Make Maintenance Easier: A Lunchtime Tip
Jun 10, 2020
Summer camp was cancelled.
Such a bummer.
Hard to imagine a summer without camp.
Friends, swimming, crafts, games, singing—I loved my days at Cottonwood.
I’d wait outside my house on the steps with my mom. The big yellow bus worked its way down the street—we heard it way before we saw it. I’d climb aboard dragging my dark green duffle packed with towel, swimsuit and sack lunch.
That duffle bag survived the day, but barely. Tossed, forgotten, squished in piles in the dirt and heat.
Its main job was to protect my favorite sandwich—the peanut butter and jelly slated for noon.
I loved my PB&J. Loved it.
I had one everyday for years. During school, at camp, even at home. Perfect.
It was the very definition of lunch.
Maintaining weight loss (aka preventing weight gain) is a whole lot easier when you have a solid lunch plan.
And my PB&J is the perfect example:
- Lunch was prepared and waiting.
- Always at the ready so I could eat it and move on.
- No thinking or waiting or wondering what to do for lunch.
- It was my favorite thing. I loved it.
- Happy to have it, looked forward to it, even.
- It satisfied my taste buds and my tummy until snack time in the later afternoon.
- My lunch served its purpose—get me through the next several hours.
That’s what I want for you now.
Have a lunch you love.
Always have everything you need to make it on hand.
Extra points if you prepare it ahead of time.
Planning and preparing make all the difference.
If lunch is a production then it’s too easy to put it off and get too hungry in the process.
Then you’ll grab anything that’s around, often not the best choice.
Or you’ll skip it altogether and be a cranky mess by dinner time at which point you eat much more than you normally would trying to fill the black hole of hunger justified with, “but I didn’t have lunch”.
It doesn’t end well for your waistline.
Set yourself up for success.
- Plan your lunch.
- Make it something you love.
- Have it with you wherever you end up at lunchtime.
- Let it serve you, fuel your activities for the day.
- Have your day be about moving forward on your goals rather than a dance around hunger and overeating.
Brown paper bag optional.
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