WIAW #29: First Week at Work

I’m sharing my WIAW eats from my first Wednesday at work last week. It was a big change for me to be eating most, if not all, of my food for the day outside my house, or at least somebody’s house, because even during all my travels this summer I was usually staying with friends (and their kitchens) and was only in hotels for a few nights. If I learned anything, it’s that I need to start taking meal prepping seriously, and devote several hours on Sundays to ensuring that I’ve got my breakfasts, lunches, and even dinners – not to mention snacks – set up for the week ahead. Anyway, on to the food!

 

Before I left my apartment, I had a mug of warm lemon water and a small bowl of honeydew. My pre-breakfast, if you will.

 

 

 

Breakfast once at work the first week was usually some variation on a Greek yogurt with a topping and fruit. Wednesday morning, it was a cherry Greek yogurt with a 1 ounce package of peanuts and a Gala apple. My law firm actually has a lounge where you can get breakfast in the morning and pick up snacks all day. Most of the breakfast food is pastry and muffin and bagel type stuff, and many snacks are chips, cookies, and such – but there’s also a fruit bowl, a bucket of yogurt in the mornings, and single serving packages of nuts as well as one rotating gluten-free-friendly snack, so I try to pick up several of each whenever I’m in there. So that morning, I got my entire breakfast from the lounge 🙂 

 

 

 

 

That breakfast left me with a sweet tooth, so around 11am I had a peanut butter Snickers square with some iced tea. Usually, other than decaf coffee and some Sparkling Ice drinks (which I am trying to cut down on) I stick to water. This sweets thing is one reason why I think needing to try elimination is a good idea, because I eat way too much sugar. As I keep telling my new colleagues, allergy-friendly doesn’t necessarily mean healthy all the time! But trying to cut that the first week of work, when there’s candy all around, and I actually had a hard time finding snacks I could have the first few days…well, a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do 🙂

 

 

 

 

Lunch was a salad brought from home, with romaine, carrots, cabbage, turkey, goat cheese, two hard boiled eggs, and honey dijon dressing. I also had some baby carrots, and another apple.

 

 

 

Afternoon snack happened around 3pm – a bag of dried roasted edamame that I grabbed in the lounge that morning!

 

 

And then, I ended up eating the dinner I packed because I planned to go to a work party, and I knew I’d be there well past my usual dinnertime and that there wouldn’t be much food I could eat. I made a frittata Tuesday evening after work, and brought a big slice along with some cucumbers for a side. The frittata itself was packed with veggies and chicken sausage. I had this just before 6pm.

 

 

 

All I ended up having the rest of the night was a handful of peanut M&Ms right before I left the office – there was actually NO food at the party I could have, and since I was super tired and came home at 9pm, I practically fell straight into bed after a quick shower. Anyway, as you can see, I’ve added a little bit of dairy back into my days, as well as some rice. I had been totally grain and dairy free for about two weeks, and it was tough but doable at home – but too much for the first week of work. However, you know what else was too much? The amount I ate on Monday, when I didn’t bring enough food with me and ate three Greek yogurts. My stomach was doing somersaults all day and I felt terrible. From now on, I’m going to limit the dairy and grains very closely as advised by my doctor and try to eat mostly Paleo-style. Like I said, a lot of time is going to go into meal prepping, but my health is worth it!

 

 

 

 

 

 

How have you adjusted your eating habits to fit your work schedule?

 

Do you meal prep on weekends for the week ahead?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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