Teacher Friends- Help, Support Motivation

I'm not a teacher so I hope you don't mind me chiming in, but I would recommend overnight oats for a breakfast option and some kind of rice bowl for a lunch option.

There are plenty of ways to make/flavor overnight oats so they're easy to adjust to personal taste and calorie amount. I like to make mine with peanut butter and a scoop of chocolate protein powder or yogurt. Common additions are berries, bananas, or chia and flax seeds. I use mason jars to make mine so all I need to do is grab it out of the fridge and grab a spoon. If you add berries or fruit to it that's probably best to do right before eating it so it doesn't get soggy.

Rice bowls for lunch are also very convenient as long as you have access to a microwave. My two usual choices are rice with beans and salsa or rice with green lentils, hummus, and tofu. I like to add fresh baby spinach right before I eat it for the texture and fiber boost. They're also easy to customize to taste and the amount of calories you want and tend to contain enough fiber and protein to help you avoid the after lunch crash and cravings. And obviously you can add whatever meats or vegetables to them that you desire.

mrsrebeccaplude1 wrote: »

@BendableButMendable I just saw some ideas about overnight oats and has some questions… Do you hear it up in the morning? I like oatmeal but I’m not too sure about cold oatmeal. What’s the best type of container for it? The video I saw used mason jars, but again, I wasn’t sure how they would heat up.

Thank you so much for the ideas!
I’m hoping to do some lunch prepping and rice bowls would be perfect!

I think most people eat overnight oats cold, that's how I have always eaten them. Like you I was a little pensive before my first bight of cold oatmeal but I found them really tasty that way. The only thing I could think to compare it to would be pudding (USA style pudding not UK style). I don't see any reason you couldn't heat them up though. The glass portion of the mason jar should be fine to heat up but you obviously wouldn't want to put the metal lids in the microwave. They make plastic lids with silicone seals that I think are microwavable but don't hold me to that. I personally use the plastic lids because they are less likely to leak but I've never tried them in the microwave. Worst case scenario, you could always take a separate microwave safe bowl to work to heat them in if you don't have a seal-able container that works for that.

The only advice I have in prepping them is to find the right amount of water for your personal taste. Going off memory (I haven't needed to meal prep in a while) I found that I liked 3/4 cups water to 1/2 cup oats to get the right consistency. But if I added something that absorbed more water to the mixture, like chia or flax seeds, I would up it to 1 cup water to 1/2 cup oats. If you add something watery, like yogurt, you may want to adjust for that as well until you find the way you like it. It's easy enough to prep a single serving, I would give it a try before you commit to prepping for a whole week at a time and see if you like it.

I usually do bulk cooking for the week on Sunday. 2 meals that will feed us with leftovers, and 4 lunches prepped for myself(like roasted cauliflower with chickpeas, or a bag of salad and homemade sauerkraut). We like dinner items like meat patties, noodle casserole/skillet 1 dish meals, chicken and vegetables stir fry.
For breakfast, I usually have greek yogurt and fruit or protein bar and banana, plus my coffee. For snacks I do sliced apple and a protein snack(Kay's naturals or small bar).

I made up individual eggs quiches in muffin pans....quick and yummy. I get bored of salad and chicken for lunches....any ideas? I am lucky to have microwave time on my lunch break..

snacker127 wrote: »

Thanks for all the great lunch ideas. I think my biggest worry is keeping up the exercise. I have been training really hard this summer and I'm actually seeing some of the benefits, hate to let that go.

I get up early and do a video before work. After work, I either use the weight room, go for a run outside, or go home and do *something*(could be yoga, a walk with dogs, etc). Don't use work as an excuse to quit your fitness journey. Make room for it in your schedule.

I have only done a small amount of yoga in my life when I was looking for ways to regain my flexibility and started doing a bit here and there with fair success, but I didn't stick with it. I was just looking through my bookmarked sites and I found this playlist of videos, it is a thirty day challenge that I meant to get to but never did. I thought I would post it here in case anyone finds it useful or wants to try the challenge for themselves. I have no idea if it's "good" yoga or not, but it looks easy enough to follow and all the videos are pretty short.

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PLEs9dX8UXFZrz9RxOquZoB6Pl972vYRFw

Hello!

I've just completed my teacher training and will start my first full time teaching job in September.

My placement was just over an hour away and in between the commute, school, planning and uni work my exercise really suffered. I successfully maintained, but now I want to go back to losing.

My goal in September is to test out what works. I preferred to exercise in the morning when I had an office job and now that it's the holidays, but I am not a morning person so I'd rather not get up earlier than I alresdy have to. I think I will try doing it in the evening, ideally whilst dinner is on. If this doesn't work I'll try in the morning.