Need some advice around my "dinner" situation.

ccook673

So here's one of my big hurdles. I am a bartender. I work 4pm-12am (sometimes 1 or 2am). I'm in a restaurant bar and dont have time to take a "lunch" or break of any sort. By the time I get off (lets say 1am) I'm starving and tired. The restaurant provides us a staff meal nightly (usually protein and bulgur pilaf, laden with butter; or a heavy sauce laden pasta with minimal veg.) They box it up for me to take as the bartender is the last person in the place. When I'm done, I lock up and head out for my 30 minute commute home. So most nights, its 1:30am, I'm home, with a horridly unhealthy carb, fat, and calorie heavy meal, with the desire to eat as quickly as possible and toss myself into bed.

I'm really looking for some suggestions for alternatives to this dinner, which are quick, easy, but not something that is going to ruin a day of exercise and low calorie eating.

Thanks!
-Cory

PS: An easy change (I know) would be change my sleep schedule so I am up til 4am, and wouldn't mind cooking...but with my girlfriend's schedule, she wakes me up at 7-7:30 am, and the lack of sleep kills me. She and I are also going on a 2 mile jog every morning at 8:30, so I dont want to miss out on that.

GauchoMark

just don't take the meal they give you and pack yourself a sandwich to eat on the way home. That way, by the way you get home, you aren't starving and you can make better choices.

Or, talk to the chef and have him hook you up with something healthy. Have you asked??

Lisa1971

just don't take the meal they give you and pack yourself a sandwich to eat on the way home. That way, by the way you get home, you aren't starving and you can make better choices.

Or, talk to the chef and have him hook you up with something healthy. Have you asked??

THIS! Take your own food and ditch the pub grub crap.

rebelate

Why don't you cook something before you go to work, and have it waiting for you? Or prep things?

Taking chicken breasts, and cutting them in half (so they're thinning, not smaller) will make it easy to cook in a pan in a few minutes, make a salad while you're waiting. While they're not you're "best" option, birdseye and similar brands make steamer veggie bags that are under a few minutes.

Ziplock also makes microwaveable steamer bags. You can chop up whatever veggies, put them in the bag, and keep in the fridge until you get home, pop it in the microwave. Uncle Ben makes 90 second rice bags, you can pop that in the microwave next, half the bag, pour 1/2 veggies over it, add some soy sauce, then pack the remainders for the next day. Or you can add red sauce on top of the veggies, something.


Microwaveable baked sweet potato add some salsa, and a bit of sour cream or plain greek yogurt on top.

or pack peanut butter and jelly on a tortilla and folded in half to eat on the way home, or some almonds.

ccook673

Yeah, I've asked. Restaurant staff meals are relatively...inflexible. Its usually a lot of starch with a little protein (usually that is 1-2 days away from being tossed). I asked if he could do grilled chicken and salad, and he was unwilling to (staff meal is usually cooked by someone lower on the totem pole in the kitchen, with no sway). Was just reading something in another post that kind of gave me a lightbulb. Make my own microwaveable dinners. Grilled Chicken breast, portioned, with steamed veggies. Frozen and reheated.

erin4455

Even if you don't get a proper lunch or dinner break, why not take a few snacks with you? Almonds would be a great choice to snack on while you work. Or a protein bar? I know it's not the ideal formula for a healthful dinner but there are some nutrient-packed snackable foods you could eat along the course of your work shift rather than having a calorie-laden meal right before you go to sleep. I can't imagine you feel very well after that either.

auddii

Grilled Chicken breast, portioned, with steamed veggies. Frozen and reheated.

Yup, I batch cook on weekends and freeze. Allows me to be lazy during the week :laugh:

AHuffaker14

can you start eating an early dinner before you go to work, and then get some almonds, or fruit, veggies, some healthy snack foods that you can eat on the way home. also maybe look into some protien shakes or meal replacement bars that you can do quickly when you get to work on a break or somekind.. Advocare has some great options for that.

clarkeje1

Eat before you go into work, then have raw fruits and veggies to snack on throughout your shift or afterwards. Personally if you don't get home until 1:30 I would just head straight to bed after work.

bubbinsnik

If you get a slow cooker you can make curries, casseroles, stews and spaghetti bolognaise (cooking the pasta later) while you are at work.
Chop up the veggies, brown off the meat in a pan first, add tomatoes or stock and herbs then turn it on before you go to work. It'll cook while you are there and be hot when you get in.
Turn off the slow cooker after you've eaten and it'll cool by the morning. Then you can portion it up for your microwavable meals for the next few nights after your run!

StaycJulia

You could pre cook and have it waiting as others have said, pack your own in a lunch cooler or just pack some fresh fruit and sliced up veggies for the commute home.

daj150

Although preparing something before you go is probably your best bet, if you don't have time, consider taking 1 or 2 meal replacement bars, or something similar that you can just rip open and then when you get home you can eat your meal. For example, when I was working 3rd shift at my first job, I worked from 4:30pm - 1:00 am, then had a 1 hour commute. To avoid looking for a 24-hour fast food place, I packed a Special K meal bars. I would eat 1 and consume at least 8 ounces of water. If I was still hungry, I would eat the 2nd and consume my remaining 8 ounces of water. When I got home, I made a healthy meal, which would end up being a smaller portion because I was already doing pretty well from the meal bars.

