What are some of your go-to snacks & lunches/easy dinners?

I'm pretty good about eating well for breakfast and for dinner I practice portion control more than calorie counting. But I need some easy and tasty lunch options (currently, I tend to do a lot of canned soup which is getting old real fast) and some snacks. I have a crazy sweet tooth that is constantly getting me in trouble with my diet. And I have two toddlers, so quick meals/snacks are a must.

I love food. Every night for dessert I have skinny cow candy bar. (usually peanut butter).

For dinner I love Turkey burgers with whole wheat buns and baked beans.
Skinnytaste enchiladas (with chicken), We eat fish 3x a week, one of those nights it's usually crab cakes. Always with a veggie or two. I love broccoli steamers (with cheese), I love spinach with Salmon.

Turkey meat tacos are always yummy, usually only eating one carb reduced ww tortilla and then eating another taco without the tortilla.

For lunches, I know people say you shouldn't do it but I eat about 3 lean cuisines a week. I also eat a lot of lunch meat, simple stuff...peanut butter (organic) on light wheat bread. Leftover turkey burger. Egg salad, tuna salad.

Snacks, apples, oranges, green beans (i love green beans), almonds, bananas (my go to at my desk!).

My meals never take more than 20 minutes to make. I try to make it as simple as possible and as yummy as possible. I never skimp on seasonings. If I did, I have a feeling I'd be eating out a lot more.

I am like you in that I need a quick and easy lunch and want something sweet. I'm a teacher so most of the time I have maybe 20 minutes total to get food into my body... here's what I do...

1. Sandwich on wheat bread- grab a skillet or the George Foreman, spray on some spray butter, and heat it through- this makes it feel more like a meal than a sandwich. I even do this with hoagie rolls (on the Foreman) and smoosh it down.

2. Salad shreds (like you put on a taco) with fat free shredded cheese, pre-cooked chicken/ham/turkey, shredded (from a bag) carrots, and yogurt ranch dressing (so yummy).

3. Buy fruit and make a fruit salad then eat that with some yogurt with a little granola mixed in.

4. I ALWAYS have a 100 calorie sweet snack either right after I eat or during my next little break. There are 100 cal rice krispy treats, cookies, etc. that go on sale at the store fairly often. I personally buy the big boxes at Sams club. I keep them in my desk and chug water while I'm snacking on them.

Also, I just bought this book called Hungry Girl 200 under 200 from Target. It's got tons of pretty quick and easy recipes. I made one for dinner tonight and it was pretty yummy.

OH! I forgot one of my favorite lunch time meals... English muffin pizza! Heat the oven to 350. They make 100 calorie light english muffins and pizza sauce doesn't have many calories. I get the fat free/low fat cheese and mini turkey pepperoni. MMM. So good! You just stick in the oven a few minutes and a nice warm lunch.

Here are some of my ideas. I get a little creative in the kitchen...sometimes it turns out better than others

1. Various tuna concoctions: add pretty much anything you like to tuna- my favorites are veggies, black beans, boiled egg, spices, herbs, onion, garlic- whatever's laying around. I either dress it with like 1/3 c. greek yogurt or 1 tbsp of olive oil and some lemon juice. If I want to get real crazy, I'll heat it up or throw in some avocado. I make sure to measure everything so I can figure out how many calories I'm eating. Sometimes I put it on whole wheat toast or on top of a salad.
2. Rice and beans: 1/2 c. brown rice, 1/2 c. black beans, fresh pico de gallo- microwave for 1 or 2 minutes. So good! I buy pre-cooked microwaveable organic brown rice from Trader Joes which takes like 3 minutes to heat up a whole pouch.
3. Quick stir fry: I eat this a LOT because it's so easy to throw together when I come home from the gym. I steam some frozen veggies while I cook some kind of protein (chicken, tofu, I've even used ground turkey). Then I add any fresh veggies to cook for a few minutes, throw in the steamed ones, put on a little soy sauce (light sodium) and call it a night!

