Should you make your own lunch?

Should you make your own lunch?

Episode 44 | 10/17/19 | #Transformation Thursday

There are a few things to consider with making your own lunch. Cost, time, ease, and calories are a few of the top considerations. Let's discuss.

Cost

If you are comparing buying out for lunch versus making your lunch daily, you are probably going to be looking at a difference of $5-15 per day more when buying out. Consider 5 days a week, to $25-75 per week. Then about 4 weeks per month, to $100-300 per month. That could be an important difference for some people. Now consider also spending money on some sort of coffee drink and maybe some snacks. That probably adds another $5-15 per day, again adding another $100-300 per month. This totals about $200-600 per month.

Everyone has to measure this financial cost with the what they are getting from buying out for lunch, coffee, and snacks. Perhaps if these things are very enjoyable to you, then the cost may be worth it. Usually you won't think about the cost, though, because it comes in small amounts (which then adds up over time).

Time

Making your own lunch (and perhaps also preparing your own coffee and snacks) takes some time. Now how much time does that compare to walking/driving to the restaurant and/or coffee shop, and then the time waiting for the meal to be prepared.

If you take the time to make your own lunch the night before, you can combine making dinner with your lunch at the same time. I personally like to make extra dinner, then shovel whatever fits into a container to eat for lunch tomorrow. Then clean up time combines both dinner for that night and lunch for tomorrow. That way the time in the next day is just grabbing it from the fridge, then eating it at lunch time.

Regarding time for coffee, it doesn't take a whole lot of time with traditional coffee pots or the single cup brewers as while those are heating up in the morning, you could be doing other tasks like making breakfast, reading, or preparing whatever else you need for work.

Snacks could also be prepared at the time you are making your lunch before. Something to consider for both lunch and snacks is portability (like a sandwich, apples, carrots, celery), so that during lunch you could have the option to go for a walk.

Ease

Obviously going out to eat, buying coffee, or snacks is easier than making them for yourself. With some of the strategies above, you could improve the ease of the tasks. Now, there is something to taking time to enjoy the process of making things for yourself. A sort of pride and joy with it, but I think you need to instill this yourself rather than just expecting it to be.

Calories

This is where making your own lunch (and coffee and snacks) could come out big. You have control over what you are making and consuming so you will most likely be able to keep the calories more contained. Of course, if you are meticulous you can be more wary of what you are consuming at restaurants/coffee shops, but the trend tends to be more calories at those other places.

Of particular note, the sugary coffee drinks have a ton of calories, but are not really that filling. Combine that with some sort of sugary pastry and you might be reaching half or more of your daily calories before you have even reached lunch.

My advice would be to give yourself a "gift card" to go out to lunch once a week and/or buy a coffee once a week. This way it feels more special when you do it, you still get to enjoy treating yourself, but you are controlling the intake much more often. Remember, consistency is the key here.

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-Nick Marki, PT