Tuesday, June 24, 2008

What's for lunch?

So, someone over at my recipe blog posted a comment asking me what I eat for lunch and breakfast. I figured I'd answer the question over here, though, since it doesn't really involve any recipes, and also I wanted to ask you guys about this too.

So, as you can tell from the recipe blog, I do a lot of cooking for nighttime meals. We try lots of new recipes and we like to eat at home as much as possible. I am in much more of a rut when it comes to breakfast, but I like it that way. I imagine I'm not the only person who has a very consistent breakfast routine and a not-so-consistent lunch and dinner routine. Or am I?

Anyway, for breakfast I have a small bowl of Cheerios with skim milk, a piece of lox, and a small glass of orange juice. I know a lot of people don't like lox plain (or at all, for that matter), but I love it and I also like to get a bit of protein in the morning so that I feel full for longer. It's a great breakfast and I've been eating it pretty consistently for the past year.

For lunch, on the other hand, things are a bit more varied. When I've cooked the night before, I will bring leftovers for lunch. I try to make four-serving dishes for dinner--that way Torsten and I can each have about one and a half servings at dinner and I can bring the fourth serving with me for lunch. I also eat a sugar-free pudding cup (1 WW point) with lunch, and a low-fat granola bar as an afternoon snack, usually around four p.m.

On the days when I don't bring my lunch from home, I have gotten into a pretty solid routine of ordering a turkey wrap from the deli downstairs from my office. I like it on a whole wheat wrap with lettuce, tomato, sprouts, and avocado. I get it with these amazing soy crisps that are only two WW points for a whole big bag.

It's good for me to have a set routine for lunch planned out, because otherwise I get totally tempted to get fried food at the hot bar, or greasy takeout from the delicious Thai restaurant around the corner. Having a plan in mind ahead of time helps me avoid that temptation, and usually prevents me from even remembering that I could get anything other than the healthy option as lunch.

Um, I hope that talking about food habits is as fascinating to you as it is to me! I suppose it must be, or else you wouldn't have made it this far. Anyway, now I want to know: What do you eat for lunch? Do you have a routine for every meal of the day, or are some meals more varied than others?

47 comments:

  1. I've finally gotten myself into a breakfast routine. Lunch is still hard, but I'm working on it. Actually eating right at all is pretty freaking hard sometimes :)

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  2. Breakfast is hit and miss with me (although I do keep a box of Cheerios on my desk), and for lunch I usually do Subway (ham-on wheat-no cheese-lettuce-onion-oil-vinegar) for lunch. Of course now that I'm travelling a ton, that's all gone to hell and I usually eat whatever is catered to us.

    Did I mention I'm back to my pre-Weight Watchers weight? Ugh.

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  3. I dont really get up in time to eat breakfast before I make it to work so I usually eat a nutrigrain bar here are work. For lunch, I typically bring a salad or sandwhich from home. I always have a supply of soup, cups of fruit and veggies here at the office though so if I am running late, I have no excuse to run out and grab something totally unhealthy. Off to check out your recipe blog!

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  4. I've always been very consistent with breakfast. Instant oatmeal and a piece of fruit when I'm at work. A bowl of cereal and a piece of fruit when I'm home. Lunch is more varied, though I try to throw in a protein and fruit/veggies. Snacks are usually a granola bar and more fruit. And dinner is the real wild card. Hopefully something different every night of the week (and that's where I need to reel myself in now that I've jumped on the WW bandwagon!). What I find is it's not what I'm eating that's so problematic, but how much of it I eat. I hope WW will help with portion control!

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  5. I keep a loaf of Sara Lee Hearty & Delicious Whole Wheat bread in the freezer. It's the only whole wheat I could find that didn't have high fructose corn syrup. Almost every day for breakfast, I have a slice of that with peanut butter.

    For lunch, I usually wing it. As a SAHM, I feed the kids first, then me. I'm good about not eating what they leave on their plate (whew). If we leftovers, I eat that - whatever it is. Sometimes I'll make a sandwich on whole wheat. I'm happiest when we have leftover teriyaki salmon because then I make a sandwich with that.

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  6. I usually bring leftovers for lunch, too. If not then I often have a lean cuisine on hand or a salad (romaine, crasins, goat cheese, yum!). If I don't have anything to bring, the cafe in my building has great salads and wraps, although over priced. Breakfast is a granola bar or oatmeal and coffee of course!

    Also, SO glad you love your dress! It's beautiful.

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  7. My lunch usually consists of dinner leftovers or a whole-wheat bagel with a little cream cheese. I like to bring a big salad too, if I can get my act together in the morning. Breakfast varies between toast, cereal, yogurt, fruit and eggs. I don't skip meals often, but sometimes I run out of time for breakfast and just grab a bran muffin with my coffee.