I also tend to eat eggwhites in a lot of things because they add protein. I've been known to eat eggwhite scrambles for dinner for an entire week .

Other snack ideas: cottage cheese; NF greek yogurt with like 2 tbsp of ricotta, sweeten with steevia and add berries; turkey jerkey; fresh fruit/veggies; string cheese; whey protein shake; the occasional protien bar (I like Green's Chocolate Peanutbutter).

I really make the effort to avoid processed foods as much as possible. I'm not a great cook and don't have tons of spare time, but with a little planning and creativity I make it happen. It's not always pretty, but that's OK .

Since it's summer, I eat a lot of sandwiches. I also eat quite a bit of Indian food, though it's homemade so I can count the calories.

Other than that, I generally eat what I used to eat, but just find ways to make it healthy. For example, chicken alfredo with fat-trimmed chicken breast, light alfredo sauce, and whole wheat pasta is on the menu for dinner tomorrow. Fajitas with light pork were the other night.

if you're ok with cookie mixes, instead of the stick of butter they ask to put in, i like halving it and adding an extra egg white instead.

whole wheat pasta with tomato sauce and fat-trimmed chicken is yummy too . and like tuende, i like sauteing food because you can throw whatever you want in the pot. one of my favorites is broccoli-- break the broccoli into small edible chunks, heat up a pan with oil, throw in a clove or two of garlic. when garlic browns, toss in the broccoli and sautee for about 5 minutes on med-high heat. season it with oyster sauce =).

I have been making a lot of spinach omelets. Also like someone mentioned, tuna for lunch. I will get one of those bigger cans of tuna in olive oil, drain any excess olive oil, add anything i have on hand (usually a boiled egg, cellary, carrots, a little fresh mozzarella etc). One of the larger cans will last me about three meals. Until i found out the whole wheat wraps I was buying were 200 calories each I used t use one of those. Now I buy low fat arnold ww bread (80 cal for 2 slices) and make a sandwich out of it. I also generally try to cook/prepare 2-3 things on sunday that will last the week, as I dont have time on weeknights to do it.

I'm a vegetarian, but I do eat fish. Most of my meals are without that though.

Few of my go-to's from these past few weeks (I always have this period of time where I eat the same stuff for a while till I get bored, haha)

Breakfast/lunch/snack (I eat small stuff through out the day mostly):

• Greek Yoghurt with half a piece of fruit (apple, banana, plum) and a teaspoon of honey
• Cottage cheese with sweet tomatoes and some pepper
• Lowcal high fibre cracker with peanutbutter
• Seaweedsalad
• Some sunflowerseeds
• A shake from fromage blanc, fruit, whey powder, cocao powder
• Half a can of tuna with a teaspoon of mayonaise, curry powder and a few pieces of apple on a cracker (or two)

Dinner (could also be a warm lunch!)

• Whole wheat udon noodles (really just like 10 strands.. lol) stirfried with:
  -Surimi, cucumber, spinach, some soysauce, lemon and dill
  -Brocolli, okra, tomatoes, sambal
• Stirfry onions and garlic, add a can of tomatopieces+juice, some cayenne pepper, pieces of sweet patato and a few lentils - cook/simmer for 20 mins
  (I make a concoction such as that quite often and change it up with carrots, greenbeans, cauliflower, quinoa, add a bit of rice or normal patato)
• Mashed patato (just from a package, use atleast half or less than a portion) mix up with some (preboiled) veggies, top with cheese and in the oven for 20/30mins

Added stuff:

• Nuts and seeds go into shakes/dinner whenever it suits with what I am cooking
• Eggs when I can

Basically, I just use nice spices, and veggies I like and make up something as I go. I try and eat as few carbs as possible for dinner because I already eat my carbs with fruit/bread/crackers through the day. I eat from a bowl, and it's always filled up to the top. It feels like big dinners, but I can imagine it's not so much for most people. I do fine on it. I eat around 1300calories a day.