Lunch:

If you’re feeling hungry mid morning, eat some nuts or a piece of dark chocolate. Plain nuts are best. If you’re at work, lunch can be a challenge as we’re so used to eating sandwiches, but a lot of the chains are wising up to this and offering alternatives. M&S have a good selection of decent salads,  but avoid pasta, rice and noodle salads. I typically have:

–          Soup with a slice of buttered bread

–          Salad with cooked meat (e.g. from Pod, Chop’d)

–          My current favourite is the Mexican place, Poncho 8, which does a “skinny box” you can have without rice and is loaded with  beans, vegetables and spicy meats

–          If you do have a sandwich, turn it into an open sandwich, i.e. lose a slice. 

As I say, lunch is hard – I’m lucky that when I work from home (2-3 days a week) I’ll have some soup, when I’m in London, there are three good places (mentioned above) that have low carbs options.

Dinner:

Generally, I swap between lunch and dinner. What I mean is, if I eat some of the types of meal in the dinner list below for lunch, then I’ll have a light dinner, like soup. Dinner is generally easier to handle as you control what you eat and you can make your own food. This does generally mean cooking though, which can be hard at the end of a tiring day. So, things I have for dinner are generally a meat / fish and vegetable / salad combination:

–          Marinades are your friend! Buy fresh chicken, lamb, pork, beef, and put them in a marinade overnight, during the day; oil based, yoghurt based, doesn’t matter really, just to give your meat some flavour

–          Kebabs are also your friend! Not doners though, but how much more low carb can you get than a chicken shish, no pitta and all the salad?

–          Stews and curries (Indian or Thai) are also very good; avoid the pre-made stuff if you can as they add lots of sugar to it; I have one Indian take away / restaurant meal at least every couple of weeks. What about rice and naan I hear you say?? Well, either have it on a cheat day, or don’t order any. If I’m in a restaurant, I’ll order my favourite  curry, with a lentil / chick pea side dish, and a spinach dish too. No need for rice or bread.

–          And there is of course the magic ingredient all low carbers love – cauliflower! Yes, cauliflower. Use the grating attachment of a food processor to grate some cauliflower, add butter and oil to a wok, and stir fry it for 5-10 minutes, and voila’ you have a delicious and healthy side dish that has texture similar to rice. I actually prefer it.

–          Cauliflower is also a good substitute for mashed potatoes – boil up some cauliflower for 20-25 minutes, drain up, squeeze as much water out of it as you can, puree it, add cream, butter, cheese to give it flavour, and you have a delicious mashed potato substitute

–          Fish and shellfish are also really good too. The only thing to be a bit wary of is battered or breaded fish – again, I would leave traditional fish and chips to my cheat day.

–          In terms of what to eat meat / fish with, it’s basically any vegetable apart from potatoes.  So a typical dinner for me will be some type of grilled meat, with fine beans, broccoli and peas.

–          What about desert? I try to avoid desert during the week (apart from some fruit, berries are best) and indulge on a cheat day; you can see how important the cheat day is!

–          Chinese food as I’m mentioned previously is a bit of a no go in terms of restaurant / take away food, because it is really carby. Leave for your cheat day. But if you make Chinese food yourself, it’s not so bad because you can substitute rice for cauliflower.

I’m sure there are more things, and I’ll add to this list over time. One last thing, MacDonalds… we all end up in a situation where the main option for food is MacDonalds. I have to admit to enjoying the odd Macky Dees, but I tend to reserve for a cheat day. When I have little other option, I tend to either have Chicken Nuggets, or a Quarter Pounder with only one piece of bread, and if I must a small portion of fries. This is not good in terms of carbs, but I think it’s the least bad option (unless of course you go for a salad). Funnily enough the “deli sandwiches”, particularly the sweet chilli chicken are really high in carbs and should be avoided!