Tag Archives: oatmeal

Healthy Lunch Options For Work – Any Suggestions?

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packed_lunch_ideasI try to eat healthily these days, and am always looking for healthy lunch options that I can eat in the office when I am working.

While working in the USA for the past few years, the companies I worked for all had microwaves and fridges so employees could bring their own food in to the office and cook/re-heat it if desired.

Now that I have a new job in the UK, the company does have a fridge for the employees, but there are no cooking facilities, other than hot water for tea, coffee or cup-a-soup etc.

The company does have a subsidised staff canteen that provides full meals, but since Debbie and I usually eat together at night, I don’t really want to have two full meals in a day, however with winter approaching in England it does get chilly, and I will need something filling and warming inside me to help me get through the day.   The question is what?

Aside from the staff canteen serving full meals, I still don’t have much money, so I want to spend as little as I can on lunch, however I do want to eat healthy, and not fill up every day on anything that has a high fat or sodium content (like cup-a-soups).

I was wondering if anyone had any good ideas for something healthy to bring in to eat.   Obviously leftovers that I have to re-heat are out of the question, since I have no way of heating them up.   Bare in mind too that while a salad is ok in the summer, it’s not necessarily enough to warm you through on a chilly day.   Also, I don’t really want to spend ages preparing anything in the morning before I leave for work, but I don’t also want to make something like a sandwich the night before, and find it stale or soggy by the time I come to eat it.

For breakfast in the USA I was having Oatmeal (Porridge) most days, with either Applesauce or Honey on it.  This was really low in fat and sodium, good for the cholosterol levels, and also filling and warming.  Since I can’t cook Oatmeal here at work (no microwave), I am bringing in Muesli, since we do have a fridge, and that is filling for breakfast.  But what about lunch?

So do you have any ideas for a filling nutritious lunch that might help me out?   If so, please leave a comment on this post and let me know.    Thanks in advance for any help.

Reverse Culture Shock

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I have to admit that moving back to the UK after having lived in the USA for the last fifteen years is a bit of a reverse culture shock for me in many ways.   Fifteen years is long enough to get past most of the pangs of missing things from where you came and also to become well adjusted to where you moved to, however even after that length of time, there were still some words or customs I came across that were different in the USA that I wasn’t aware of before.

So having moved back to the UK and now having started back to work, albeit after almost three months of trying to find a job and spending much of my time at home, I am not back in the real world of living in England.

Working for a family owned company here is very different to working in Corporate America, where there are so many rules and regulations as to what you can and can’t do, and many of the traditions that might have been have long since gone.   Here for example, people in the department take it in turns to get tea/coffee for everyone, something that I haven’t seen in years.   The boss took us all down the pub for lunch on the first day, and it’s still acceptable to have a drink at lunchtime, whereas the mere mention of alcohol at work in the USA is a big “no no”.   Companies don’t necessarily have microwaves and water coolers here for the employees, in fact ours has neither, but there is a good supply of hot water to make a decent cup of tea as you would expect!

Driving to work is also very different to what it was in the USA, and for me it’s a step backwards.  No more driving 25 miles down the highway for me, or like in my last job 45 miles, which I could do in about 45 minutes.  Now it’s just over 8 miles to work, but it takes me between 40 minutes to an hour.   Only 1/4 mile of that is using a road that has 2 lanes each way, the rest is on just regular roads, and of course much of it is just one big traffic jam.

I guess this is just one of the downsides to living in the UK again, having to deal with the traffic, whereas in both Indiana and Florida where I was living in the USA, the traffic levels were much lighter.  Not only that, once I got out of the residential areas, the rest of the journey was on main highways with at least 2 lanes in each direction.  The traffic in the UK has always been terrible and it gets worse every year, but I am grateful at least that I am not working in London.  Most people working in London have to take public transport to get to work, and that just seems to get more unreliable every year too, so all in all I am pretty lucky to just have a 30 minute journey every day.

