Meals on the Run or at Home Pt.2


Jul 30, 2020

 by Karina Wait
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“The Lunch Bunch”

For active people who should be on a continuous cycle of fueling
up for workouts and refueling afterward, lunch is the second most important meal of the day. Breakfast remains number one.

Lunch refuels morning or noontime exercisers, and fuels
those preparing for afternoon sessions. Given that active people tend to get
hungry every few hours (some sooner), if you eat breakfast at 7am, you are most likely ready for lunch between 11am and 12pm. However, if you eat too small of a breakfast (as commonly happens), you will be hungry by 10am and that throws off the rest of your eating schedule.

The solution to the “I cannot wait until noon to eat lunch” predicament
is a simple one. You can eat a larger breakfast, have a snack in between, or
you could have two smaller lunches, one at 10am and one at 2pm if your job will
allow for it.

For a nation of lunch skippers two lunches will probably
seem wonky, but why not? Ideally you should eat according to hunger, not by the clock. The feeling of hunger is your bodies call for more fuel. Eating
throughout the day helps keep me fueled for my workouts, and I get home ready
for dinner yet not starving.

In general, when you plan your intake for the day, you should try to divide your calories evenly. Given their tendency to become hungry every 4 hours, active people can eat 25% of their calories at each of the four, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snack. This can cover a sixteen-hour time span.
By experimenting with this concept of evenly sized and spaced meals, you will eradicate your afternoon sweet craving or after dinner snacking disasters. A hearty lunch or two before dinner will correlate with a high energy day. Food is fuel!

Despite the importance of lunch, logistics tend to be a hassle.
If you pack your own lunch, what do you pack? If you buy lunch, what is a
healthy bargain? If you are on a diet, what is best to eat?

In our next blog post, we will cover some helpful tips to
improve your lunches and snacks while on the go.

 Thomas Sampson CFL-3, USAW-2, Sports Nutritionist

International sports science association. Sports nutrition. 5th
edition. 2018 carpinteria CA

Nancy Clarks Sports Nutrition Guidebook. 4th edition. 2008
champaign IL

Kelly D. Brownwell LEARN Program for Weight Management, 10th
edition. 2004 Yale University