Packed lunch ideas and meal plan help

[Caloriecountskick]

Any packed lunch ideas for work for calorie counting please?

And any rough meal plans for a 1200- 1400 calories a day. I need to up my protein really too.

My plan is to aim for 1400 - 1500 but I have a dress fitting in 6 weeks and wondering if I cam shift about 10 lbs in that time?! I am currently sitting at around 12 stone - 12 stone 3 ish.

On my office days I have the following:

yoghurt coffee and fruit for breakfast

chicken + salad bagel with carrot sticks/fruit/babybel for lunch

protein shake for snack

omelette for tea - I do 4 eggs, 100g egg whites, ham cheese and veg. Absolutely huge but loads of protein, filling and not too bad calorie wise.

this should be doable within your calories?

once you find something that works for you, repeat it. It takes a lot of the drudgery out of things not having to plan so much.

Thank you, that's really helpful 😊 it's good to see ideas of how to add in extra protein. Would you say the egg whites are worth buying ? We eat tea as a family and my partner would not be happy with omelette for dinner but I could maybe do some omelettes on my home days for lunch for extra protein.

It’s hard when trying to do family meals too sometimes, I get that. I think it’s well worth buying a carton of egg whites. It adds so much protein for barely any calories and it makes the meal more substantial. Another decent filling meal would be x3 scrambled eggs with egg whites, and chicken chipolatas. There’s so much less calories than pork, and have more protein.

An alternative evening meal could be something like grilled fish/tuna/chicken with rice and loads of veg? Things like that can be easier to accommodate kids and partners tastes as well, whilst still making sure that you’re reaching your goals.

So basically, I think as long as you’re planning your whole day of meals, you can flex what you bring for lunch to fit it in. But I think it is easiest to work out what’s right for you if you’re looking at the day as a whole rather than just one meal.

On work days I have two boiled eggs for breakfast. Lunch is always the same, I cook a large gammon and weigh out 140g, with 30g Eat Lean grated cheese, half a bag of mixed salad, cherry toms, cucumber and then a sauce made of 100g fat free greek yogurt, 30g Hellman's Lighter Than Light mayo (I loathe the stuff but it adds some flavour), half a teaspoon of Dijon or wholegrain mustard, and sometimes a pinch of garlic powder. If I need a snack to keep me going until dinner I have a Babybel. Then dinner is a Pinch of Nom recipe. I tend to cook for four, I have a quarter, then teen DS and DH split the rest and they usually have pudding too.

I have variations of this:
1 cal spray. Fry 500g low fat beef mince/chicken/pork or turkey mince. Onion. Chopped pepper or mushroom depending on what needs using. Tinned chopped tomatoes. Packet of fajita or taco spices or add my own. Split into 3. Freezes well.

it’s under 250 calories and 30ish G protein.

Sometimes I add a tin of mixed beans.