My next task, having moved house this weekend, is to sort out a food system for work.   In Florida I used to make myself oatmeal for breakfast in the office, and could bring in leftovers at any time to heat up in the microwave.  I also used to drink a lot of water, and kept bottles that I would fill up from the water cooler.  Now without either a water cooler or a microwave I am looking at alternative options, so will have to bring in my own water from home (since I object to paying an arm and a leg for bottled water), and will probably have cold cereal in the office, since there is a fridge that I can keep milk in.   We don’t have enough money for me to splash out on buying sandwiches etc more than once a week, and besides that, I prefer to know what I am eating, trying to eat healthy as much as I can.  Having lost more than 20lbs in weight over the last two years, I am determined to not put it all on again, as I feel so much better these days.

Well enough rambling for now… Please feel free to leave a comment…

My Daily Walk

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This week I started my new regimen of trying to get up earlier and to take a walk to wake my body up and get going, prior to showering and breakfasting, just to try and start the day off right, and ideally be more productive.   I know that lying in bed, then getting up, grabbing a bit to eat, checking the internet etc, has led to it being close to lunchtime before I really achieve anything, which isn’t very good when you are struggling to write and establish an online presence to earn a living.

So this morning I managed to wake up just before 7:30am, quickly checked my email, and was out the door for my walk about 8:15am.

Monday I managed a really fast walk, covering the 2 1/4 miles around the block in 35 minutes.  I developed a small blister on the side of my big toe, so I thought for yesterday I would just wear a pair of open sandals that I have walked in before to give my toe a break.  Bad move!  By the time I got halfway around the block I had a blister starting under the ball of my right foot, and by the time I got back a matching one on the left foot.

I can usually walk a long way without developing blisters, but it’s the speed that does it, so today I wore socks and sneakers (as one should) and decided to take things at a slower pace, which worked out perfect.  It still only took 4 minutes longer in total, but of course walking a bit slower doesn’t burn quite as many calories.  Hopefully I can take another walk tonight as well to double my efforts, as well as a swim this afternoon.

Well when I walk alone I usually take my trusty MP3 player with me, loaded with my favorite tracks, and it’s set to play them randomly, so I never know what to expect.  Normally, every time I power my MP3 player on it starts at the same track, but if I hit the forward button it locates something new each time.  Well today I got Deja Vu when it immediately started playing “Highway Star” by Deep Purple., the same starting track as yesterday.  I said to myself “ok, this is a good driving rhythm to start me off even if it is two days in a row” and off I set.  The next song was a slow Country song, “She’s In Love” by Mark Wills, followed by more Deja Vu and another track from yesterday “No Se Tu” by Luis Miguel from the album Romance.   This was followed by another favorite of mine, “News Of The World” by The Jam, a great Brit-Rock band that you don’t hear too much about now, other than the lead singer Paul Weller doing covers on his solo concerts.   Next a song I really like, but little known, “The Mystic Journey” by Arlo Guthrie (remember him from Alice’s Restaurant?).  That was nice and mellow, but then another rock classic, “Love Reign O’er Me” by The Who from the album Quadrophenia.  Absolutely the best Who album musically, aside from Who’s Next which has all the singles that you still hear as themes to television shows like CSI etc.   This took me to the final leg, and the music switched again to Country with another favorite of mine, “My Next Thirty Years” by Tim McGraw.  This often has me thinking back at my life, and what the next years are going to bring.  And finally just as I rounded the side of the building, a long track that I would have to cut short unfortunately.  This is really little known except to Progressive Music fans who like PFM, “River Of Life” from their Live In Japan 2002 double CD.  You can learn more about PFM on my Squidoo lens about them.  It has a a number of video clips, including the full version of this song.

I added below a list of the track that I have on my MP3 player right now in case you are interested.  I think youwill agree that I have a very varied musical taste.

Getting back home I was feeling rather peckish, not really in the mood for Oatmeal, which although it’s healthy wasn’t going to hit the spot today, so I cooked Cheese And Beans On Toast, and English classic meal that works equally well for breakfast, lunch or dinner.

Well this post is dragging on and so is time.  I have had so many interruptions today it’s unbelievable.  I hoped to have this complete by 11am, it’s now close to 3pm Eek! and time for my daily workout in the pool.

I hope you enjoy the music (most of the links have previews behind them) and I am interested to know what you think of the blog, the postings, or if you have a blog too and would like to swap links.

My MP3 Playlist

An Early Morning Walk

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I decided (see my last post) that as from today I need to start getting out of bed earlier, and to take a good walk first thing to get me moving and to start the day off right.

