How to Pack Healthy Lunches for Work

When you're planning to pack healthy lunches for work, there are a few questions you have to answer first:

Schedule time to prepare food, including any slicing, chopping, mixing or cooking. After you get your food ready, divide it into serving-size containers for transport. These can include resealable plastic containers of different sizes, plastic sandwich and snack bags, and plastic, paper or foil wrappings. Then, on your way out the door each day, take a few seconds to grab some of these containers and pack the day's lunch to take with you.

Before planning what to pack, consider your options for transporting and preparing your lunch. This will make a big difference in what kind of lunch you put together. The following list breaks down these options and presents some transporting ideas for each:

Once you know how you can transport your lunch and what your options are for preparing it, you can choose what to eat. The next pages of this article will help you with this part of your plan.

One of the goals of eating healthy is to help lose weight. Shedding extra pounds during the workweek may be easy for some people and difficult for others. On the negative side, high-stress or fast-paced jobs may tempt you to grab a fast high-calorie lunch or snack to keep you going. On the positive side, jobs that keep you busy and stick to a tight schedule give you the opportunity to plan and control your meals. Either way, packing a healthy lunch can help you stick to your weight-loss plan while you're at work.

As we've already mentioned in this article, the key to packing a healthy lunch for work is planning. For weight-loss plans, this includes preparing recipes in advance so you can carefully select the ingredients and track the calories and fat. Plus, when you pack your serving-size containers, you can control the portion size to prevent overeating.

One expert in weight-loss eating on the go is Weight Watchers International. If you're following a Weight Watchers plan to lose weight, one of the most important things you need to do is track what you eat [source: WeightWatchers.com]. Planning, making and packing your lunches make it easier for you to track your food. If the only thing you eat during the workday is what you take with you, you can add that to your journal before work, instead of remembering to write it all down throughout the day.

You can lose weight by lowering or controlling your calorie intake and exercising to burn off the stored energy in your body. Even if you're cutting calories, though, make the most of the calories you consume by combining your weight loss goals with other healthy tips. Consider foods that are good for your heart health and that help you keep your energy up during the day.

Lunch should help you get the energy you need to make it through your afternoon. Jobs can be stressful and demand a lot from your mind and body. Be prepared for those demands by packing healthy foods that also help boost your energy for the rest of the workday.

While vitamins and minerals provide nutrition, they aren't a source of food energy. Look to carbohydrates, fats and proteins for the calories you need. Carbohydrates, including sugars, are good for quick energy. If you have protein with those carbs, you can slow the rate at which your body absorbs them. The best way to put these together is to combine small amounts of protein, complex carbohydrates and some healthy fats as part of your lunch [source: Zelman].

The following are some foods that are good for you and help energize you for the afternoon ahead:

If you think you'll need another energy boost during the day, combine these with a healthy mid-afternoon snack to pack with your lunch. The following are some energizing healthy snack ideas you can try:

Another energizing tip is to make sure you stay hydrated. Your body is about 60 percent water, and it needs that water for digestion and energy. Even the slightest dehydration can make you feel tired [source: Mayo Clinic]. Keep a water bottle or big cup with you at work to remind you to drink plenty of water throughout the day, and refill it as soon as it's empty.

If one of your health goals is to improve your heart, select heart-healthy foods when you pack your lunch. Heart disease is the number one cause of death in the United States [source: U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention]. As a result, you can find hundreds of well-researched articles on heart-healthy foods on the Web, and in books and magazines. You can find hundreds of heart-healthy recipes, too.

Like weight-loss lunches, heart-healthy lunches include less fat and usually, more fiber. Unlike weight-loss lunches, though, heart-healthy lunches also include ingredients that target improving your circulatory system. This includes whole grains and foods that are high in Omega-3 fatty acids, which help reduce the amount of plaque in your arteries from bad cholesterol.

If you're preparing food to pack for lunch, look for ways to adjust your recipes to cut back on bad cholesterol and saturated fats. You can also substitute ingredients for heart-healthy alternatives, such as whole grain pastas in pasta dishes. The following list includes some heart-healthy foods you might include in your lunch plans along with some lunch ideas to consider:

For more information on healthy eating, visit the links on the next page.