Office Workers - What do you eat?

Do you have a fridge and a microwave in your office? Invest in tupaware if so and make the night before and reheat at work.

During the day - I eat a salad but also open and heat a tin of soup - in the salad I alternate between salmon, egg and chicken. I do eat the same soup every day but its my favourite - you could easily try different flavours for variety. I also have different daytime snacks for variety - yogurt, fruit, seeds etc. Can't say that I will get bored with these foods - when I see the weight coming off - it'll be worth it :-)

Hi this is normally a common problem for me when i have dieted before. im only two weeks in to my new healthy living and determined to make it a life change this time.

Over the last two weeks i having been having tuna pasta with sweetcorn, tomato based pasta sauce with mushrooms and veggies, different soups, chicken wraps, salads and sometimes some dinner from the night before, always followed by a low fat yoghurt or fruit.

So far this has worked really well for me but im always on the lookout for more exciting ideas to keep me from getting bored of the same foods.

a cucumber & tomato sandwich and a cup of coffee

Poached egg on toast everyday for breakfast.

I take with me to work:

Some kind of soup
Two portions of fruit
A yoghurt
A breakfast bar

If I know I'm going to the gym later/will be burning extra calories I treat myself to two light chocolate digestives as a treat

I did nearly die of hunger yesterday - I went from meeting to meeting 8.30am-3.30pm and only survived on my breakfast and an apple.

Poached egg on toast everyday for breakfast.

I take with me to work:

Some kind of soup
Two portions of fruit
A yoghurt
A breakfast bar

If I know I'm going to the gym later/will be burning extra calories I treat myself to two light chocolate digestives as a treat

I did nearly die of hunger yesterday - I went from meeting to meeting 8.30am-3.30pm and only survived on my breakfast and an apple.

haha the last bit made me smile. i do this a lot. im trying to avoid bread and pasta as it bloats me out so it does limit me a little. like the idea of healthy snack foods though. you're all giving me some great ideas x

It's fine, as soon as I came out of my meetings then I just took myself off for half an hour and ate everything I had! My job is pretty tough emotionally (working in a rehab unit with people with brain injuries), so I need to make sure I don't do the whole emotional eating - that was definitely one of the factors to why I put on weight in the first place! I don't bring any money with me to work so I'm not tempted by the vending machines with chocolate and crisps.

I make sure my bread, pasta and rice is all brown to cut out the white processed stuff.

Best of luck!

I don't have a fridge or microwave at work, and I can't afford to buy lunch every day, so I bring in a Thermos flask of hot soup and some bread and butter or crispbread. On warmer days, I have an insulated sandwich bag with freezer packs.

I'm a bit of a nightmare at work, always rushing around. I need to have stuff ready in my drawer. I have a selection of low fat soups, protein shakes etc. Its not fab but it keeps me from snacking on other stuff and doesnt go off. I bring in a bag of fruit daily

Brekkie: 2 boiled eggs on toast
Snack 1 : small apple, 80g of grapes
Lunch: homemade veg and lentil soup
Dinner: Usually a low cal meal 300 cals
Snack 2: usually a treat for telly-mini choc fingers and monster munch

**if exercising then will have something extra

I take all kinds of stuff for my lunch at work. I like to have variety. We have a fridge, Microwave at work. Today (work 3rd shift). I didn't have time to make a lunch, so I grabbed a small round ziplock container (with screw lid) and filled it up with frozen broccoli/califlower/carrots while still frozen. screwed lid on,I then took 1/4c shreeded colby jack cheese that I put on my veggies after they were cooked. I have plastic containers that hold exactly 1/2 cup fat free cottage cheese. (My favorite is Kroger's brand). then I grabbed a can of alaskan salmon (tuna fish size can 5oz). that was my lunch. I also have to eat snacks too (diabetic and have to eat smaller meals with a few snacks). I grabbed 10 black pitted olives, 1 oz roasted peanuts and an apple for one snack. Then for my second snack at work, I had a naval orange. I work 3rd shift so for my so called breakfast before heading to work, I had a low carb wheat tortillia, put 1/8th c shredded colby jack cheese on it, and stuck in microwave for approx 15 sec's. Then I tried this for first time today (wasn't sure how it would taste). I buy immatation crab sticks for protien when I am really on the run and have no time to eat. I put 2 of these on my tortilla and added 2 tbls of low fat sour cream. rolled it up and ate it it. It tasted pretty good. I was surprised. (I didn't have time to make anything to eat before heading to work. I had this at 10pm.

