunches and snacks in our schools. For being 39th in obesity rating, we somehow have a lower rate of childhood obesity.

I recently discovered that some Oregon schools have a Farm-to-School program. 32% of the schools are getting their produce from local farms. That’s a win-win situation in my book! Not only do the kids benefit from healthy food, but the locally owned farms are still in business too.

I don’t have kids. Someday I hope to and I hope I can pass on a passion for healthy eating and exercise. Growing up in my house, the theme was RESTRICTION. My parents were into the low-fat/no sugar/no flavor kind of diet. It was horrible. And as a result I rebelled and ate junk food whenever I could…at friend’s houses, at school, sneaking candy into my room to eat secretly. Restricting treats lead to my obsession with sweets and overeating.

Who has kids? What are the challenges you have for getting your kids to eat healthy food?

Clearly, restricting food is not the healthy way to go about things. And what about kids that are super picky about their foods? Is it too challenging to fight with them daily to eat their healthy foods? Do you give in and let them eat what they want to avoid that fight?

Check out this article about a local school that’s making a difference!

QUESTION: Do you know where your state ranks in the obesity statistics? Is your community doing anything to make a difference?

I’m a Nike Girl

I don’t think I like the Asics. When I got home last night I noticed that my right shin sort of hurt. My shins usually don’t hurt from running. I was also a bit tight and sore in the heel. I think I’m going to return the Asics shoes. Why fix what isn’t broken, right? I like Nikes, I’ve had success with them, I’m going to stick with Nike.

Neither of us felt like cooking last night. Michael picked up a deLite pepperoni pizza from Papa Murphy’s. I like it because it’s thin crust and low calorie.

I’d been craving Sriracha lately and thought “That might taste good on the pizza.” Um…not so much. It was just a tad off. I usually like red pepper flakes on my pizza–spicier the better. But Sriracha wasn’t good. 😦

QUESTION: Have you ever eaten a combination of food you thought would be good together, but wasn’t?

I did the Foam Roller last night before bed. I’m trying to use it on my IT band more often. Ouch!

I woke up sore this morning! It’s the lunges I did yesterday. How is it that I can bike 55 miles, or run a fast 5k and NOT be sore, but 5 minutes of traveling lunges cripples me? I don’t get it!

On Tuesday there was another #fitblog chat on Twitter. One of the questions was:

Q3: How do you stay inspired as a healthy living blogger? What do you do on days when you are feeling anything but healthy?

Some days it’s hard to eat healthy and having a blog I feel like I should be on my best behavior. After all, hundreds or readers will judge what I eat.  I thought about that last night when we ordered the pizza. But I rationalized it with the fact that a slice is 175 calories.

How would you answer that question?