Just Bento

I didn't so well with my goal of 8 lunch bentos and 3 dinner bentos. During the week it was fine but when the convention was on over the weekend I just ended up snacking on nothing good for me instead of eating the two bentos I did make.
On the whole, I think I did pretty well though. I've been increasing my daily intake of fruit and veg thanks to bento-ing, even if it was only grapes and carrot sticks on busy days. Any improvement is a set forward!
People told me all weekend that I've lost weight though I have no scales to test this. If I have it's thanks to bento. Thankyou bento!

Late to the party, but here's my report:

In terms of nutrition, I worked on limiting the amount of carbs I used and adding enough protein and vegetables. I did one more bento than last week for a total of three bentos. Monday's lunch which contained corn, red cabbage, vegetarian meatballs, and egg noodles contained 391 calories. Wednesday's bento, which consisted of a tempeh stir fry, rice, and fruit cocktail, had 323 calories. Finally, Friday's bento had gnocchi with marinara, mixed veggies, and a veggie hot dog for a total of 325 calories. This week I primarily relied on measuring cups to ensure portion control.

I've still been planning for the entire week's worth of bentos at the beginning of the week and doing the actual preparation the night before. I find that this system works well for me. I'm starting to get my bento confidence back!

My status for week 2 of the bento challenge: Fail.

I had such a busy (read: stressful) week at work that I just didn’t have a second to think about making bento, either in the evening when I got home or in the morning. The funny thing was that this was the week that I could have really used something nutritious tucked in my bag that I could just get out and eat at my desk. This made me realise that I need to up the effort and that spending a bit more time planning and making a bento will save me a chunk of time in the middle of the day (by not having to go and queue up for a sandwich).

I am still a work in progress but so far I am proud I achieved my goal. The first week I did the bare minimum of only one bento box. I was derailed due to a broken microwave at work but the truht is it was pure laziness. My goal for week two was to at least do more than one bento box and I was able to produce 5. Not as impressive as it sounds since due to a schedule shift at work I worked more than 5 days last week. Still I achieved my goal. My goal for this week is to start allowing the care and thought I put into my lunch filter into the rest of my daily eating routine. My weakest time is the morning since I work graveyard so if anyone has any tips or hints to keep from eating when you get home from work I am all ears (or eyes rather).

Well, this is late. I spent six days in the last two weeks on the road with the speech team. Hard to make bento in an hotel room. Sometimes the tournaments supply lunch and snacks, but these are usally pretty nasty. This season we've been bringing our own snacks - hummus, carrots, apples, mini bagels, and Annie's bunny grahams are the current favorites. But, I digress...

This is my only photographed bento from week two. I made 'the tall-one' bento dinners for the nights he has evening classes, but haven't started photographing those.

One of my goals has been to have a variety of colorful foods in my bento. So this bento turned out beautifully. This bento contains: White rice; Trader Joe's sweet pepper mix sauted in olive oil; grilled pineapple; green beans, parboiled and sauted with a tiny bit of bacon; broccoli; three mini pork burgers made with cabbage, tofu, and panko. All total about 600 calories. Again, thats a bit high but I have a 12 -hour day on Wednesdays and am not much of a breakfast eater and really don't feel like a heavy dinner at 7:30pm, when I get home from work.