Lunch

I have packed my lunch and taken it to work for 15 years or more, starting way back to when I was driving truck for Goodwill. It’s funny how my lunch has transformed over the years. When I was younger I gave absoultely zero thought to what I shoved in my mouth. At Goodwill I would normally have a mid-morning snack of chocolate milk and tastycake blueberry pie, probably a 600-700 calorie snack. Then I would have my lunch on top of it. My lunch at that time had some variety with the sandwich portion of it, normally being some sort of lunch meat. The rest of the lunch included yogurt, milk and maybe a half a dozen double stuff oreos. Later the sandwich portion of the lunch became standardized as PBJ with TONS of jelly and very little peanut butter.

I started to clean up my lunch slowly over the years. I swapped out the half dozen double stuff’s for a half dozen of the low fat oreos. Then I cut down from 6 oreos to 4. That lunch configuration was standard for a long time. However in the last few years it mutated further. I cut the jelly out of the PBJ, realizing the jelly was nothing but empty calories, I loaded up on the PB (more protein). I went from big pieces of italian white bread to wheat bread, then to low carb wheat bread (smaller slices) The oreos were phased out and are now replaced by a zone bar with 16 grams of protein. The most recent change swapped out the yogurt for those cottage cheese/fruit combos that offer more protein and half the sugar of yogurt. The only thing that has remained constant in the lunch is about a pint of skim milk. Instead of chocolate milk and tastycakes, I have a cup of coffee in the morning and a protein shake in the afternoon. It was tough to give up the junk food staples that I enjoyed, however now I find I enjoy the healthier choices nearly as much.