NUTRITION - Quick, healthy lunch ideas for on-the-go women!

(Subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, Spotify, iHeart or TuneIn)

Summary - 

One of the most common pain points for women when it comes to Nutrition is having to constantly think of healthy lunch ideas that are simple, quick and able to be prepared a day or two in advance. In this episode, I give you a few ideas to help make lunches a little less time consuming and a lot more enjoyable. 

Things I Mention - 

  • Why switching breakfast & lunch around might work really well for you

  • Which healthy convenience foods are my go-to for lunches 

  • What to do is meal prepping isn’t for you

  • Why you should consider cooking more serves for dinner each night

PLUS, I let you in on how to download a free cheat sheet that will help you create delicious, healthy and filling salads for lunch. 

Links & Helpful Resources - 

Make sure you hit SUBSCRIBE so you don’t miss out on any of my practical tips & tricks and if you enjoyed this episode, please leave me a rating and a review? Thanks! 

Before launching this podcast, I did some ground work to find out which areas in particular were a struggle for women when it comes to Fashion, Nutrition & Wellbeing. One really common pain point for being able maintain a healthy diet was having to constantly think of healthy lunch ideas that are simple, quick and in an ideal world, can be prepared a day or two in advance. So today, I’m going to give you a few ideas that have helped me stick with healthy eating during many different stages of my life because what worked for me when I was working in an office as a 20-something go-getter, no longer works as well as someone who now works from home as a Mum of 2. I hope just by sharing these ideas that they help make your lunches a little less time consuming and a lot more enjoyable - 

Idea #1 - Switch Breakfast & Lunch Around

Back when I worked in corporate, the thought of having a lunch break was just that - a nice thought because honestly, it never happened. More times than not, I’d end up eating lunch at my desk purely to squeeze a few extra minutes of work into the day. What I found though was that whilst the hours between 9am to 5pm were incredibly full, I could tweak my morning routine to create a little more time at breakfast. 

This is when I decided to switch my breakfast & lunch around so instead of having my usual smoothie for breakfast, I’d have it for lunch at work instead because a smoothie was a lot faster to prepare. I was fortunate that our office did have a fridge/ freezer combo which meant that I could just buy my smoothie ingredients and keep them at work however if this isn’t an option for you, I’d consider pre-preparing some individual sandwich bags with all of your smoothie ingredients and then I’d just pull out a frozen bag each morning and take that to work with some ice bricks to keep it frozen. Of course, you’ll also need a blender at work - initially, I just brought mine in from home but when head office noticed how many people were downing smoothies for lunch, they invested in one for us which was awesome. 

For me, switching things around and creating more time in the morning, meant that I could then make either a fresh salad or wrap for breakfast and still eat a wide range of fruit & veg during the day. So ask yourself - would it be easier to switch breakfast & lunch around?

Idea #2 - Choose Healthy Convenience Foods 

These days, there’s a stack of unhealthy convenience foods to choose from but there’s also a growing number of healthy convenience foods to choose from. The hard part is having to sort through all of the false & misleading claims to determine which ones are in fact healthy but I’m going to save you all that time & energy and just tell you which ones are my pick of the bunch. I’ll link all of the products that I mention here, in the show notes too so if you want more information on these, you know where to go to find it - 

Sirena Ready To Eat Meals - You’ll find these ready to eat meals in the tuna aisle of Coles or Woolworths. I’d recommend either the Kale & Quinoa with Tuna or the Brown Rice & Quinoa with Tuna - the ingredients list on these are fab. They’re a good grab & go option. Each meal is $4 so they’re quite cost effective and they are already portion controlled which is really useful. 

Birds Eye SteamFresh Plus Pearl Couscous - You’ll find this one in the freezer aisle alongside all the packets of frozen veg. Again the ingredients list is brilliant for such a convenient option. You can expect to pay around $5 for 2x freezer bags so 2x days worth of lunches and all you need to do, is heat the couscous in the microwave. From here and depending on how hungry you are, you can add an extra tin of tuna, a boiled egg or a can of the new Edgell Canned Chickpeas. If you haven’t seen these yet, they are a new product on the market. They are similiar to tuna in that they come in small convenient cans and you get 4x different chickpea flavours - such a good option if tuna isn’t your thing. 

Another convenient meal are seed crackers topped with avo & your choice of protein - again either tuna, boiled egg or the canned chickpeas. My favourite crackers are the Olina’s Gluten Free Pepita Seed Crackers. This is a great lunch if you don’t have a fridge available as you don’t need to keep anything chilled.

Idea #3 - Mini-Prep Sunday

My next idea is to mini-prep as opposed to meal prep, unless of course you like to spend most of your Sunday in the kitchen which I don’t. Mini-prepping is essentially just pre-preparing a few bits & pieces, rather than cook entire meals. Some things that I like to mini-prep are roast veggies, protein (usually chicken) and homemade beetroot hummus (I have the recipe for this on an IGTV). 

So to do this in quite a time savvy way, on a Sunday Night, I usually make either a roast chicken or rice paper rolls for dinner and this is purely a strategic move on my behalf. I do this because I can take advantage of a couple of things here - 

If we’re having a roast chicken, I’ll cook 2x roast chickens and sometimes triple the amount of roast veg which takes no extra time but means that I then have cooked chicken and veggies ready to add to a salad over the next few days. 

If we’re having rice paper rolls, I’ll poach double the amount of chicken which again takes no extra time but means that I then have some shredded poached chicken ready to grab & go. With poached chicken, I’ll usually add this to salad jars that can also be made whilst you’re washing & prepping the salad for your rice paper rolls that night. Talk about killing 2-3 birds with 1 stone! 

Idea #4 - Leftovers For Lunch

If you follow me on Instagram, you’ll know that this has been an absolute game-changer for me since becoming a Mum. As a family, we usually cook something different for dinner each night (it keeps the kids happy), so I like to reduce my time & energy spent in the kitchen by cooking an extra serve or two of dinner and eating leftovers for lunch most days. This is a really easy way for me to squeeze in the recommended 5 veg per day too. 

My husband Simon does this now as well. For a while there, he was buying lunch every single day during the week so we found that if we made enough dinner for say 6 people, we’d both have leftovers for lunch and whilst that seems like it would be quite expensive, it actually meant that we were spending a lot less because he wasn’t buying lunch from a cafe each day which adds up very quickly.

If an entire meal of leftovers isn’t an option, I also try and just use any leftover protein from the night before and I’ll turn that into a Macro Bowl, which brings me to my next idea ...

Idea #5 - Macro Bowls

If you’ve not heard of a Macro Bowl, I’m about to introduce you. They are my go-to when I don’t have any leftovers - they’re just a real can’t go wrong option. A Macro Bowl is essentially just a salad which includes the 3 required nutrients that we should be consuming at every meal - carbohydrates, protein & healthy fats. Macro Bowls are quick, easy and can be as gourmet or as simple as time allows. 

The only thing you need to think about is how you’re going to include each macronutrient so try to always include a complex carbohydrate, a source of protein and a small amount of healthy fats. 

Not to worry though if this all sounds very overwhelming, to help you master delicious, healthy Macro Bowls, I’ve created a free Macro Bowl Cheat Sheet which tells you how to create a healthy, balanced and filling salad for lunch. You can download this one now by visiting www.elishacasagrande.com.au/macro. Make sure you take a photo though and tag me so I can get inspired by your version. 

Elisha CasagrandeBrisbane Personal Trainer, Brisbane Health Coach, FEEL BE LOOK, Womens Confidence, Confidence, Healthy Lunches, Lunch Ideas, Healthy Lunch Ideas, Quick Lunches, IIN Health Coach