Bag Tour! What's in Your (Lunch) Bag?

Bag tour videos are all the rage! Here at Grown Guidance, our favorite bag is the one we eat out of throughout the day; otherwise known as our lunch bag.

Imagine no delivery fees, no mid-afternoon sugar crashes, and no extra spending on food during the work week. This could be your reality! If we were to give you a tour of our lunch bags, you would see how we do it! It all starts with a plan.

Here is our simple approach to meal planning: 

First, we keep a shared note titled “Meal Plan” that we update each weekend. The iPhone Notes app/Google Keep works perfectly solo OR to collaborate with a partner; alternatively you can always write out a meal plan in a notebook. Keep it simple. We typically update our plan for the week on Saturday or Sunday morning, depending on when we will have time to grocery shop. 

Our note includes any important events for each day of the upcoming week. Under the event, we list what we will make for dinner (marked with D:) each night. Here is our extremely simple template- this is what we really use:

We recommend setting up a single note, and then just updating the note each weekend. By looking at our calendar for the week ahead, and planning meals around our schedule, we reduce barriers and are more apt to stick with our plan. Time in the evening is a critical factor, and looking at our week ahead makes it easier to determine if we should make a crockpot meal (great option for work from home days), a more complex meal (if we are home from work at a decent time), or if we will need to make an extremely simple meal (if we are working late or have an after-work event to attend). We keep a repository of some favorites in each category! 

Sunday dinner is typically when we make a meal that is a little more involved, maybe a recipe that we have seen on the internet or from a cookbook we have been wanting to try. For the rest of the week we try to keep it as simple as possible while also satisfying. Here’s a major key: We always make enough dinner to pack ourselves lunch for the next day. That is the lunch that will go in our bag. As we plate our dinner we prepare our lunches for the next day at the same time, and put them in the fridge before we sit down to eat.  

Breakfast planning for the week ahead also takes place over the weekend. 

Eating the same lunch five days a week can get tiring, but we don’t find we have the same fatigue around breakfast. It is so convenient to have a pre-made protein packed breakfast every morning so there is no way to start the day off on the wrong foot. We alternate between a few options in a steady rotation, including roasted potatoes with chicken sausage and hard boiled eggs or an avocado, buffalo chicken egg bites, or a breakfast casserole. If our weekend is too busy to prepare breakfast in bulk, we typically prep unflavored/unsweetened oatmeal for the week using almond milk and pumpkin pie spice topped with 2 TBSP of wheat germ and fruit like blueberries. Pecans are a great oatmeal topping as well. If we know we are having oatmeal for the week, we are mindful to add an additional protein snack and/or make a protein shake to help supplement (especially on mornings we workout). It is always better to pack more food than you may need, than to be stuck hungry and forced into making a food choice that does not align with your goals. 

We often get asked what's on our grocery list. Here are some staples that are always on our list or in our pantry in good supply:

• Bananas, 

• Nutpods coffee creamer, 

• Seltzer water, 

• Meat sticks (Chomps, The New Primal, EPIC bars), 

• Tuna packets (Bumble Bee), 

• Unsweetened almond milk, 

• Larabars/RX Bars, 

• Raw nuts to make trail mix, 

• Unsweetened almond butter, 

• Quinoa, 

• Low Sodium Chicken broth, 

• Eggs, 

• Healthy soup for when we're in a pinch (usually Pacific Foods), 

• Oils such as coconut oil, avocado oil, & olive oil, 

• Original unflavored/unsweetened oatmeal, 

• and spices (salt, pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, paprika, chili powder, oregano, thyme, rosemary, pumpkin pie spice). 

Investing in a lunchbox/lunch(bag) that works for you will make it easier to bring snacks and food from home so you are set up to make better decisions throughout your workday. We would recommend a lunchbox that is roomy and has pockets (interior or exterior).

If we were to give you a tour of our lunch bags, you would always find a Larabar, a meat stick (either Chomps, The New Primal, or an EPIC bar), and a small bag of homemade trail mix. That’s because these items stay in our lunchbox no matter what, and if we tap into them during the day we replenish them in the evening. In addition to these shelf-stable staples, you would also find the lunch that we prepared while making dinner the night before, as well as the breakfast that we prepped on Sunday. In addition you would also find perishable snacks for the day like a banana, clementines, a single serve plain Greek yogurt, or a snack bag of baby carrots/sliced bell peppers with an individual guacamole or hummus cup. We pack enough to feel confident that we will be satisfied; sometimes all of the perishables get eaten and sometimes they go back into the fridge at night, ready for the next day. Again, we would rather have more food options to tap into than not enough. 

Staying consistent is the key here; making an effort every single weekend to set yourself up for success for the week ahead. Once you make the time for yourself, you will be so proud of what you can accomplish. Nourishing your body should not be optional; spending your time planning and preparing your meals will help keep you healthy, fueled, proud, consistent, and disciplined. You will find that having a plan makes it so much easier to say no to things that are not in line with your overall health goals. 

What are you going to put in your bag?