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  8. I fall back on frozen meals for lunch entirely too often. I am at least trying to eat just the organic kind (which have an ingredient list of things I've actually heard of and which come in a more environmentally friendly cardboard tray instead of a plastic one), but I'm still getting way more sodium (and calories) than I need when I eat those. Wish I could get into a cooking routine, so I'd have leftovers like you!

    Breakfast used to be a bagel almost every day, but since I started consciously trying to eat better, I've been making a lot of smoothies or having yogurt with fruit and granola.

    Now I'm hungry. Time for breakfast!

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  9. I know they say breakfast is the most important meal, blah blah blah, but for me, I have a queasy stomach in the mornings (not pregnant!) so I have a teeny box of cereal (those 100-calories boxes) with a splash of milk.

    For lunch, I rotate between turkey sandwiches with 100-calories cheetos or ritz crackers, or lean cuisine lunches. I try to stick to around 400 calories for lunch.

    I'll snack on carrot sticks or rainier cherries in the afternoon.

    Dinners are whatever. Depending on how well I did during the day, dinner might be chicken or it might be pizza. I'm not counting calories this time around (I got waaaay too obsessed with it), but I'm running 4 times a week and going for walks or bike rides the other 3 days, so I feel pretty good.

    oh, and Sunday night is ice cream night. :)

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  10. Ham and Swiss on wheat at least twice a week, sometimes more, for lunch. For breakfast, a banana with granola or just fruit and coffee.

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  11. breakfast = red bull (yes I know how bad this is)

    I love love love lox. Maybe I will have to start eating some of that for my AM meal.

    Lunchtime... it all depends. When I'm being good I'll have a lean cuisine meal and a garden salad with raspberry vinaigrette. Other days it's a heavy meal from the mexican restaurant.

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  12. I have a soy milk/banana/strawberry smoothie almost every day for breakfast and sometimes a muffin or small bowl of cereal alongside the smoothie.

    Lunch is usually a yogurt (mmm, cherry), a granola bar, apple with peanut butter, carrot, and sometimes a sandwich.

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  13. Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. If I don't eat eggs or some sort of protein, I am starving by 11am or sometimes 10am. I tend to have toast and eggs with tea. Lunch is usually left overs or a sandwich/salad. Dinner is whatever I can scrape together. I am trying to get back into cooking because my pocketbook and my belly are reacting in opposite directions to me eating out. ;)

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  14. When I was losing weight I had 2 fried eggs for breakfast every single day. For lunch I had a salad- greens, cherry tomatoes, chunks of fresh mozzarella, oil and vinegar- nearly every single day. Dinner was some combo of protein and vegetables and I ALWAYS treated myself to a big fat bowl of sugar free pudding with cool whip. I was obviously low carbing it and it totally worked for me. I am a big fan of ruts. Also, thank God for sugar free pudding.

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  15. this was a super good question for you to post about, because i think it's seriously my #1 question while trying to do this whole WW thing. I like to know what other people do for breakfast because the same stuff gets old after awhile. Lately I'm into yogurt and a piece of fruit. :) Your recipe site is great too!

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  16. I'm really weird with breakfast. Sometimes I crave sweet and sometimes salty, so I mix it up. I range from cereal, to pizza lean pockets, to salami and cheese bagels or a ham sandwich. I'm weird, I know.

    For lunch I rotate with lean cuisines, leftovers, or I'm bad and go out to eat. I snack on baked chips, carrots, fruit, yogurt or 100-cal packs.

    For dinner I try to cook something different everyday. When I get really lazy, I'll make Morning Star Farms chicken patties or nuggets or hamburger patties. They taste just like the real thing but are so much better for you.

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  17. Oh, fun! And now we all get more ideas...

    Breakfast
    One of the following: Homemade Granola; Irish Oatmeal with dried fruit cooked in the crock pot overnight; cold oatmeal with dried fruit, granny apple and banana; or Cream of Wheat.

    Lunch
    Usually leftovers, with a fresh fruit snack mid-morning and a fruit or grain and protein (cheese, peanut butter yogurt dip, nuts, etc.) snack mid-afternoon.

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  18. I love this topic! My answers vary between pregnant and non-pregnant life, but currently, I am eating apple or cheese danish for breakfast on most days along with a black coffee or a café mocha. For lunch I always bring a Lean Cuisine, but Burger King wins out a whole lot.

