It’s lunch time. Your stomach’s growling, your mind is trying to recall the next set of tasks at hand and your mobile is ringing - probably your boss, with a list of another million things to do…
For the working man or woman on a low carb diet, lunchtime often poses a big challenge. With the work day in full swing, there is usually just a few minutes available to squeeze in a quick mean – how on earth then will he or she find a low carb restaurant or deli just in time.
Fast food has always been the harried worker’s lunch escape, but for people on low carb diets, greasy burgers, fries and sodas are a definite no-no. True, restaurants do serve low carb adjusted meals but these are often packed at lunch time or are located far from the office.
When push comes to shove, you grab whatever food you can get your hands on and wolf it down without paying any thought to its nutritional value. You were hungry, and terribly pressed for time. That’s perfectly understandable.
Low Carb Lunch Tip: Averting the Lunch Time Disaster
It is normal for low carb dieters to slip every once in a while, but if it starts happening too often, you may be headed for backslide alley – and that could make it more difficult for you to get back on your low carb eating plan.
Lunch time disasters such as these can be avoided though, if you opt to bring your lunch to work or to class. And while it is also understandable that no one really has the time to cook a separate lunch meal anymore, there are hundreds of low carb lunch recipes or menus available on the internet for you to follow.
The idea is for you to plan, prepare and portion your low carb lunches ahead of time so that it’s practically grab and go.
One trick that has always worked for low carb enthusiasts is to cook an extra serving or two during dinner and save up that portion for a packed low carb lunch the next day. Of course, you’ll probably get tired of eating the same meal twice in a row after some time, but you could always innovate and add variations to make your left over low carb lunch more appealing.
Another suggestion is to prepare a week’s worth of lunches during weekends or days when you have an extra time cook. By this, we don’t mean that a grand production.
Here’s one example:
You can buy several pounds of chicken from the store and prepare them in different ways for your low carb lunch during the week. You can boil a portion and make it into a chicken salad or chicken wrap; set aside another portion to grill or barbecue and serve it over tossed greens. Yet another portion can be stir fried fajita-style – the combinations and alternatives are limited only by your creativity and imagination.
The same principle can be applied to beef, fish and other seafood.
The advantage of bring your own low carb lunches to work is that you’re assured of sticking to your meal plan. It also buys you a bit of extra time to rest since you don’t have to go out or drive to buy your lunch. You can eat your low carb lunch comfortably at your desk or at the office pantry.
