Everyday Systems

I pretty much have breakfast and dinner nailed down, but when it comes to lunch I can't really find anything that I like that will keep me full from about 1pm-7:30pm. I read about Reinhard's 'Optimized Oatmeal' and while I have no doubt that it would keep me full, I'm not really into hot cereal. What does everyone else have for lunch?

I have this for lunch:
- 2 slices of dark bread with butter
- one boiled egg
- a vegetable salad with a bit of dressing, and maybe a bit of grated cheese on top
- a glass of milk

Quite filling BUT I do eat a mini-meal in between lunch and dinner (e.g. a piece of cheese and an apple) to keep my bloodsugar levels up. So you might want to eat a bit more than this.

Soup

In winter I generally have a large bowl of soup with wholemeal bread, and a piece of fruit. (I make huge batches of soup every few weeks and freeze them in portions which I can take to work and reheat).

Filling, nutritious and yummy!

My default lunch at work:

container of vegetables
container of fruit
buttered bread of some sort
carton of juice

This time of year, my lunch is at 11:30 am and dinner is at 5:30 pm. When we change to daylight savings time, lunch will be around noon and dinner at 7:30, because of extended store hours where I work.

I usually have:

A container of cooked vegetables with either rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes or other starchy food. Sometimes with a salad, some cooked beans or tofu (often based on what's left from dinner the night before). I usually have a small serving of nuts or seeds, a piece of fruit and 1 or 2 wholegrain crackers.

Right now I'm eating a bowl of rice & vegetables seasoned with spices, lemon juice & olive oil. I've also got some oat crackers, a packet of sunflower seeds and an apple, so pretty typical.

If I haven'te prepared anything in advance then my default lunch is to throw some oats, raisins and nuts in a container with some cold soya milk then put this in the fridge at work to be microwaved at lunchtime.

I generally eat leftovers.

My usual pattern - some complex carb, protein (for me, that's the key to staying full), and 2 veg/fruits.

We have a toaster oven, microwave, and fridge at work. If I have no leftovers, here's some lunches that I can almost always make from stuff on hand.

Multigrain bagel, open-face with cheese melted on top
Apple
Carrot sticks

Quesadilla (flour tortilla, cheese)
Salad
Orange

PB and banana on WW bread (home-made if I have it!)
Applesauce (pre-packaged, no-sugar-added)
Cherry tomatoes

Those are my default-type meals, which are not too hard to manage.

Soup! I make soup twice a week and have a bowl at lunch every day. One soup is usually vegetable and one is usually a bean-based soup. Lunch is usually soup, bread and fruit.

Occasionally I'll have half a sandwich instead of the bread or a salad in addition to the soup and bread. That doesn't happen very often, though.

Like the others, I mostly eat leftovers from the night before. If there are no leftovers I eat one of those little tuna kits (sun-dried tomato) and some fruit or a Hot Pocket and some fruit. If I'm running short on time to pack lunch, I'll opt to buy a school lunch - usually from the salad bar line or the soup and sandwich line. I usually drink milk or water with my meal and no sweets unless it's a small container of yogurt.

Hmmm... I seem to be in the minority here.

Lunch is my main meal for social and practical reasons. I usually have an ordinary plate half-filled with veggies, half-filled with noodles or rice, plus a small piece of meat on top. Then I add a dessert plate of fruit. Yes, technically that's seconds. But it works for me. I usually have lunch at 12 and dinner around 7pm. I feel definitely full after lunch but not sleepy. I do get a little hungry around 5pm but it is manageable.

Both my breakfast and dinner are fairly light in comparison. That's because I usually have breakfast fairly late (8:30) and I exercise or sing after dinner and need to feel not too full at night.

So I think the key for long afternoons is to have a full lunch, but not heavy food (lots of meat and cheese and gravy etc). Choose filling food instead (veggies) and slow carbs in order to keep energy levels during the long hours of the afternoon. I used to be afraid having fruit for dessert would make me hungry because of acidity and natural sugar, so I had it as an apetizer instead of a dessert.

Thanks for the input everyone!
I'm thinking of making my default a sandwich and fruit --- lots of possibilities so avoid boredom.

I don't have/make time to pack lunch (breakfast is enough of a challenge) so I usually keep some tins of soup at work, a half-loaf of bread in the kitchenette freezer and some butter in the fridge. I also keep some muesli in my office. That way the option is always there to have something fairly light but filling. Sometimes I bring fruit in, but work gives us fruit on Wednesdays.

That said, I also eat out a lot. My rough rule of thumb is to try not to eat at the same place twice in a week (if I'm eating out), which stops me having McDonalds every day, or apple-date-pecan-bran muffins every breakfast (I'm partial to both), and can instead discover the Blue Lemons supremely excellent turkey baguettes.

xJocelynx87 wrote:Thanks for the input everyone!
I'm thinking of making my default a sandwich and fruit --- lots of possibilities so avoid boredom.

Sounds like a good idea, I'd recommend having 3 things (e.g. Sandwich + small handfull of nuts or carrot sticks + a fruit). I don't know why but for me, having 3 things makes me feel more satisfied and feels varied enough to not leave me wanting more! Lunch is the only meal where I'll eat 3 different things (on N days at least) but I find it to be a good trick. It's probably purely psychological but it works for me

hah, just realised I actually often eat 4 different things LOL but small servings of each, I guess it's the variety that keeps things interesting I suppose 3 things is more like my minimum, less than 2 items and I usually feel like I havent had enough.
Today I've got veggies & potatoes (small container), 2 rye crackers, sunflower seeds (from a pack I've been eating all week, handfull each time) and a banana - quite substantial actually

Lately I've been eating a quesadilla (2 corn tortillas and a small handful of cheese) and a cup of no sugar added applesauce.

