Meal planning and finding time to cook

1. I enjoy fruit for breakfast. Portable. No microwave needed.
2. Fish and veg cook up in 5 min. If you choose the pre-packed/cooked tuna, then even less time.
3. Perhaps I'm misreading your question, but if you intake more water, then you'll need to exhaust more water. You'll need to visit the toilet more often. That's not too bad though, eh?
4. Don't wait a few hours after breakfast to eat again. Pack loads of snacks. LOADS of healthy snacks. They can be small like oranges, bananas, small portions of nuts, etc. If you can eat every hour, then you'll not have those hunger pains.

Hope this helps!

What do you do the other 16 hours of the day? It takes 5 minutes to cook some eggs, make a healthier sandwich, or cook some meat in a pan and nuke some veggies.

For breakfast sometimes I make my own sandwich. I use a thin bagel (110 cal), 2% cheese ( 50 cal), and an egg (90 cal). I have one of those microwave egg things so it takes 30 secs to cook and comes out round so it fits perfectly on the sandwich. So the total sandwich is about 250 cal.

When you get home, you can boil about 8 hardboiled eggs. Get a pot, fill it with water, sprinkle some salt in it. Place 8 eggs in it and turn the burner on medium high heat until the water starts to boil. Once the water comes to a rolling boil, let the eggs cook for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and cover the pot and let the eggs sit in the water for 15 minutes, then rinse them off, crack and peel. Now, when you go to work, you can grab a hard boiled egg to go.

Oatmeal takes 5 minutes. When you walk in the door from work, you can grab a pot, pour some old-fashioned dried oats and the appropriate amount of water with a pinch of salt and put it over the stove top for about 5 minutes. Then, remove from heat. Then you can portion off a serving and make batches to put in a to-go container, so you can grab this to go as well.

You can eat the oatmeal with the hardboiled egg and a banana, You can also preheat your oven to 350 degrees and put a batch of chicken sausage in the oven for about 10-15 minutes and there is your breakfast. This does not take time to cook all three of these things.

The time it takes you to wait in the drive-thru in a fast food joint or wait in line, you could be at home prepping your to-go meals to grab with you out the door in the morning.

I have over an hour commute to work and so I understand your pain. Also I can't have eggs so a lot of breakfast foods just went out the window. Here is what I eat.
1 cup low fat yogurt
1/2 cup frozen blueberries (I pop them in the microwave for 30 seconds and they defrost)
1/4 cup Fiber One Bran Cereal or Cherrios

Or
Low calorie maple and brown sugar oatmeal
Sometimes I'll add raisins to it or eat a banana and a protein bar

Or
Bowl of fruit with nutella on toast

LOTS of water. and STOP getting french fries with your lunch. Most fast food places have apple slices or side salads. You can eat under 500 calories even at McDonalds like a fruit and yogurt parfait sans granola, a regular cheese burger and a side salad with fat free Italian dressing. It makes me full when I have to grab something while I'm out but it doesn't completely KILL my diet.

Pick grilled chicken over fried. Get the side salad instead of fries or like Wendy's a baked potato. Only eat the bottom bun on the sandwich if you are watching your carbs. If you have a Sonic in your area their grilled chicken on whole wheat ciabatta is only 450 calories with the mayo, get it without and it's even less calories. Say no to tots, fries or onion rings and get their apple slices with caramel sauce instead.

Dinner - Salads are super easy and fast or get a crock pot/ Prep the food before bed then in the morning take it out of the fridge, pot into the crock pot and turn it on to cook while you are at work. There are TONS of recipes online for that sort of thing. Crock Pot fajitas are pretty darn yummy.

Consume more water after work? Other than coffee and diet dew I don't drink that much by way of liquids at work. It's not the best way to be but like someone else said , work is 8 out of 24 hours. Where there's a will, you can figure out how to complete the tasks that need done.

My breakfast is sausage and eggs. The sausage is cut up into slices and stored in a freezer bag up to 2-3 weeks ahead of time.

When you get home, you can boil about 8 hardboiled eggs. Get a pot, fill it with water, sprinkle some salt in it. Place 8 eggs in it and turn the burner on medium high heat until the water starts to boil. Once the water comes to a rolling boil, let the eggs cook for 2 minutes, then remove from heat and cover the pot and let the eggs sit in the water for 15 minutes, then rinse them off, crack and peel. Now, when you go to work, you can grab a hard boiled egg to go.

Oatmeal takes 5 minutes. When you walk in the door from work, you can grab a pot, pour some old-fashioned dried oats and the appropriate amount of water with a pinch of salt and put it over the stove top for about 5 minutes. Then, remove from heat. Then you can portion off a serving and make batches to put in a to-go container, so you can grab this to go as well.

You can eat the oatmeal with the hardboiled egg and a banana, You can also preheat your oven to 350 degrees and put a batch of chicken sausage in the oven for about 10-15 minutes and there is your breakfast. This does not take time to cook all three of these things.

The time it takes you to wait in the drive-thru in a fast food joint or wait in line, you could be at home prepping your to-go meals to grab with you out the door in the morning.

Yep, make the time. It will be worth it in the end, honest!

breakfast: look for higher fiber in cereals, high fiber bread and peanut butter. bowl of cereal with milk and a piece of toast with pb on your way to work.

buy nuts to eat after breakfast before lunch.

drink more water on your way home, weekends etc. to get your body used to more water.

lunch is something you will have to work at, if you want it... can you look for frozen weight watchers etc. in the freezer section?

bananas, nuts, fruits, veggies!

good luck!

I'm pretty sure I work a lot more than 7-8 hours a day. . . . more like 9+ as a public school teacher, plus all the lesson planning and grading on the weekend. I never cook during the week, but batch cook on the weekend. I portion everything out into individual containers, freeze some and then have a variety of meals I can microwave during the week for lunch at school and dinner at home.

For breakfast i often microwave an apple with cinnamon and nutmeg and add granola to the top. Paired with a boiled egg or a little pre-cooked bacon, I have a breakfast that carries me through.

There are many recipes that portion out a freeze well. My favorites are pork tenderloin with rice, chicken pesto pasta with walnuts, turkey chili, sirloin steak stir fry with veggies, chicken fajitas. I often grill several chicken breasts and then cut them into cubes for putting on baby spinach or salad greens. That makes a quick meal as well.

Sometimes I even scramble two eggs the night before and put them in a plastic container.

i have 3 kids, a small business, and for various reasons, i drive about 350 miles a week. so i'm pretty busy.

i made 4 weeks worth of meals, and we rotate through them. most of the meals are done in 30 minutes max, and a few are crockpot meals that cook all day when i'm extra busy. this also helps with controlling the budget.

if you dont know how to cook, its easy to learn.