Then at 1am I eat my first snack, My apple and my peanutes, and my black olives. Then I had my lunch as mentioned above at 3am and also added a yoplait light yogurt (strawberry) and a 4oz suger free jellow. This gives me the feeling of having desert, tasty and fulfilling. then at around 6am I will have my orange. I will eat my supper when I get home around 8am.

Sometimes my lunch is left over meat from dinner the night before added with my frozen veggies (I tri to take a container of frozen veggies every day for lunch. I mix it up with broccoli, carrots etc. I am not a big veggie eater and if I just don't care so much for the veggie, I will add just a little bit of frozen corn to it. It makes it a whole lot better. I sometimes take a nice salad to work (a meal in itself....letuch, some cabbage, 1/2 tomato, fresh mushrooms, 1/4 c shredded cheese, 1/8c sunflower seeds, 1-5oz can salmon or tuna,5 black pitted olives. and my favorite in my salads is sugar free sweetened dill spears (can only find these at Kroger's). I slice the pickle spears up (2) and throw in my salad. I have learned to put my cheese, tomatos, sunflower seeds, and salmon in snack bags and add to my salad as I make it at work. I take a cheapy gallon size bag and add all my stuff to it but the stuff in snack bags. I then leave air in bag and mix it all up good. I then take my salad dressing (low fat/cal etc) pour approx 2 tbls into a snack bag, add a little water and mix that good (make sure it is sealed good). This makes the dressing go a bit farther without more calories. I then put my dressing bag inside the salad bag. squeeze air out and put all in a plastic grocery bag (my lunch box, lol). This salad is heavy, filling etc. Along with it I take a yogurt and my jellow.

If you want to follow my food journal (if that is possible on this site...new here, feel free too. If you need to be added as a friend, send me the request. Then you can see just how much I variy my lunches at work.

I'm queen of the microwave, and pretty much eat all of my three meals at my desk. This doesn't have to mean ready meals!

Meals less than 300 cal I regularly eat:

- scrambled eggs in microwave, throw in some quick cooking veggies - mushrooms, tomatoes and spinach
- mixed veg stir fry (Doesn't need to be "stir fried", just pop in microwave for two mins), soy sauce and some cooked chicken or prawns
- poached fish - haddock, cod or any white fish, cover with milk and microwave for a couple of mins, I have this with boiled potatoes (microwave 6 minutes!)
- noodle soup - microwave mushrooms, peppers, beansprouts in a big bowl, add miso sachet and some ready cooked noodles
- savoury porridge - chicken stock, spring onions, mushrooms, green onions, soy sauce and two mins in microwave

You can pretty much do anything with a microwave, I've done poached eggs, sweet potato mash, rice (!), any kind of vegetable much to the amazement of my colleagues. The only think which doesn't work that well is meat...I buy pre-cooked chicken mostly.

This has probably been suggested already but i didn't read through the whole thread, I try to make extra teas, and take the leftovers into work the next day. We have a mini oven at work, so say we have chilli or curry for tea i will take the left overs with me to work and pop it on a jacket potato and this fills me up until my evening meal!
I take other teas in as left overs that don't go on a jacket potato like.. stews/ broths / stirfry / meatballs / pasta etc its so easy i just pop it in a tub and in the fridge for the next day.
For snacks i take in low fat bagels/ low fat yoghurts / healthy snack bars / fruit / cup a soups.
I'm usually munching on something at my desk i find it helps rather than have nothing at all inbetween meals as this makes me over eat when it comes to my evening meal!
Hope you find something that helps!

This has been said here already, in different ways, but the common theme is planning. I also work in the city center, and irregular office/work/meeting hours usually means an unplanned, convienient quick lunch. Also adding to this is the prevailing social aspect of lunch at my office...the normal routine is to gather up 3 or 4 people and go find a spot.

The trouble is...last-minute, convenient, low(er) cost, healthy, trackable, and desirable lunches in this scenario are almost impossible.

So...plan. Some of the earlier posts have a ton of good ideas:

a. Make your lunch the night before and bring it in

b. Buy healthy stuff and nuke it at work.

c. If you want to go out, check out the menu online and find something healthy (or don't go there).

What I do (and your mileage may vary), is try to be boring and bring my lunch all week, and go out with my friends on Fridays. I still try to eat healthy, but it keeps me from going bonkers on the tuna/yogurt/banana train.

Last two weeks iv made a bog pain of soup and a homemade crustless quiche.
Last week was Vegetable soup and the quiche was a mix of vegetables
This week its Leek & Potato soup with Hawiian style quiche. (Ham,Mushrooms sweetcorn, Cottage Cheese with Pineapple and eggs. Its really nice.

Snack wise I always have a carrot and a varity of fruit and on gym days either a serving of nuts or peanut butter.