So I arranged for Debbie to wake me up around 7am this morning with a phone call, however I woke up on my own around 6:45am instead of my usual 8am.  Do you find too that if you need to wake up early, you don’t always need to set the alarm, your body somehow wakes you up at the right time?

I chatted with Debbie for a while on the webcam before she headed out for an afternoon appointment (remember she is in the UK), then checked some of my emails and Tagfoot messages, and headed off for my “hopefully” daily walk around the lake, golf course and nice homes where I live.  It’s a 2 1/4 mile route around the block, with 6 flights of stairs down and then up at the end, which takes about 35-40 minutes if I “hoof” it and make it a brisk walk.

Well I spent a bit too long chatting and messaging, so it was 8:30am by the time I left, but it was an almost perfect day, partly cloudy, a nice breeze, and about 70 degrees.

When I walk alone I always take my trusty MP3 player with me.  It’s about 3 years old, doubles as a flash drive and only has 512mb of memory, but it’s enough for me, since when I mostly use it, I am either walking or flying, and for both I really enjoy listening to a selection of my favorite tracks.  I have it set to play songs randomly, and although it always starts on the same song, flipping to the next I never know what it might play.

This morning I did pretty well, the MP3 player selecting for me a good driving track to start the walk off right, “Highway Star” by Deep Purple.  That saw me setting off to a good pace (I tend to change my walk pattern to match the music), and it was followed by a slower track that I love, “No Se Tu” by Luis Miguel from the album Romance.  Some of you might remember it as the featured love song from the movie “Speechless” with Geena Davis and Michael Keeton (Romance is a great album of love songs by the way, remade hits of the 50′s-70′s in the style of Nat King Cole, but in Spanish).   Then one of my all time favourite songs, “Cinema Show” by Genesis, from the album Selling England By The Pound.  They use a section of this on their medley of “really old songs” in concert, but this was the original, and has one of the best Genesis instrumental sections ever.  By this time I was 2/3rds of the way around the circuit, and the next random track was also a good one, “China Girl” by David Bowie.  Today I recalled the duet of this between Drew Barrymore and Adam Sandler in The Wedding Singer – a great movie.   Finally, for the last leg, my trusty music machine kicked out “Kill The King” by Richie Blackmore’s Rainbow, which saw me along the straight, across the road, and up the stairs to the front door.

Home, I took a cool shower, made some Green Tea With Lime for later, and grabbed a bowl of Oatmeal for breakfast.

So how did you start your morning today, and what would be on your listening selection if you were taking a walk before breakfast?

Adjusting To Being Unemployed

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I have to admit that it was a huge shock when I found out that I had lost my job in mid February, not only because I needed to be employed to ensure I had enough money to cover my living expenses, but because this was without a doubt the worst time in my working career to be looking for a job.   The recession in the USA was starting to hit hard, few companies were (and still are) hiring new people in the IT field, and so for the first week or so I was pretty much in panic mode.

For those of you who are new to my blog, I hope that you enjoy the articles that Debbie and I write and will subscribe to them, either via RSS feed or email.  We are also both on Twitter (Tony / Debbie) and you can follow us there.   Our lives are complicated, with me living in South Florida while Debbie lives in the South of England.  I am divorced with 2 young girls who live 30 miles from me, and child support for them takes a good proportion of my income every month, so obviously losing my job came as a great shock.

For the first few weeks at least, despite my alarm having been turned off, I would still wake up at 6:30am automatically, which really frustrated me as I didn’t need to.  I also wasn’t sleeping too well, waking frequently during the night, and with working to update web sites, my resume and to get my affairs in order until late every night, I was exhausted.  Finally I managed to get into a better sleeping pattern as things settled down.

With the prospect of getting another job in the field that I work in (I am a Senior Analyst/Programmer specialising in JDE World Software – an integrated system now owned by Oracle that is used by larger corporations) being slim, I decided that one thing I ought to do while unemployed is to try and do my best to make a living online.   I figured that if I can earn more money online than I have been doing, and ideally earn enough to make a living, then the future would look a lot brighter.   IT used to be a great field to work in, but in the last 10-15 years the rate of pay has actually decreased, and most companies don’t offer good benefits and definitely no job security these days.  Anything I can do, especially as I am getting older, to get out of this dying field, is a good thing.

