Thursday 11 June 2015

Eating healthy without a fridge or cooker - HELP!

A total brain puzzler

So, I’m on this ‘work thing’ overnight and from lunch time today until about 7pm tomorrow (Friday) I’ll be in a very remote location, limited WIFI and only a ‘snack shop’ for food. I’m one of the few people staying in a local hotel as the rest of my colleagues (approx. 100 men and about 10 women) will be sleeping on the floor and wherever they can find a space (Yes, it really is an ‘interesting’ company….). I’m such a light sleeper, the prospect of sleeping on the floor with people I don’t necessarily know very well, drunkenly talking, laughing and crying until early hours of the morning.

It also poses the question of food – what am I going to eat?

Well, for breakfast this morning was the obligatory porridge and as I’m trying not to waste as much food, I actually made myself a chicken fajita for lunch from the leftover bits I had last night after my friend left. I also have a pot of porridge for tomorrow and called into Marks and Spencers this morning to grab some grapes and strawberries and some packs of low fat crisps.

The one thing I’ve realised is: Most of the low fat food needs to be refrigerated or cooked before eating – Think about it, low fat sandwiches, yogurts, ready meals, vegetables – you can’t just leave them in your car overnight and expect them to be edible. Even my beloved houmous needs to be kept in a fridge (and I know that to be true after ‘Houmousgate’ a few weeks ago when it had been in a hot car for 2 hours and tasted pretty awful).

So what could I bring that's:

1. Healthy
2. Doesn't require a fridge to be kept in
3. Doesn't require cooking.
4. Fills me up

Honestly, I've been racking my brains for the last 2 days and haven't come up with a lot of things.

Unfortunately, I'm still rather stumped and I'm writing this at 23:30, having been on my feet for the last 6 hours, solid! After I got to the venue, I helped lift chairs into a van, drive the van, stick duct tape over errant cables for health and safety reasons and really got 'stuck in' to the event.... my usual dinner time came and went and by 8:00pm, I was feeling ravenous, not to mention, really thirsty as I'd got dehydrated doing all the lifting, moving and taping in the 25 degree heat.

All my colleagues were eating the food provided to them - nachos with chili and
cheese and I went to my car and ate a small handful of grapes, a bag of M&S 'Moroccan Spiced chick pea shells' and drank a whole litre of water. I think the whole lot came to about 130 calories which is dangerously low and not something I want to repeat. I managed to leave the venue at 22:50 and am now back in my hotel, utterly knackered.

If this was a regular event, I'd really need to plan better - On the one hand, I'm proud of myself as I didn't eat the unhealthy option, on the other hand, I'm kicking myself for not eating enough healthy stuff and worrying my body will go into starvation. I think I'm going to visit the local supermarket tomorrow (I found one quite close!) and buy a healthy and filling lunch tomorrow - maybe pasta salad? something that releases energy quite slowly but should fill me up. I'll also find something I can nibble on a few hours later as I don't think I'll be getting back home until after 21:00 and I don't want to make the same mistake again.

Knackered... Bed... Urgh.

But seriously, what can you eat that's healthy and doesn't need putting in the fridge or cooking?

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