How to Make Healthy Lunches and Not Go Crazy

You can't be married to Austin and not learn to love nutrition.  Really.  In college it was one of our main topics of conversation and needless to say, it's on my mind A LOT. So, per his recommendation (and as part of my own "find-out-everything-about-children-before-I-decide-to make-one" course) I took a nutrition class the last semester of college.  Best class ever.  Everyone should take one.  It's a whole lot easier than people think.  It only gets complicated when someone is trying to sell you something.

Prego side note: Although it feels like I can eat a boat load of food now that I'm all prego, pregnant ladies only need 300 extra calories a day...that's like eating an extra yogurt and slice of bread (while nursing you'll need 800 extra calories....crazy, eh?).  So eat more often not necessarily bigger portions and please don't slap me with your crazy prego hormones.

Go here to check out cool nutrition stuff.
Here is a healthy meal planning site
And here are some free delicious recipes from that awesome site (the veggie tostadas and chicken tortilla soup are my favorites)

Back to the story.  A result of taking a nutrition class was that I began packing lunches for Austin and I everyday during college.  Now that Austin works in the mornings I still get up to  pack his lunch and can say that I've got it down to a science. Literally takes me 3 minutes...I timed it this morning.  

So for those of you who are stumped in the lunch department or want to eat more healthy I will share the wealth:

Tip 1 and only:

Make it convenient.  One difference between eating healthy food and junk food is its convenience.  How I've handled that is not buying junk food and make healthy food easy to grab and in plain sight.  Thank you Mom for brainwashing me with that mindset since childhood!

How to build it:

1.  Main dish. 

a)  Learn to love left-overs.  I don't particularly love cooking all the time.  So, if I cook enough in one dinner to last us two days and do that about 3 times a week, we will have enough lunch variety for about a week and a half.  We usually get backed up (like this week) and I end up not cooking for a couple days.  Bonus! 

b)  Always always always always put the left-overs into individual Tupperware containers while cleaning up dinner! You're there, it's there, and you're not going to want to do it in the morning while you're rushing out the door.  Just do it right then and there.

2. Veggies.  

I always make and store a vegetable with the main dish.  We really aren't picky in this house so it can be as easy as opening a can of green beans.  If I'm feeling real go-getterish I'll put together carrot and zucchini ziplock baggies while making dinner to just throw in the lunch box in the mornings. 

3.  Fruit.  

Easy to just pick up and throw in there. Apples, bananas or oranges are my fruit of choice.  Grapes and strawberries take a couple more seconds since you have to put them in a bag.  But for the sake of tossing it up, I'll do it sometimes.  

4.  Yogurt.  
Like I said, it's convenient and gets a serving of dairy in there.

5.  Something to munch.  

A roll, muffin, granola bar, baggie of trail mix.  Something that is easy to grab.  I try to make it whole grain.  I loved having this in between classes in college.  It kept me away from vending machines.

6.  Dessert. 

I usually do a pudding, cookies, maybe a candy bar if they're on sale....like I said, something convenient, that Austin or I will look forward to, and that is a good portion size.  Ya gotta do good in the dessert department!

Literally takes me three minutes to throw this all into a lunch box and we even calculated how much it costs: $3.25 a meal.  Not too shabby.