    My non pregnant routine is as follows: Breakfast MWF (days when I drop the kids off) black coffee brewed at home and reduced sugar apples and cinnamon oatmeal, both consumed after I get to work so that I am not ready for lunch at 10:30am (and also because of my thyroid pill). Breakfast T/THU (when Hub is home with the kids) toasted wheat bagel with light butter and black coffee from Tim Horton’s. I eat the bagel in the car (since I leave later) but save the coffee for work.

    Lunch is pretty consistent; a Lean Cuisine, 100 calorie cookies or crackers and maybe some fruit. And like you, a mid-afternoon snack. I exclusively drink water at work because it is cold and delicious (and ionized, whatever that means) and also free. I will order out on occasion, but no more than once per week.

    We’ve been in a rut for dinner lately, but I have this master plan to have a dinner calendar planned out by the month, up and running soon.

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  19. i USED to have instant oatmeal every day when i got to work, but i've been really lazy about it and now usually just have my skim chai from starbucks and then end up REALLY HUNGRY by lunch.

    lunch, when i'm being good, is stuff that i've pre-bought and keep at work (hummus & pita, fruit, or meat/cheese from the deli counter). if i HAVEN'T brought lunch, i'm terrible and eat very very bad things. :-o

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  20. When I'm at home I usually make a Skyr concoction - Skyr being a yogurt-like milk product, high in protine low fat. Its quite sour but I mix in frozen rasberries and a bit of maple syrup and filling yumminess is had.
    When I'm good I make a spinach salad with chicken breast for lunch. But sometimes its just easier to buy something at work.

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  21. I'm terrible at eating...I usually (read: always) skip breakfast and rarely eat lunch at a normal time and dinner is almost always some wierd combination of whatever is in the fridge. Bad heidikins, learn how to eat for heaven's sake!

    xox

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  22. I am big on the leftover dinner for lunch thing. In fact, eating leftovers for lunch is one of my favorite things about the day. I know it sounds silly, but it really is! My husband and I actually get sad when we don't have leftovers. I tend to eat a lot of eggs for breakfast when I am trying to lose weight (like now) but I love Kashi Heart cereal and toast too!

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  23. Healthy eating is not my forte. I usually have 3 cups of cream with coffee and nothing else. I cook pretty much every night of the week but I don't always eat it. It depends on lunch. Lunch is up in the air, if we go out I eat whatever and then skip dinner. If I skip lunch, I will eat dinner. I suck!

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  24. I am the exact same way--very routine on the breakfast and lunch foods. I try to balance My breakfasts and lunches to give me good energy throughout the day--that is the priority over variety.

    Also--Glenny's Soy Crisps ROCK.

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  25. I have gotten into such a bad breakfast routine. And lunch routine. Seeing this is SO helpful to me. Thank you. And I'm totally LOVING your recipe blog. LOVING.

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  26. i'm in a rut for breakfast and home-bought lunches. breakfast is usually an english muffin with peanut butter and a piece of fruit. or a Luna bar. lunch is a lean cuisine, a lean pocket or soup with some goldfish crackers and then a 100 cal pack for a snack.

    But I'm bored with it! And that makes me want to go out to eat!

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  27. Ugh, lately it has all been hit or miss with me. The one thing I try to do is adjust my dinner based on what I've had for breakfast and lunch. If I've had a really light/healthy breakfast and lunch, I will eat a normal dinner. But if I've eaten crap for breakfast and lunch, I will eat a super-light dinner to make up for it. Then I don't feel pressure to be "good" all the time.

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  28. I, um, usually don't eat breakfast because my stomach hates all foods until I've been awake for a couple of hours. As for lunch, it varies. Because I work at home, it's always home made but it is rarely healthy. :) Except yesterday when I had turkey on a toasted bagel, which might be the most perfect sandwich ever.

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  29. I eat a yogurt or a low cal english muffin for breakfast. On the weekends, I don't really eat breakfast. Lunch, at work, is usually a Lean Cuisine and then my dinner is the most unplanned meal of the day. I usually end up sounding like one of those women complaining about their random dinners on the Lean Cuisine when describing my dinner. For example: last night I had some cheese, some low cal Cool Whip, and some spinach.

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  30. My favorite lunch lately has been a salad made with shredded cabbage, onions, frozen peas, tomatoes, water-packed tuna, seasoned with olive oil, vinegar (usually cider), and some garlic salt. Major yum, and very filling. It travels pretty well, too.

    But breakfast is pretty much hit and miss. I'm not into sweet stuff, so toast with thin-sliced lunchmeat works great.

    And coffee.

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  31. Oatmeal for breakfast. Leftovers from dinner for lunch. I keep a box of Fiber One and some dried fruit at the office for snacks. Don't eat out often because I have neither self-control nor money!

