Saturday, January 17, 2009

Lunch ideas

I'm getting bored with my lunch! As you may have seen from the seven days that I posted my daily menus, most days I take to work a couple of crispbreads with cottage cheese (or tuna - or both) and some side salad. It's lovely and healthy and all that, but I'm just getting a bit bored with eating the same thing day in and day out. I know there are probably loads of other things I could eat but I just don't have much imagination! I'm also a fish-eating veggie which narrows down the options a bit. I have been trying to get ideas for lunch from other bandits on the UKGastricBand forum and also from the Healthier Weight support group (this morning). Here are a few ideas I've picked up so far:

  1. Pasta with tuna, onion, yellow pepper and low fat Hellman's mayonnaise (personally, I would use Philadelphia Light instead of mayonnaise).
  2. Rice with prawns and mixed vegetables (I like this one - I can just imagine it with some chilli...!).
  3. Soup with chunky vegetables (I'm going to make this soon - I'll make some homemade 'smooth' soup first, then steam a mixture of vegetables so they are quite chunky and crisp, and then add them to the soup base).
  4. Smaller portions of 'normal' foods (eg cheese salad sandwich). I'm not sure about this one at my stage (ie with no restriction) - I think it'd only take one cheese sandwich for me to want to eat two or three....
  5. Bolognaise (spaghetti or lasagne), chilli or curry made up with quorn or veggie mince.
  6. Cauliflower or macaroni cheese (personally I'm trying to stay away from cheese at the moment because it makes me want to eat other fatty foods).
  7. Mash snackpots (available from Asda or Sainsbury's). I haven't seen these, but I have been tempted by some lovely couscous lunch pots they have in Tesco.
  8. Houmous with celery sticks. Mmmm, houmous is very high in calories and fat (even when it is a low fat variety) - and I hate celery (probably the only vegetable I don't like).
  9. Spinach, buffalo mozzarella and fresh beef tomato. Sounds lovely - I'll look into the calorie content of mozzarella.....
  10. Probiotic yoghurt with a few spoonfuls of mixed seeds and nuts (really filling). This one and the next one are both sweet and would make excellent 'desserts', but personally I prefer something savoury for lunch.
  11. Chopped fruit to eat with lunch or as snacks during the day.
  12. Homemade soup (smooth soup would be a slider food, but this would work well with chunky vegetables in it - see above).
  13. Lentil dahl. The Weight To Go spicy vegetable dahl is delicious.
  14. Chicken thigh (skin removed) with low fat sour cream and some cherry tomatoes. I like the sound of this one, without the chicken and sour cream.......!!! Ha ha.
I hope you have fun trying some of these. Feel free to add a comment if you try something and have some feedback to give.

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