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Lunchbox Ideas to Lose Weight

Whether you follow the Lunch Box Diet, brown bag it and eat at your desk or pack lunch for your slightly chubby offspring, there are weight-loss principles to consider. They are the same ideas that form a healthy diet, only approached with moderation. Fruit is portable but not in little cups of sugary syrup. Skip the chips and crunch some celery. You can eat balanced and get the scales to balance, too, if you watch what you take for lunch.

  1. Mayo Clinic Recommendations

    • Nutritionists at the Mayo Clinic say traditional lunch choices can work for a weight-loss diet. For school lunches, pack whole-grain breads for sandwiches or use pita bread or tortillas. Cut up fruits and veggies into bite-sized pieces so they will get eaten and not dumped in the trash. Send yogurt for dipping fruit and you've created a cool and fun meal with good nutrition. Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches are good, just use 100 percent all fruit jams, organic low- or no-sugar peanut butter and whole-grain bread. Include a sack of healthy dry cereal mixed with nuts and dried fruit for a snack. Low-fat milk provides calcium, but so does cheese if your lunch box child won't drink milk. A satisfying lunch of healthy food choices creates habits for a lifetime and trims fast-food and snack-food pounds.

    Harvard Healthy Eating Pyramid

    • Take care of your own mid-day meal with the same attention you lavish on the children. Brown bag it to cut the high sodium from take-out and the fat from fast food. The Harvard Food Pyramid provides a good structure for diet meals. Pack a salad with lean poultry or grilled fish and a simple vinaigrette dressing. Skip the croutons but add a few small hunks of cheese. Apples are portable and loaded with fiber and nutrition. Have yours with low-fat yogurt, sprinkled with whole-grain cereal or some chopped raw nuts. Drink water. If you want some flavor and healthy antioxidants, pack a thermos of green tea. Harvard recommends a base of complex carbohydrates from fruits and vegetables and complete avoidance of all trans fats in your weight-loss -- or any -- diet.

    The Lunch Box Diet

    • Fad diets will be with us as long as excess pounds. The Lunch Box Diet swept across the pond from a personal trainer in England, complete with celebrity endorsements and a gimmick. But the recommendations to graze on a lunchbox filled with heart-healthy foods were spot on, even if the science was a bit shaky. The portion control advice was missing, and the diet had no attempt to balance breakfast and dinner. The lunch box on this diet provides the main meal of the day, eaten throughout the day. It contains 60 percent complex carbohydrates, such as fresh, raw vegetables, and about 30 percent protein and 10 percent fat. That comes pretty close to Mayo Clinic's recommendations for a healthy daily diet, whether you are trying to lose weight or not.

    Safe School Lunches

    • Keep lunch box fare safe and its healthy benefits will be more appealing to your school children. When they eat their healthy lunch, they're less likely to crave snacks.The American Dietetics Association gives some guidelines for sanitary weight-loss lunches. Try to make lunches in the morning before school for optimum freshness and flavor and, if that isn't possible, store them in the fridge overnight to prevent spoilage. Wash fruits and vegetables to remove any pesticides or germs that could be spread, even if you're removing the skins. Train your children to toss leftovers. They will spoil and shouldn't be snacked on after school. Tuck a hand sanitizer in the lunch box and a halved kiwi or an orange to help ward off colds and flu.

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