Lunch on the run

I have chosen this picture to show how it's been in my office for the past few days.  If I haven't been sifting through huge piles of papers, I have been yelling down the telephone at people on behalf of a client.

It's been early starts and late finishes and LOTS of stress.  Add to that the absence of my lovely secretary on holiday, it was chaos this week.

Hardly the best of circumstances to stay on a diet - or so I thought.

Everyone at the Atkins Diet Bulletin Board stresses the importance of planning ahead.  So I did.

I made sure that there were always enough eggs and bacon for breakfast and made sure that evening meals were in the fridge ready to be cooked when I got in.  Lunch is more problematic for most, I know - but I am lucky in having a mini supermarket a few hundred metres down the road from my office.  Now I know what once my backside is in my chair, it is rare for me to move very far until it's going home time.  So on my way into the office, I would go via the supermarket and pick up some deli meats and cream cheese and a couple of bottles of spring water.

I made up my own little whooshie rollups, as I call them.  This involves a slice of beef, spread the cream cheese and a tiny bit of horse radish sauce - literally a quarter of a teaspoonful per slice.  Then just roll it up and there is a really handy little office snack.  Another discovery was the same meat with cream cheese, but with black pepper - I love black pepper so really layered it on.  Lunch would be washed down with a lovely big cup of coconut tea.  

This stuff gave me a lot more energy than my more usual toasted ciabatta - those always made me a bit sleepy in the afternoon.  I think the new eating carried me through what was a very taxing period extremely well.

Only problem was the horrible pile of washing up that my poor secretary found when she got back.  Yes, I had managed to buy my lunch, but had completely forgotten to buy some washing up liquid.  Just as well she is a very nice lady.  She did have a bit of a laugh at all the ingredients that had appeared on the shelf in my bookcase, such as black pepper, coconut oil and horseradish sauce.  I think she thought I had opened an Atkins Cafe and given up what I normally do.

Keetje