This is an organizing, eating healthy and budgeting post all in one. Your lucky day!

Remember how I talked about how crappy our eating habits got? It was because both of us were suffering from long commutes so cooking was not something we thought of when we got home. Not only did we eat crap, but we spent a lot of money eating crap. A recent survey from Career Builder shows that current office lifestyles are adding pounds to our waistlines. But we found a great solution for a win-win-win situation.

Planning ahead
Each week we plan our food schedule – breakfast, snacks, lunch and dinner. We do grocery shopping on Saturday and cook everything on Sunday. I bought a bunch of those great Lock and Lock Tupperware (anything else just leaks everywhere) and on Monday we have a week’s worth of food to bring to the office.

We plan it so that there is enough variety that we don’t get bored of eating the same things all the time, but not too much so we’re not cooking a million things at once. We also leave room for two times out – Friday lunches and Tuesdays at the pub with our friends. Some of the meals are the same every day, such as breakfast, but that’s because it’s a juice smoothie that we both really enjoy, keeps us full, and gives us tons of energy for the morning.

Example of a weekly menu:

Breakfast: Liquid O2 Elixir with Greens+

Morning snack: Probiotic yogurt for me, Balkan style yogurt for James, and Tamari almonds OR a fruit.

Lunch: Red lentil coconut soup, quinoa salad

Afternoon snack: Yogurt OR latte, with almonds OR fruit

After workout snack: Glass of chocolate soy milk

Dinner: Roasted red pepper and spinach soup, veggie salad

Where’s the beef?
James and I have been enjoying a largely vegetarian diet for the past 4 months. We usually only eat meat if we’re at a BBQ or when we go out. Of all of our meals, probably 2-3 a week contain meat. But as you can see, there is no shortage of protein.

You may also notice that there are a lot of soups – we love soup. Now, keep in mind none of these are canned or store bought. Even the stock used in the soups is homemade. It’s the only way you can control the amount of sodium and chemicals going into your body.

Challenges
I’ve only found two challenges to this style of eating.

1. The annoyance of carrying so much food with me when I commute. Jamie has to drive, so lugging stuff around is a little easier on him. I, on the other hand, take a train and then walk 15 min to work – the load of a week’s worth of food on Monday can be daunting. I have found myself splitting up days of the week to make it a bit easier.
2. Portion sizes: When you share the food you automatically just split things in half. I had to consciously remind myself that I don’t need that much food.

If you are interested in any of the recipes, just let me know and I’ll post them. Until then, happy eating!

At my old work, my friend Jen was (still is) a crazy health nut. Well, not crazy as in “Don’t mind if I do!!” but crazy as in “Wow, she really knows her shit.” She was also an awesome cook and baker. We called her Martha Stewart every time she brought something healthy (and uber tasty) in to the office.

At my new place of employment my habits started to slip. It was easy to join in to the occasional Harvey’s run. And popcorn and pop snack. Or sometimes not eat altogether.

Then Jamie got hired and Jamie likes to cook. He also is a big advocate of unprocessed foods. He encourages me to eat better and doesn’t even know it. I’ve been cooking a lot more often again. Tonight’s meal was Vegetarian Bean Curry and it especially made me think of Jamie and his food. I was thinking of bringing some into work to share with him because it is so tasty.

From time to time Jamie will share a tasty recipe and bring some delish grub into work.

Sometimes, however, he makes some delish grub and just blogs about it and doesn’t even bring some into work. What a jerk. Even when I made a comment about it…he still forgot.

So, I had to bribe him. I told him I’d do a review on his tasty grub if he’d bring some in. He complied (thank god).

Anyway, the review was on Mexican Scalloped Potatoes:

They were really, really, really tasty and I would eat them again.

Happy now, Jamie? Good.