GEORGIE - food ideas for the week ahead

This evening I was planning and packing lunches for this week at work. I am terrible when I am office based, and literally count the hours and minutes between my next fuel stop. There's something about sitting still that makes me starving and for some reason my need to think about food gets much worse. The little pig gene in me rears it's ugly head quite rapidly and quite often it wins - either because I will see a candy/chocolate bar and scoff it or because I get myself into such a piggy state that when I go out for a salad I come back with Pizza. You know how it goes.

So, preparation is the key, I have learnt over the last few years to always have a good range of healthy eats and drinks ready to go that I can get stuck into and avoid a pig gene binge. Here's a few...

Make Hummus. Zar will be posting a delicious recipe for this in a few days on this blog so stock up on chick peas and Tahini for that. Hummus is healthy, low fat, filling and is yummy eaten with fresh celery, carrot or cucumber sticks. You alternate making Hummus with making smoked mackerel, lentil, salmon or chicken liver pate if you are easily bored. Don't make your own hummus then scoff it with a massive pack of corn chips or crisps. That totally defeats the object.

Walnuts or Almonds. Tragically I have to count these into portions before I leave for work because you would not believe how easy it is to overdo them. Nutrition experts recommend between 10 and 20 almonds in a single snack (that's not that many when you actually portion them out). To help with my sweet tooth, I put a few raisins in with them.

Ryvita - helps with the carbohydrate craving...I always have a tub of low fat cottage cheese handy to accompany them - a Ryvita slice and a level desert spoon of CC is about 100 calories which is not bad!

While we are on the subject of cheese, if that's your weakness then look out for string low fat mozzarella cheese at the supermarket. They come in individually wrapped portions about the size of a human finger and are a good source of protein. You can eat them string by string too which means they last a while and aren't down the hatch in 2 seconds flat.

If you must eat chocolate - then never take a big bar into the office. Either portion it or buy mini snack packs that measure out 100 calorie portions. Dark chocolate is a goody here - it contains antioxidants for good heart health as it helps lower blood pressure and can help reduce your LDL cholesterol. The thing to stress is that a SMALL portion of dark chocolate a day can have health benefits. This is not an invitation to scoff a whole bar of Green and Blacks!

Yoghurt is another good way to satisfy a sweet tooth - brands like Dannon's Lite and Fit (60 calories), or Muller lite (106 calories) are a good way to get your calcium and if you have a particularly sweet tooth then try a Muller light rice pudding. Yummy! Natural yoghurt is also yummy with a teaspoon of honey but be careful of Greek yoghurt as it is really quite calorific!

Finally - liquids can help! I tend to try and drink at least 2 litres of water in a work day - getting up to go to the loo all the time is a good way to break the tedium of sitting a lot but otherwise diet drinks and low sugar squash in moderation can work. In desperation I will sometimes resort to black coffee. That gives me an extra hour until I can get my head in the trough again.

I realise you all think that all I do is think about food and eat, and you would be right. But if I am eating the right kind of food then it's no disaster.

Hope this inspires you all to pack your food for the day and cart it into the office - and hope this gives you a few ideas! Have a great week!!