Feeling the 2 PM Slump? Amp up your Lunch Game!

Image: 196 Lunches

Have you ever fallen prey to the 2:30 pm slump?

You'll have a good morning at the office, feel productive and energetic, and then, all of a sudden, you want to curl up under your desk for a long nap.

Before you hit the coffee shop or reach for a chocolate bar, ask yourself a simple question: what did you eat for lunch?

The majority of workers in the US and Canada are now office-dwellers, which means we sit at a desk all day long. The standard diet in North America has also moved from one predominantly based on fat-burning energy, to one based on carb-burning energy.

For example, it's far more common place for us to reach for a chocolate bar (carbs!) or get a second, third, or fourth cup of coffee (caffeine!) than eat a handful of nuts when we're fading at the office. Unfortunately, carbs/sugar create short-lived spikes in energy followed by inevitable crashes, whereas energy from fats is burned more slowly by the body. This leads to more consistent energy throughout the day.

Okay, so what does this mean for your lunch game?

Basically, there are SO MANY options for a healthy lunch, and none of them involve a tuna sandwich. If you sit all day, try to minimize your carb intake at lunch and include things like nuts, seeds, avocado, olive oil, white fish... I'm hearing a pretty delicious salad in all of that, are you?

To help jump-start your healthy fat lunch game, I highly recommend the site 196 Lunches. Her meals, while made for her kids' lunch boxes, are insanely good, simple to prep ahead, and proof that you don't need bread, meat and cheese to make a mean meal. You may need to increase the portion size to make them grown-up friendly, but it'll be worth it.

Happy lunching!