Well after a few weeks I managed to sleep better, and right now I can guarantee to more or less wake up between 7:30am and 8am most days, sometimes even later.  The problem now of course for me is how to be productive.  I am unemployed right!  So I have all day to do what I need to do.  Well it’s really not as easy as it sounds.   Let me give you a run down of a typical day for me…

7:30am-8am – Wake up.

8am – Check email, web stats, minor web updates, shower, breakfast.

9:30am – Get some work done.

11am – Debbie comes home from work (4pm in England).  Chat on webcam for a while, work on web tasks together.

12:30pm – Feeling peckish, grab a bite to eat.

1:30pm – Take a sauna/steam and have a swim.

2:30pm – Chat with Debbie.

3pm – Get some work done.

5pm: Goodnight chat with Debbie (10pm in England).

6pm – Grab dinner.

6:30pm – Get some work done.

8pm – Take a walk.

9pm – Watch tv / get work done.

11pm – Off to bed.

As you can see, I get some work done, but in short bursts, and in reality I barely have more than an hour for each burst before I am distracted by something else, like the phone ringing, or new emails coming in.   I am determined to try to get fit and lose weight, so my daily sauna/swim is very important to me, especially as I am living in a community in South Florida where we have a nice pool and sauna, plus the weather is on my side most of the time.  So I don’t want to give that up.  I also need to chat with Debbie, as it’s important to us both, and it’s really hard to be so far apart for months at a time.

The solution is to try and do something to reorganize my days so that I can make better use of them.  I started today, not too successfully, but this is my new plan…

7am – Get up early, quick look at email etc.

7:30am – Take a walk.  I live in a community built around a golf course with several lakes, and walking around the block is 2 1/4 miles.  I also live on the 7th floor of a condo block, and walking down the stairs, around the lake, back up the stairs took 36 minutes this morning, one of my fastest times.

8:30am – Shower and breakfast.  A nice cool shower to clean off, then a healthy breakfast, either something like Raisin Bran or Oatmeal with a Banana, and Orange or Grapefruit Juice.

9am – Get some work done.

12am – Chat with Debbie.  Both of us waiting until 5pm over there in England to chat, so we both get more done.

1:30pm – Lunch, Sauna and Swim.

2:30pm – Back to work.

5pm – Goodnight chat with Debbie.

The evening I can’t do much about, since I want to take my evening walk, and I go with Tim, who I rent from.  It’s a lot nicer walking with someone, and I time the walk to fit in with his schedule.  Fortunately we now have the ability to record television shows automatically, which is wonderful as it allows me to still watch my favorite shows, but frees me from having to worry about when they are on.

The best thing about getting up early and taking a walk is that I feel really energised afterwards.  Doing this early is best in Florida as it soon warms up down here, but it also means that I have worked out by 8:30am and an ready to go and get stuck into my tasks for the day, instead of feeling sluggish having just got up and not done anything.

As far as looking for a job, these days jobs in IT are mostly advertised on the internet, and so I have various searches activated on sites like Monster.com and Careerbuilder.com which send me emails of any new jobs.  Also having my resume active on these sites, the headhunters come to me when they have any openings, but inlike other times when I have been looking for work, this time there are precious few jobs going for people with my qualifications.  In the last week I have found 3 jobs – one in Pennsylvania, one in Texas, and today one in Los Angeles, today’s being the only one that I would say I am well qualified for, and none in any location that I am happy to relocate to.   I don’t see things improving any time soon.

My working day consists of writing articles on here, The Laughline and Squidoo, plus promoting the same on Tagfoot and Stumbleupon, as well as other sites.   As well as posting links, I am actively researching for new ways to promote and cross link my sites, to improve traffic and also affiliate earnings.   Some days it’s good, but the last week traffic has really slowed down unfortunately, and I don’t know why.

If you have any comments on how to better organise my time, or on how you organise your time I would be pleased to hear from you.  Also if you have any suggestions for better marketing my blogs to get better traffic I would like to hear.  I am always open to cross linking to other related sites, and there are many other blogs out there that I would be pleased to swap links with.  Don’t forget that you can use the Share button at the end of this article to subscribe to our feed, and if you can Stumble, Digg or Twitter this I would be grateful.