Lunch for days out

Since my surgery, my husband and I have been getting out quite a bit for walks. Sometimes we just walk around our local streets or pop to the local country park. Other times we go further afield and have a 'proper' walk in the hills. We are lucky to be within an hour's drive of the Pennines, the Clwydian Hills of north Wales and the Peak District. Another half an hour will get us out to the south Lake District, Yorkshire Dales and Snowdonia!

I've been finding it difficult to decide what to prepare for my packed lunch to take with me on these longer walks. One walk we had up onto Kinderscout Moor in the Peak District while I was still on pureed foods was a bit of a disaster in this respect. I couldn't eat bread or crispbreads or fruit or cereal bars at that stage so took a couple of plastic tubs with soft mush in. One tub had some mashed potato left over from the night before, plus some cold baked beans. In the other tub I had a mixture of chick peas and tinned chopped tomatoes. Well, it seemed like a good idea at the time! However, when sat on top of a freezing cold, open moorland, feeling very tired and hungry, I must say it seemed like a very stupid idea. I ate what I could but just found it impossible to eat much because it was just Soooo unappetising. Later, on this particularly long and arduous walk, I had to resort to eating loads of Dextrosol energy tablets to keep one foot moving in front of the other.

We went out for a walk today in the Pennines around Burnley. There was a lot of snow on the ground but it was a beautiful, cold, crisp day with hardly a fleck in the sky. Today for lunch, I took some Special K cereal bars (only 59 calories each), some raisins, and a tub full of Weight To Go chick pea and tomato tagine...... (177 calories) - this also seemed like a good idea at the time (when will I ever learn?!). I ate half of it but there are two problems with talking this kind of food on a long walk. One is that it just isn't anywhere as nice when it's stone cold. The other is that it doesn't provide the immediate energy source your body is crying out for.

So, on the way back, I mulled over this problem and decided that next time I go for a long walk I will take the following for lunch: A packet of Ryvita minis (if you haven't tried these they are lovely - 99 calories), an individual tub of Philadelphia Light cream cheese (you can buy these in packs of four small tubs at Tesco - each tub is 55 calories), and a tub full of cherry tomatoes, pieces of yellow pepper, olives and cucumber chunks. I'll also take nibbles in the form of Special K cereal bars, raisins and fruit (eg an apple). I've decided that while I am capable of eating moderate sized portions at the moment, it would be better when expending a lot of energy to spread smaller chunks of eating throughout the day.

Watch this space - I'll keep you posted on progress next time we go out for the day!