Bagged 10/14/2010

I admit, it’s been a while since I’ve even thought about bringing  a lunch to work. Some days I’ll stop and buy freezer meals (I love a few vegetarian Healthy Choice pastas and I also love Lean Cuisine or Smart One’s pizzas), other days I’ll pick something up at the grocery store and then there are the days that I eat out. Or I bring in left overs. Those are the days that I enjoy my lunch. Even typing that, I realize my thought process is completely out of whack. I’m working on that right now.

Yesterday I bought clam chowder and ate that in my car with part of a baguette. I spent the entire rest of the day feeling so sluggish and full that I ended up skipping my plans to write and going home to veg out and watch Parenthood and whatever else my mom wanted to watch.

Anyway, I brought a lunch today. And snacks. Healthy ones. I’m here for almost twelve hours, so I loaded up on fruits and vegetables. I don’t think I brought enough with me calorie-wise. I probably should have counted Weight Watchers points or something like that. Regardless, I feel like I’m starving right now. I’ve had a banana and “smoothie” that was more like chocolate milk made out of milk and a chocolate Weight Watchers smoothie packet. I absolutely love those things.

I’m about to eat some apples. I wish we had peanut butter because that would have been a great addition.

I also brought:
*cherry tomatoes from our garden
*half of a green pepper
*a cheese & mustard sandwich on rye bread
*some sort of “low calorie” Goldfish package — my mom’s buying
*a Vita Brownie. I had one of these last night with pumpkin butter and it was amazing. Too bad I didn’t think to bring pumpkin butter with me today…

What’d you bring / plan to eat for lunch today?

<3.Melanie.Kristy

Bagged Part 2; An Update

Seriously, guys? I think it was last Monday that I announced my attempt to bring bagged lunches to work. The success rate of said adventure so far is about 34%. Out of the past two weeks I’ve brought my lunch three days. Actually I think I may have only eaten it two of those three days.

What, I ask you, is my problem? Some mornings I just can’t find the energy to think about lunch, other mornings (like this morning, I admit) I forget completely. Sometimes I just can’t see past all of the condiments and cartons of milk in my refridgerator to actually put together some sort of decent meal.

Though I must admit that on the days that I did eat in the back room, book in hand while I fished through a plastic Shaws’ bag, I did feel better during the rest of the day. I may have found myself starving (slight exaggeration) by the time 5:15pm hit but at least I didn’t suffer the last few hours of work sleepy and to full.

Next week is vacation, so I’m hoping to gain some sort of regularity in the way that I eat breakfast and lunch that hopefully I can carry with me into the work week.

<3. Melanie.Kristy

Bagged.

Do you ever feel like your psyche is playing tricks on you? Like you do things in order for you to have the excuse to do something else? If that doesn’t really make sense, allow me to explain: Sometimes I feel as if I’m legitimately addicted to things that seem like silly/ impossible things to be addicted to. For example, eating out for lunch whenever I’m at work. I find myself becoming way too lazy to make a lunch to bring with me, or on the days when I do bring one, I either find something wrong with said lunch, or I don’t know, I just plain don’t feel like eating it.

This has resulted in me spending a lot of extra money on my lunches, money I could be saving for a trip to Portugal or using to pay off the amount of student debt that looms over my head. This has also resulted in me hoarding a lot of extra calories that simply aren’t necessary. These calories have been either pushing my weight limit over the edge (as if it wasn’t already high enough) or just stalling my attempts to be and feel healthy.

So. Starting tomorrow (and I say tomorrow not only because I procrastinate but also because today was one of those days that I “forgot” about lunch, to say the least, and I don’t feel like eating a freezer meal) I plan on making this into an adventure. How so? I’m not really sure, but I’m working on that. Expect updates.

A couple obstacles I need to overcome (+ possible solutions):

* Feeling like the food I bring isn’t tasty enough (only bring the best food)
* Not wanting to spend my whole break in the breakroom (bring sandwiches or something I can eat while I drive elsewhere)
* Snack time is not chip and candy time (how did I even become this unhealthy? bring fruit!)
* Boredom does not equal snack time (fill that time with writing! – and not Spider Solitaire)

Does anyone else suffer from this inability to bring your own lunch? Can’t stop eating out? Have you conquered any of these obstacles and have some suggestions? Let me know!

<3. Melanie. Kristy