Since I started this diet regime back in January I have changed my eating and shopping habits quite dramatically.
Previously my lunch on work days (Monday to Friday) was a roll or possibly a salad plate from the corner shop. They do absolutely fantastic salads, but the really tasty parts are really heavy ie. coleslaw and potato salad.
Under my new regime I have the same lunch pretty much every day. That does sound a bit boring, but I’ll sacrifice a little boredom in order to maintain consistency.
My lunch these days consists of:
- Fruit. Usually a couple of apples and one or two bananas. Sometimes this might be tangerines .. it depends what I have
- Yoghurt. I usually opt for some kind of low fat one. Recently I’ve been getting the Glenisk range of “Greek Style” yoghurts. They come in a good variety of flavours.
- Soup. When I can I get one of the really tasty soups from “Just Food” I try to use them. However that’s not always possible, so any can of soup that can be cooked in the microwave works
- Wholemeal bread – usually two slices. No butter or other additions. It goes well with the soup.
Apart from the obvious nutritional benefits (which will vary depending on which soup I choose) the whole thing is pretty light in terms of calories. According to my calculations it’s about 500 calories in total.
What kind of things do you have for lunch?
Sounds good, but probably not for me. I like food too much to be limited to so few choices. And once you start feeling that you are missing something, the dietary discipline will be slowly but surely be chipped away at.
So for me, there can only be a diet that limits me only to stuff I like to eat anyway and does not make me feel like I did not get what I wanted both in content and in quantity.
Volker
So what would you normally have for lunch?
Michele
Hmm, hard to say, I don’t plan them even though I probably should. So basically whatever strikes my fancy.
As much as I do like your lunches, I’ll try to include more proteins into it and cut on bananas which has almost 100 calories, mostly from carbs.
Too many carbs, primary source of energy and glycogen, turns into fat if not burned, especially if you have an office job, where protein don’t.
My lunch usually consist of chicken breast (no skin) or tuna steak in brine, with a small salad (no dressings) and 1-2 slices of whole meat bread (not to be confused with brown bread wich is usually just coloured white bread 🙂 )
That differs from day to day but I try to get a ratio of 50% carbs, 30-35% proteins & 15-20% good fats (olive oil, etc.)
I agree on cutting the carbs, but how can you leave out the chicken skin? Thats the best part…
@Volker – What can I say… I love it too, especially when is so nice and crispy, but if you want to cut on fat, than sacrifices has to be made 🙂
There is nearly 100 calories in the skin of one chicken breas and it’s mostly FAT, which the body doesn’t process it at all, just adds it to the current body fat.
Beside that, processing food requires consumtion of calories, but FAT is the only one that doesn’t. It’s a straight through thing.
If you eat the right mix of carbs & proteins, lets say to the value of 500 calories, your body will use 100-150 calories just to process that food, the reason a good mix it’s so important when your target is lossing weight.