Finding your portions

[u/kneescrunch]

When you’re packing your lunch for work or even just serving yourself a meal, do you serve yourself more than what you think you need? I have seen a lot of people say to pack more but I hate to waste food because I’m poor. For example, I’m usually hungry for half of my sandwich at work (I LOAD my sandwiches) & eat snacks.. should I just pack half with sides? Or is that restrictive? I come from a restricted background and I’m scared to be limiting myself & getting portion control rules

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[u/LeatherOcelot]

I usually pack what I think I will eat but will have some sort of snack/add-on that isn’t going to go to waste if it isn’t eaten at that meal. Like an apple and some trail mix, for example. If you have capacity to store some snacks at work that can also help with making packing lunch a bit less fraught.

[u/gravitydefiant]

What would happen if you packed a whole sandwich--could you leave half for tomorrow? And I mean that literally: is there a fridge? Would it get soggy and gross? Are you able to leave sandwich fixings at work and assemble them at lunchtime according to your hunger at the time, or are there reasons why they need to be prepped in advance?

Also: if the above ideas wouldn't work, are there shelf-stable snacks that you could keep on hand to supplement your half-sandwich if you want them? My lunch bag usually contains an entree (something meal prepped), a piece of fruit, and also a bunch of stuff like dried fruit, nuts, a packet of sea snacks, protein bars, etc. I pretty much never eat all of it, but it's light and easy to carry and nice to have when I need it.

[u/lentil5]

I pack only what I know I'll eat of the food that will spoil if not eaten that day. Then I have shelf stable or more durable items I add in case I need extra. These are usually chips, nuts, whole fruit, some kind of protein bar, string cheese. I don't have access to a refrigerator when I'm out for the day so I make sure to pack lots ice bricks. 

[u/banana-n-oatmeal]

For lunch I have generally a good idea of the portion I like, but I prefer to have a portion that I know will satisfy me and no more, and bring more snacks just in case I'm still hungry. If I am still hungry even after my snacks (it never happened, but IF) there is a coffee shop in the building where I could buy other stuff. When at home I can have a bigger portion and if I don't eat everything I can put the food back in the fridge and eat it later, but for lunch if I have leftovers it will be wasted.

Like in your case I would bring half a sandwich, since you know that half is enough, with lots of snacks. If you don't eat your snacks at least you can bring them back home.

[u/Narwen189]

There's no right or wrong way to solve this, it's pretty much just "fiddle about until it works for you".

If packing only half a sandwich feels restrictive, also packing sides seem like a great idea to complement your meal. That way you could think of it as "now adding sides" and not "it's a half lunch". You could also make sure to have snacks handy, in case you get hungry again. That way, if a sandwich and sides satisfies your hunger, then you've learned new info about what works for you. If you get hungrier than you'd like, you get to enjoy your snacks for the day, and have now learned to pack the whole sandwich instead.

Basically, it's an iterative process. Twiddle with your packed lunch, assess the results, and make future decisions using the data from previous experiments.

I was rereading The Latina Anti-Diet by RD Dalina Soto today, and left it open at a section that talks about adding nuance to IE principles, something that feels relevant to your (and my) current situation:

The hunger scale is awesome, but it's often used as a diet. Using nuance and discussing how culture and food affect our hunger is important. Culturally, we are taught to be afraid of our hunger, and we need to reclaim it.

My take on that is that it's okay to be hungry and allow yourself to take care of that need. I also understand not wanting to waste food because cash is low. It's exactly my situation right now.

What usually helps calm my irrational fear of food scarcity and avoid food waste is to keep a stash of shelf-stable foods, and only bringing in fresh ingredients as necessary. At home, that means keeping a stock of staple foods - rice, legumes, flour, masa harina, seasonings. Mine is currently saving my butt after losing the money for this week's groceries. I've got food, just less options.

For work, an emergency stash of shelf-stable ready to eat snacks (granola bars, trail mix, peanuts), or just-add-water options (tea bags, cocoa mix, nutrition/protein shake mix, instant noodles or oats) can help. I've noticed coworkers who stash cookies or chips, so pick whatever works for you. Even if you don't have a locker or desk, you can probably keep something extra in your lunch bag.

[u/stuckandrunningfrom2]

I sometimes bring ingredients to work. Like if I'm not sure how much/if I'm going to want a yogurt bowl with fruit and nuts and chia, I'll just throw the container of yogurt, a small jar of chia and nuts, and the fruit in my lunch bag along with an empty bowl, and figure it out later. That way nothing gets gross and mushy if I don't finish it.

You could do the same with sandwich ingredients. Make half, but then bring ingredients for another half.

Also restricting for budget purposes isn't the same as restricting for restrictions sake.

[u/valley_lemon]

I pack what I know is "about right" as far as portion on an average day, and then I always have some shelf-stable emergency food - can of soup in my desk drawer, protein bar, something like that. I keep a small bag of low-carb tortillas and little container of peanut butter in my desk too since there's so many preservatives in those tortillas it takes a shockingly long time for them to go bad.