It's funny -- I ALSO feel like I need 3 things at lunch to be satisfied, but don't feel that way with other meals. Breakfast is usually 1 or 2 things and dinner is often 2, and sometimes 3. But for lunch I basically always include 3 things.

Julie

Am I on the wrong track here? For me each one plate meal has to look filling, attractive and substantial. Because physically and psycologically it has to get me to the next meal without filling deprived and pushing me into crave mode. So couldn't the one plate for lunch be a big juicy cheeseburger or a healthy sized sandwich with cole slaw or a side salad and bowl of delicious soup. Or leftovers from the night before sounds great with the 3 item variety. Carrots, fruit and nuts have diet written all over it. And don't get me wrong I could eat a plate of them also or include these in a section of my plate--like a carrot salad (yum) But a plate of that alone just won't do it for me. This eating plan has no sign of deprivation on it--and that's what seems so attractive to me. Is this all too good to be true or am I mistaken about how this eating plan operates??

A big juicy cheeseburger is just fine. Sometimes my lunch is a meal deal from chain restaurant X. However, I have been on a very minimalist track recently due to circumstances and it has helped me get past a platau I was on for a while.

The great thing about this plan is its flexibility. People choose to restrict things more or less and can change their mind from day to day how restrictive they want to be as long as they follow the one plate rule. And over time things can evolve, devolve or just switch around depending on taste, preference, necessity, whatever.

But no, you are on the right track. It just looks like the minimalists are the ones posting to this thread. You could eat a plate of pizza, hamburger and fried chicken if you so desired.

Hm... I don't think I'm a minimalist.

Normally, I take leftovers, which are full meals. My "default" lunches are just "when there's nothing else, this stuff is on hand." An in all honesty, they're pretty satisfying - the carrots/apples/etc. are just "quick" ways to meet my "at least 2 fruits/veg" pattern that I find works best for me. The bagel/quesadilla/sandwich is hefty and filling.

But if my list did give the wrong impression, let me correct it. Since starting No-S, my lunches - all meals, really - have (a) gotten bigger and (b) included more protein.

So yes, you're absolutely on the right track, IMHO.

(I love the simplicity too. Where it really showed most to me was conference meals, where I'm trapped by whatever the organizers serve. I used to pick and choose - forgo the chips, take bread and some of the "excessive" meat off the sandwich, etc. Then I would be RAVENOUS later and snack on stuff that was even worse! Now, I just eat my lunch, minus the sweet, and don't worry about it.)

I think lunch has been a problem for me the last year or so. I work 2pm to 10pm, which I actually like, but it's tempting to eat lunch out on the way in, and it gets fattening, even without going into S territory. So this week I defrosted several boxes of brown rice from a Chinese restaurant, and made rice and beans with pinto beans, tomatoes onion and cheddar cheese. I made enough for 3 lunches.

However Reinhard I loved reading that you make "Old Wessex" Oatmeal because I do love the instant variety they make (with the blue top). I think next week I will try a version of your oatmeal lunch, and add the seeds/nuts/fruits also, sounds good. I personally don't like sugar in oatmeal, so that is okay with me.

This is a good idea for a thread.

Some lunches that have worked for me: peanut butter and raisin sandwich on whole wheat plus a large apple. Also a cheese sandwich on whole wheat with fruit.

The idea of having several things for lunch is good; psychologically it feels more like a meal.

My lunches are last night's dinner, along with a piece of fruit. It takes a lot of guesswork and thought out of it, and since I usually cook really yummy things for dinner, I wind up having really yummy lunches that are healthier and cheaper than if I went out to get food.

I eat the same thing every day at work.
Right now, I am on a grilled cheese sandwich with tomato and some sort of side kick.
I usually alternate the side: one day a cup of soup, one day a cup of veggies.
It depends if I like the soup or the veggies they offer.
I like creamed soups and veggies with cheese or roasted in oil so the fat tides me over until dinner.
Once a month, without fail, I crave fries so I will have that as my side.
The fries portion is huge so I take a handful and give the rest to my coworker. (He gets so excited on fry day!)
I go eight hours between lunch and dinner. I eat at 11am and 7pm.
When I finally committed to actually doing No S and not eat between meals, I thought I was going to die during that stretch.
Only for the first 3 or 4 days though. And, I really wasn't hungry. I just thought I was.
Now, it's just habit.

I do want to add, that sometimes, I will go on a peanut butter and jam on whole grain bread kick with a banana and will eat that every day for weeks!
I'm crazy, I know. I just really try to listen to what my body wants even if it's weird.

I find it easier to have a standard lunch - that takes the guess work out of it in the mornings (when I am not yet fully awake!).

My standard lunch is a sandwich (whatever bread DH bought for us) with a protein filling (PB, liver spread, hummus, cheese), raw veggie (tomato, chunk of cucumber, carrot, green beans), fruit (raisins, apple, peach, mango). I find this fills me up and gives me lots to eat (so the brain feels full as well) and is quick and easy to prepare in the mornings for my DS and I. DH just takes the sandwich part for his breakfast mid-morning at work - he gets a meal supplied by his company for lunch.

We have a canteen at work, so on the odd occasion I will have a canteen lunch.

Ooooh, that reminds me that I need to get back on the hummus. Thanks, Merry.

Meat and cheese sandwich on whole wheat bread,mayo,mustard, spinach

1 1/2 handfuls of raw veggies (cucumbers,tomatoes,radishes,peppers)

1 piece of fruit or fat free no sugar added yogurt

20 or so almonds

It's alot of food but I'm a bit above average in the muscle dept and I need a lot of fuel to keep going.

-dave