What's in your lunch box?

It's 11:55am on a Wednesday morning and you're starving...what are you going to do? If you planned ahead, you're probably hitting up the office refrigerator and digging through various sizes, colors and shapes of bags attempting to find your lunch. If you forgot and/or were running late, you're either going to hit the vending machine or find the closest take out place to enjoy a high calorie, slightly pricey solution to the hunger problem.

Now don't get me wrong - I love hitting a teryaki place as much as the next person. But bringing in a lunch has a lot of benefits to it. For starters, you'll save daily. Sure, $5 a day (hitting a dollar menu somewhere) may not seem like a lot. But that's a minimum of $25 per week, $100 a month, $1200 a year (give or take for holidays and vacations). Additionally, you may think getting that salad is "healthy" - but that creamy dressing or extra meat and cheese isn't helping your diet. There are definitely healthy to go options out there, but without looking at the total nutrition page (so you really want 1500 mg of sodium in your 400 calorie lunch), there are areas you're hurting yourself in you're probably not realizing...and as a previous post I wrote on the negative effects of sitting tells you, you need to help your body as much as you can.

"But Kendal, I don't want to eat a turkey sandwich every day - that's boring!".
"But Kendal, I don't have time for this!"

I understand these arguments. As I currently suffer from boredom and lack of hours in the day, I've found these cool websites to help you plan your lunches. You're welcome!

The Brown Bag Brigade gives some great tips on how to plan for and make some great lunches!

Eating Well has some great, healthy lunch ideas to keep you from getting bored!

Healthy Lunch Ideas is a big blog with a lot of coolness to it...definitely a good idea to explore!

The Office Diet actually gives you a grocery list for 10 days of food...though the cost is in British Pounds.


So remember, bringing your lunch (and snacks!) to work saves you money and gives you healthier options.

Bon Appetit!
Kendal