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  32. It's funny, since I live at home, I've never thought much about planning what to eat or things like that. I guess it's easy to do when you have somebody else purchasing your food.
    But now that I'm really planning on getting out of here, I've been thinking more and more about things like this- what will I eat (and, I supposed, how will I afford my appetite!?)
    Anyway. Back to your question. I'm somewhat consistant. I normally have eggs and toast for breakfast (unless I have my strawberry yogurt cheerios) and then some type of big salad for lunch. Unless I'm eating out, which is much more often than I'd like to admit.

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  33. No routine for any meals. THe minute I do that, I start to instantly hate that food. Bizarre, I know. I've just started a food blog but it only has one post right now.

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  34. Am I the only one who doesn't know what lox is?

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  35. Every meal except breakfast revolves around my CSA farm share. So, basically, I start with veggies and work my way to a recipe or idea from there. Oatmeal for breakfast, which never seems to get old.

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  36. I know that when I was losing weight, the best thing I did was stick to a routine with all my meals. It felt like I ate the same thing every day....whole wheat english muffin with low-fat peanut butter for breakfast, half a sandwich for lunch, grilled chicken with a veggie for dinner. I ended up losing 60 lbs and I'm still in shock. Unfortunately, the battle isn't over yet! PS--love your recipes!

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  37. I've been drinking shakes lately because of my stomach, but normally I'm a cereal girl. For lunch it's soup or salad or Lean Cuisine. Dinner during the week is always lame too. I never cook. I SUCK.

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  38. I have been loving my latest breakfast routine - granola, cut up strawberries and strawberry kefir (a lowfat yogurt that has a consistancy closer to milk).

    For lunch I either do leftovers, pb and j, or hummus and pita bread.

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  39. love lox. love love love it. especially on a great piece of really dark bread (not a bagel) with cream cheese

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  40. My breakfast is usually just a few swallows of a pop (terrible, I know). If I do eat breakfast, it's a small bowl of cereal or a piece of whole grain toast. Around ten o'clock at work I eat a Fiber One bar. For lunch I usually eat a sandwich--peanut butter or turkey--or a side salad, leftovers, or chips, or frozen pizza, or handfuls of crackers--basically, whatever is convenient. It's not a good way to go, but I try to balance things out. At three or four I have an apple to tide me over until dinner.

    SOMETIMES I switch it up and eat an apple or banana in the morning and a granola bar in the afternoon. Crazy!

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  41. My breakfast is usually a granola bar and my lunch is pretty much the same all the time. But when I don't make it, I still try to eat healthy. Cheerios are wonderful though.

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  42. When I was actively trying to lose weight, I generally ate the same stuff over and over again. As long as it tastes good and you're not bored, why not?

    Incidently, Tim Ferriss advocates eating the same stuff over and over again. He says it's what the most successful dieters do.

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  43. ok i've heard of lox. i think it was discussed in the baby sitters club books i read as i kid and i've always wondered what it is. i still have no idea. wikipedia here i come. lol

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  44. Breakfast is usually cheerios, an egg, and orange juice. It's thrilling, but it keeps me full for quite a while.
    Lunch is a smaller portion of whatever we had for dinner last night, which can also be rather boring. I find if I write down what I'm going to eat, I eat less junk....although there's always the temptation of those chocolate chip cookies I made last night. *drool* That's what I get for marrying a skinny man who's gained all of two pounds in the last six years and who will never get tired of my baking. Grr...

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  45. awesome post. I usually eat a nutrigrain bar for breakfast and then a small lunch usually just a sandwich but if I go out thats another story. I have to learn to stop eating out!! You are so on top of your eating habits. I envy ya.

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  46. I've gotta admit: I love breakfast. If I'm going to eat a big meal in a day, it's going to be at breakfast. On good days, I eat a big bowl of oatmeal with some brown sugar on top, maybe with some raisins or granola. I also like to eat some yogurt, maybe some granola on it, and also a big bowl of cereal, usually Raisin Bran or Kashi's Autumn Wheat or Cinnamon Harvest. Um, also, a banana or whatever fruit I have on hand and some juice or milk. On "bad" days, I just have the cereal and juice.

    I figure if you're going to "overeat" at a meal, you should do it at breakfast. You'll have the rest of the day to work it off :)

    I also try to do (more) carbs at lunch and protein at dinner. Anyway, that was probably more than you asked for.

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  47. My breakfast foods are usually the same 4-5 meals that I switch up. Cereal, oatmeal and an english muffin with cheese and an egg are my usuals. As for lunch I usually cook more than I need for dinner, too and bring leftovers. But I work with family so we often go out to lunch and that's when I have to be careful because some of them eat like their is no tomorrow.

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