Back when I first started my gym focused fitness journey, I was seriously confused on what to eat. I’m sure I still have quite a bit to learn, but my path is definitely more defined today than it was previously. I used to eat out most of my meals during the day and either drank sugary coffee drinks in the morning or drank beer at sports bars in evenings.
Let me be blunt, if you’re at that state…you will never be lean and fit until you change your intake.
But that’s not the point of this post. I wanted to share one of my common substitutes for the times that I do not prep my lunch the day before. Typically I eat high protein meals during my lunch, such as my HDF Meatloaf, which many fast food joints never provide. Well if they do, they also bring on heavy fat calories…which are probably bad fats.
HIT THE GROCERY STORE
Forget the fast food joint with rancid, oily french fries and greasy, fatty cheese burgers! Go to the grocery store and buy some items to make a sandwich. Buy some carrots. Don’t buy a bag of chips. Here is an example of what I’ll buy:
- 1 loaf of bread
- 1lb of lean turkey or ham lunch meat
- 1 package of sliced cheese
- 1 bundle of carrots
- 1 cucumber
- Peanuts or Almonds
I make a sandwich, eat about 3 large carrots and 1 cucumber. Which totals roughly 850 calories, of which is 97g carbs, 27g fat, and 59g protein! Excellent balance of macros for zero prep. Then to add to the cool factor it’ll cost you around $6 a day. Maybe go big and top it off with a nice flavored seltzer water.
850 CALORIES!
Yes, I know that packaged breads, cheeses and lunch meat have their downsides. If you do not mind the extra costs, go your meats and cheeses at Sprouts or Whole Foods. Just remember that nutrition facts will be harder to track if it’s not a labeled package. Or even better yet, prep your food at home instead. This wasn’t supposed to be a post about the best food options. This was about options other than fast food.
READ THE LABELS
Last quick note. Read the labels. As an example, if you buy the Land o Frost lunch meats like I do at Fry’s Groceries, then you’ll notice that the turkey lunch meat has twice as much fat as the Black Forest Ham. Who would’ve thought??