Tuesday 5 February 2013

How to eat well in the hospital cafeteria

So there are days when I work that I did not bring my own healthy BFL worthy lunch.  On these days I am forced to buy some food from the hospital cafeteria.  I have found though, that on most days, you can mix and match what is provided to put together a healthy meal.  

For instance, today the choices were:
  1. Pizza
  2. Fiesta wraps (grilled chicken cubes, salad, tomato, Ranch dressing, rolled into a tortilla shell)
  3. Club sandwich (turkey and bacon and cheese)
  4. Sandwich bar
  5. Salad bar
You can see there are many options.  Keep in mind this is a meal, and you have to make it at least three hours by my rules without eating another meal or snack.  So, you need to eat enough to fill yourself.  You don't want to be bloated, but you want to fill yourself.  In other words, if you leave the cafeteria hungry, you failed.  

So, what are healthy BFL options:
  1. Pizza.  Sure.  Go for it.  One piece of pizza once in a while is just fine
  2. Fiesta wrap made your way:  I had the lady wrap chicken in the tortilla shell and that was it.  Hmm, it was sooo good.  
  3. Sandwich.  You can have a turkey, ham, or roast beef sandwich on any kind of bread.  I like the pretzel bread.  I know you're supposed to eat wheat bread, but I see no reason you can't treat yourself to what you love best.  Remember, this is the Rick for Life, not the 12 week BFL you're doing. 
  4. Salad bar: this is out only because there's nothing on this bar that will satiate your hunger and last you three hours.  Now, you can have a salad, but no bacon bits, no cheese, and you must have low fat dressing.  You can have salad, but you have to be very careful.  (actually, on the RFL you can have bacon and cheese.  Just be careful.  But I prefer to skip the salad.
See.  You can find plenty of options at the hospital cafeteria.  Other things I'd eat are: Lasagna, hamburger and bun, spaghetti (although I don't love it, it's filling), etc.  About the only thing I try to avoid is anything that looks like it has been fried, cooked in butter, or with nuts (like green beans cooked with nuts).  

However, its better to eat something not 100% healthy for you than to go hungry.  If you starve yourself and you get sick, or you crash, that's worse than eating one not perfect meal.  So use your head dunderhead.  

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