Tuesday, April 6, 2010

Staying healthy on busy days

I eat a packed breakfast and lunch in my classroom, most often checking e-mail, grading or planning. Breakfast is easy - always a small banana and either a measured bowl of cerereal (Kashi Heart to Heart or Puffins) or a Banana Oatmeal Cup with Chocolate Chips that I read about on a great blog, http://stephaniecooks.blogspot.com/search/label/oatmeal. I bring fruit and Greek yogurt to have for snack with my class around 10:00.

I bring a salad for lunch, with a 2% Polly-O string cheese, 3 ounces of deli turkey, fruit and a sugarfree jello. I always eat the string cheese last. It's my favorite. If I'm thinking my afternoon will be rough, I save it for 3:00. It's the little things in life.

When the kiddies leave, I have a second snack. My nutritionist recommended snacking at 3 even if I don't feel all that hungry, so that I don't find myself starving at tutoring or a meeting and eating whatever unhealthy snacks are avaialable. This snack is generally fruit, and sometimes it's a 100 calorie pack of goldfish if I'm not going to eat until late. On rare occasions, it's both.

By the time I get home from school on one of my meeting or tutoring days and then work out, it is too late to start cooking most nights unless I'm well planned. When my husband or I can stop on the way home from work, we have fish with steamed or roasted veggies. On nights that we can't get it together for me to actually cook, my go-to meal is:

Morningstar Farms Garden Veggie Burger (110 calories)
1/4 avocado (80 calories)
Steamed Veggie (40 calories on average)
Salad (15 calories)
Homemade vinagrette with 1/2 teaspoon olive oil (40 calories)

That brings my dinner total to 285. I have a JELLO cup (10 calories) with a pot of green tea (0 calories) for dessert in the evening. It's a satisfying amount of food, it's tasty, and my husband is even eating the burgers (doused in hot sauce).

What do you eat on nights that you just can't take the time or don't have the ingredients to stay healthy?