Suzanne, graphic designer
Suzanne is a 24-year-old graphic designer who designs the beautiful pages of Bite every week. Her work week is pretty consistent, 8.30am to 5pm every day, maybe a little later if there is a pressing deadline. She has breakfast at home, rather than joining most of her workmates who scoff breakfast when they get to work. She tries her best to bring a packed lunch (usually leftovers from the dinners lovingly cooked by her fiance), a sandwich or, lately, a tin of soup. She tries her best to both save money and keep healthy, though working in the city means there are many temptations. And unfortunately, “having to sit down for eight hours a day makes it easy to put on weight if you indulge too much”, she says.
7:35am 3 Weetbix with about half a teaspoon of raw sugar with lite blue-top milk
10:45am A large banana, just on the cusp of green and ripe, I hate it when they are mushy. Like clockwork, I'm starving by this time.
12:30pm Leftovers for lunch! Today it is chickpeas with spinach in a thai massaman curry (from a jar) with a handful or so of rice. I'm not a vegetarian but my fiance and I eat a lot of vegetarian meals as we find they are a lot cheaper to make, not to mention utterly delicious.
3pm 4 pieces of Cadbury hazelnut chocolate. If there are sweets around, which there usually are in the office, I just can't help myself.
6:30pm Tonight it is chicken katsu (1 egg and breadcrumbs coated) on about half a cup of white rice with a yum worcestershire/soy/tomato sauce concoction. We have it with a large side salad with lettuce, olives, gherkins, tomato, avocado and a balsamic vinegar dressing. Also have a dollop of lite mayonnaise on the chicken katsu. I usually have dinner with 1 glass of orange juice.
8pm If we do have pudding, we usually have a bowl of icecream each or a few pieces of Whittakers dark ghana chocolate.
Nadia Lim’s nutrition quick fix
Bump up your vitamin C intake by including more fresh fruit in your diet (click here for a winter fruit salad that would be a delicious addition to your Weetbix breakfast). Your lunch (chickpeas, spinach and rice) is a winner — chickpeas are full of fibre and protein, and low in calories. They are also contain low glycaemic index (slow-releasing) carbohydrates, helping you keep fuller for longer. Spinach, like other dark green leafy vegetables, are brimming with healthy protective compounds and are very high in folate, an important B vitamin. It's great to hear you include a few meat-free meals a week which means your diet is likely to be lower in saturated fat, higher in fibre and more vegetables.