AmazonRDH

i have a similar situation only i dont work those hours (yikes!) but i teach and can't leave my students with patients alone so i don't have the luxury to step out and eat. at the end of the looooong clinic hours, i eat in my car on the way home. i pack myself stuff that can stay in my lunch cooler with an ice pack. i follow an old weight watchers plan, and some of the lunches work really well for this, this week i'm packing 6 wheat saltines, 1.5 ounces reduced fat cheese, 6 sliced black olives, carrot and cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes. i can eat that stuff at red lights, etc. (i have about a 45 min drive home).... sometimes it's a PB&J w/2 slices reduced calorie whole grain bread, 1 tbspn pnut butter and 2 tbspns spreadable fruit with veggie sticks..... ANYHOW... it can be done it just takes some advance planning.

courtneymal17

Or if you have a crockpot there's TONS of healthy meals...put it on prior to going to work, and when your're home you have a warm yummy meal waiting ...and if you don't have one you should get one! You can get some relatively (20-30$ ones on amazon or at some stores) ....and maybe like's been said before take some smaller snacks to either snack on at work or on your way home to hold you over.....biggest thing I'd say is stop taking the meal and avoid the temptation.

Curvatures

1. EARLY DINNER. Definitely eat something nice and solid before work, a late lunch/early dinner so to speak. There are a lot of studies that show that eating the big meal as a lunch, in the middle of the day, is much healthier, and also helpful for weightloss and weigh maintenence. Also... let me get back to this in point 3.

2. I like the suggestion of packing little snacky things like almonds to keep you going. It's a long shift, you should have some sustenance to make sure that you aren't starving when you get off. It's very easy to give in to bad food decisions when your stomach is chewing on your backbone

3. Pre-prepping your own food for after you get off work sounds like the best choice - and I have a suggestion. While it might get a bit repetitive in the long run, how about making a bit more food when you eat that early dinner, and saving that for the 1:30 am snack? It takes the same amount of time to grill one chicken breast as it takes to grill two!

Elleacive

I think your best bet is to eat before you leave and then to bring snacks (for me: carrots, peeled hard boiled eggs, sliced chicken, saltines, rice cakes (!!), sliced apples, TJ's spreadable brie bites) ... I would try to avoid eating a large meal at 1am.

corneredbycorn

I would do an early, full dinner before you go into work, have a small "lunch" ready for you when you got home after work, and eat breakfast when you wake up. There's no reason you can't shuffle your meals around so your largest meal is the middle one instead of the last one. You would also probably spend less time eating that last meal, which means you can be asleep sooner and get a better night's sleep.

ccook673

Thanks for the replies everyone! Some good ideas out there. I'll say the only issue with bringing snacks is the fact that you cant really sit and "snack" in the restaurant/bar industry. Other than that though some meal replacement bars or prepping/precooking dinner seem to be the best bets so far. Wish me luck!

RenewedRunner

<--- Worked in restaurant industry for years.

1. You get a break. It is required by law. If your boss is NOT allowing a break, he is breaking the employment laws.

2. Bring something in a plastic bag (diced chicken stuffed in a pita shell) and eat it on your break.

3.. Buy a lunch sack with an ice pack. Hard boiled eggs make wonderful portable snacks. Spend the extra and buy preportioned bags of veggies and fruits. An apple is an easy snack. Subway on the way to work, or a slimfast shake (not ideal but easily taxied around). Eat it on the way home. I still to this day snarf down dinner in my car quite frequently (though nowadays it is because I am chaffeuring kids to practices after work and not because I closed down the restaurant at 1am).

4. I dont know where you work. I worked at a very upscale restaurant, and I still could special order my food. not trying to be funny, but were you an @ s s to the chef? I learned long ago, never pizz off the people cooking your food.

MyChocolateDiet

1) as a bartender I assume you have access to a fridge and hopefully some control over what goes in there. I'd consider bringing one of those starbucks trays with the little cheese and fruits or veggies in it. a cold sandwich to eat on the way home might be good too...maybe pick up a subway sandwich on the way there eat half right as you arrive and start your shift and the rest when you get off work, not waiting till you get home but immediately because.....

2) 4-12 is 8 hours right? that sure is a long time to go without eating? I'm not gonna tell you to start a war against your work for not giving you a lunch break, but for sure if you get breaks for the bathroom or short cigarette breaks, I would for sure get some food in you during that time. Healthy mini packs of some kind of crunchy snacks or baked chips or anything at all.

I used to work in restaurants and you can't really snack while working. you need breaks to eat so I hope you're at least getting some brief ones. because that's a long shift. even if you had to down a green machine during breaks but something.