What to eat when working away

damondaniels1
damondaniels1 Posts: 1 Member
in Health and Weight Loss
Hi,

I was just wondering if anyone was able to help.

I am looking at dieting and to be honest am really struggling with what to eat. Firstly I am a vegetarian (do not eat fish, eggs or meat) and secondly I work away from home.

Thanks

Replies

  • callsitlikeiseeit
    callsitlikeiseeit Posts: 8,626 Member
    eat what you want, but learn to measure and weigh your food properly, using a food scale, and eat within your calorie goals.
  • PKM0515
    PKM0515 Posts: 3,089 Member
    edited January 2020
    I'm also a vegetarian. Here are some things I've done. I'm just going to list items that can be combined "as needed."
    • Soup in a thermos (vegetarian vegetable, lentil, macaroni and bean, vegetarian chili, etc.)
    • Sandwich or wrap (grilled vegetables, hummus, nut butter, cheese, spread made from tofu, cream cheese and olive, falafel, Greek salad, etc.)
    • Raw vegetables
    • Fruit, nuts, seeds
    • Cheese and crackers
    • Greek yogurt/cottage cheese
    • Dips to go with raw veggies, crackers, etc. - hummus, baba ganoush, tzatziki, hytipi, etc.
    • Salads made with typical salad ingredients plus things like chickpeas, nuts, seeds, fruit, cheese, etc.

    If you have access to a microwave, you can heat up leftovers or frozen, vegetarian dinners; but it sounds like that might not be an option.

    Hope this helps a bit! 😃
  • LucyP12342014
    LucyP12342014 Posts: 14 Member
    What facilities do you have for cooking?
  • amy19355
    amy19355 Posts: 805 Member
    Make yourself a little to-go bag with a regular (not paper) plate, bowl and some silverware.

    Then, where ever you are traveling, at the end of the day go to the supermarket and visit the following departments: PRODUCE for some fresh fruit, a bag of salad greens, the SALAD BAR for stuff to add to the bag of greens, the MEAT dept for some cooked ready to eat protein (hormel, oscar meyer, etc), the DELI for a few slices of cheese and some coleslaw or potato salad, (or similar), and the BAKERY dept for a roll or two to make a sandwich with the meat and cheese.

    Notice there is no can opener needed, nor a stove. Yes, it's all cold food, but, it's ready to eat with little work, and, it's worst aspect is the high sodium of prepared meats, so go easy on them!

    If you're at a hotel with a microwave, I 'fatten up' cans of soup with added meat from the grocery store.

    It becomes something of a fun game for me to see what kind of interesting meal I can work up on a wander thru the market.

    good luck.

  • AnnPT77
    AnnPT77 Posts: 34,598 Member
    What do you mean by "work away from home"? Does that mean traveling/on the road, in hotels or similar temp living quarters? Or away for the work day, with limited options for meals, then home overnight?

    I'll take a shot at the "on the road" answer. I've been vegetarian for 45+ years, and on the road - especially in some places - can be challenging. I tend to rely a lot on eggs, which you don't eat. You didn't mention not eating dairy, so that may be a help if you do: Decent Greek yogurt (like Chobani) is available at most convenience stores these days, for example.

    Now I'm going to assume you're in the US, since your profile doesn't make location public.

    As far as fast food options, there are some good choices at Taco Bell (unless you need to limit sodium :grimace: ). They will serve combinations that aren't on the menu board: Check out the online nutrition calculator on their web site. If you don't do dairy, you can ask them to omit cheese and sour cream, for sure.

    Panera has some good choices (again, may need to omit cheese or sour cream), but they have options with hummus and grains, as well as some vegetarian soups (soups are low in protein, though, mostly).

    I like Subway chopped salads for filling veggies. I think they have a vegan veggie patty that can be chopped up in the salad for protein, but I'm not sure. At worst, the salad is good, filling micros. I usually get just vinegar and oregano, for dressing.

    Beyond that, perhaps you can get food to take with you. There are now some vegan "jerky" products with decent protein (I though Primal brand was awful, but Louisville Vegan Jerky is OK. It needs refrigeration once the plastic bag is opened, but it isn't a huge bag, so you could eat the whole thing (though it's a lot of sodium).

    Nuts or nut butters could be part of your picture, though that's more fat than protein. But you can get single-serve packets.

    If you have a local health-food-type store at home, there are starting to be quite a few "dry soup in a cup" options that just require hot water, or canned/packet whole meals that can (in some cases) be eaten cold like a salad (or in other cases, just mildly unpleasant cold, unless you have a microwave ;) ). Or, if there's either a local health food store, or something like Trader Joe's or Whole Foods where you are working, you could pick up those kinds of things or deli choices there. If you have access to a microwave, their frozen meals, or vegetarian frozen meals from a regular grocery store, would be a decent option. The mainstream brand Birdseye has some steam-in-bag main dishes with grain or chickpea pasta now that are edible, though not as good as home-made.

    Another option would be vegan protein bars or shakes (the latter canned or mix-with-water) to help on the protein side of things, which you could then bulk up with fast-food salads, or veggie sides in restaurants, or that sort of thing.

    I suspect that if you're in the UK or Europe or Australia or the like, there'd be equivalents in many places to the brands/stores I mentioned, though I don't know for sure.

    I think this would be doable, to diet as an on-the-road vegetarian, but might require a bit of planning and creativity.

    Best wishes!

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