3 Huge Benefits of a Strategically Packed Lunch

If you’re looking for the one thing you can do to improve your health and weight the most, it’s no secret. At least, I try not to keep it a secret…

Listen to your body’s fullness signals. Stop eating when you’re full and satisfied. It’s not actually very difficult to do, if you take the time to learn how, and everybody can do it.

It does come with some changes to your eating routine. Sometimes this means leaving some food on your plate. Sometimes this means getting a second helping.

When you’re eating at home, that’s not a problem. You can pack up the leftovers in the fridge, or get a second helping of dinner. But when you’ve packed a lunch, you can’t know in advance exactly how much food you’re going to be hungry for. You can make a pretty good ballpark guess, but it’s pretty much impossible to get it completely accurate all the time.

The 3 Huge Benefits of A Strategically Packed Lunch

Read on for help with how to pack your lunch strategically.

When you pack your lunch this way, 

1.  you will have enough food to meet your fuelling needs
2.  you won’t feel obligated to finish everything
3.  you won’t have leftover food that spoils and needs to be discarded

Here’s my two-step solution to this problem:

1. Err on the small side when packing your main meal. Whether you’re taking last night’s leftover dinner to work or packing a salad or sandwich, portion out something on the smaller side. When it comes time for lunch, eat this first. Then stop and assess how hungry or full you are. Was the small portion enough today? Or do you need to eat a bit more to feel satisfied and tide over until your next planned snack/meal? If you’re satisfied, stop here. If not, move on to step two.
2. Pack some healthy extras. Use these extras to eat until you’re satisfied, and then take the remaining food home. Make sure these are items that don’t spoil easily (eg. dairy products). Sometimes we naturally want to eat foods that spoil, even when we’re not hungry, so that they don’t go bad. I’ve exposed the fallacy of this argument, but it can be hard to get away from. 

Here are some suggestions for healthy add-ons that don’t spoil easily:

• whole pieces of fruit such as an apple, banana, orange, peach, kiwi, plum, etc 
• cut veggies such as carrots, cucumbers, bell pepper, cauliflower, broccoli, etc
• nuts or peanuts
• healthy granola or snack bars
• muffins such as high fibre blueberry, pumpkin pecan, or banana chocolate chip

I’d love to hear from you! What strategies do you use when packing lunches for work or on-the-go? 

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