New job - already fed up with unhealthy ‘working lunches‘

Just bring in a packed salad/lunch of your choice and say you are restricting your diet to deal with allergies/carbs/transfats or whatever.

Or find out who organises the lunch and get them to order you something you fancy eating.

It won’t seem weird.

I'm a bit surprised by some of the mean comments.

Anyway, clearly it's a choice between eating junk food or cold food. You choose.

I agree that (when I'm concerned about what I'm eating, which isn't at the moment) I prefer to choose when to eat unhealthily. I want to make an evening of it, family pizzas or something.

You don’t need to dictate anything. Just have a late or early lunch of your choosing. It won’t kill you to not eat between 11 and 3 one day per month. Being in a management position on six figure salary I’m sure you don’t have set lunch hours and outside those need to be chained to your desk….

I think if you’re dedicated to your lifestyle and hitting your macros etc. you’d organise one cold lunch a month. I wouldn’t even think twice about this. You just need to be disciplined, and have a hot dinner when you get home.

Seriously? It's once a month.

Bring a meal that you can eat during the meeting without much prep and stop being so fussy. I exercise and try to eat well, but you have a borderline eating disorder if you cannot manage to deviate from your plan for one meal a month.

I, like you, do not eat the standard fare on offer at these catered lunches so I have the following options

1. Take my own - cold or heated in food flask
2. ask the person who organises the lunch to order me something of my choosing to suit my dietary needs
3. order my own lunch in to suit my dietary needs

You could also say you are taking some time to access the usual microwave to heat your own… I very much doubt that anyone would object…..just don’t make a big deal of it

Try working in a school. You get to have a working lunch every day, never get a thing for free and have to buy your own resources.

It’s just as well your six figure salary job doesn’t include solving lunch problems. Perhaps that particular conundrum is above your pay rate?

What about a soup flask?

So plan something portable that you can eat that day?

I work with loads of women who wouldn’t touch this type of food.

We only very occasionally have a shared lunch and plenty of people do not eat any of the provided food. Just eat something cold. It’s not going to kill you.

You don’t have to eat junk food but you can’t always have exactly the lunch you want. If you struggle to deal with that then maybe start considering if you have an eating disorder.

Cancel the cheque!

So heat it up and put it in a thermos flask?

its once a month!

I did miss it actually. But thanks for pointing that out.

Are you always quite rigid/controlling around food? It's not going to undo your entire eating to eat one slice of pizza once a month?

And you might prefer not to have cold lunch but maybe once a month you just will have to? We don't always get one we want, you can't really be so rigid about this when there are plenty of options that will solve the issue. If eating your lunch cold one day per month is such a big issue do you perhaps have deeper issues around food?

Alice is still managing to post, must be so slim she is squeezing in under the MNHQ front door! Any more of the sausage rolls left, I seem to be trapped in a macro deficit day.

Thanks MNHQ for the added humour too.

😂

<bangs head>

You’re right, you’re too new to ask them to change what they order (if they all enjoy it) and it wouldn’t be appropriate to eat into the meeting time to sort your own.
when no one knows you such a rigid diet could come across as weird.

So either take something that works with the time you have and suck up once a month cold lunch or eat what everyone else has and accept once a month unhealthy lunch, or skip lunch. I’d probably skip lunch and take healthy snacks to stave off hunger.

All you people answering still as if the OP was genuine. I'm sure you're coming from a thoughtful place but could you at least read the MNHQ post. It's up there. In blue. You can't really miss it if you try very hard.

Seriously. A sausage roll once a month.

@AliceSeal - I’m not sure what the big deal really is. You eat healthy and rather use your cheat meal at the weekend - that I get I am the same as you. But if this is once a month situation you can get a wrap there are some good options with only 60 calories per wrap that I have used before (top of my head I want to say M&S but not sure) pop some avocado chicken, egg , sweetcorn (as an example) if you meal prep at the weekend and keep it in the fridge just warm it up before 11 so it’s not cold cold when it comes to lunch time. You can also make a salad for example with chickpeas, beans, sweetcorn some feta, or some salmon for example. Again warm up before lunch. It’s not everyday and you can stick to your plan which seems important to you.

I’d raise it with the organiser. It’s respectful to serve good healthy food. Crap food will leave everyone on a carb crash in the afternoon and feeling shit.

I used to put hugs and kisses XOXOXOXO they all knew it was me!