Sorry, Kat!
You know I haven't been myself lately! Here's the love...
Keep us posted on Cat.
I know, I was just teasing.
Stephanie - I feel your pain on the no fridge at work thing. Thankfully, we have a microwave so I can heat things up if need be. I pack things in an insulated lunch bag and use a freezer pack to keep things cold and have never had a problem.
I do have a tip to offer on the salad front. When you are ready to start making the change, I bring a salad every day, but it is not always the same salad. I buy my veggies on Monday nights usually and then spend about 30 minutes, washing, chopping and otherwise prepping everything so that when I do need to make my salad, it is a two minute process of dumping the ingredients together. I also used the bagged salad mixes to keep things really easy.
Good luck..
We have LOTS of folks here who have mastered getting the most bang for your caloric buck, so to speak (ahem, Kat...) and I am sure they will post lunch options along the way. I picked on Kat specifically because, OMG, she is the QUEEN of eating lots of food while NOT eating lots of calories!
Okay, okay, I will weigh in here.
I do have a mini-fridge and a microwave, so that does make things easier.
However, I am *lazy* and I HATE mornings. So getting up and making anything, totally out! And all that prewashing and cutting is WAY too much work...
What I do is buy the prepacked romaine hearts (they don't need washing, or at least if they do I haven't diet yet) from Sam's or
Walmart, and put the following in small insulated cooler bag: one romaine heart, one cucumber, one red onion, and then anything else I have lying around (reduced fat blue cheese or bacon or mushrooms or leftover chicken breast). I keep a plate, knife, and fork at work, and every day for lunch I make a large dinner-sized salad. The cucumber and red onion keep pretty well non-refrigerated for a few days.
I usually pair the salad with a sandwich on a sandwich thin, or wrap. Low-fat turkey or ham with one laughing cow wedge is the usual. Sometimes I have soup instead.
Now, I do have the fridge to keep the salad dressing in, which is almost always Kraft Light Three Cheese Ranch, but you could also buy the packets, or make small ziploc baggy packets. A tbsp of bacon pieces or the blue cheese only adds about 20 cals and it makes it taste better. And yes, I have a tbsp at work as well to measure.
I have tons and tons of low-cal dinner ideas... Tuesday night was a ronzini pre-cooked pasta sleeve, linguini with chicken and mushrooms. I took half a zuchini, half a white onion, 2 mushrooms, and a handful of broccoli, chopped and sauteed in a non-stick pan with cooking spray until tender. Added the pasta pack (230 cals) and 4-5 large shrimp (70 cals) and cooked until the shrimp were done and the pasta was hot. 350 cals or so and filled up the plate.
Last night was eggplant pizza... took a lb or so eggplant and sliced it up very thin. Dipped in eggbeaters/salt/pepper and pan-fried in cooking spray (this part is optional) until browned, then put on a pizza pan and baked for 10 min at 425. Removed from over, sprayed down with cooking spray, sprinkled with Italian seasoning. Added hunt's basil/oregano tomato sauce (from a wee can), 1/3 cup shredded mozzarella, 2 chopped mushrooms and some chopped red onion, 1 tbsp bacon pieces, the 1/3 cup mozzarella on top, and baked for another 10 min at 425. Total, ~300 cals, and a lot of food.
You can do the same thing above with zucchini, but don't need the pan-frying at all for that one.
We also do lower-fat hamburgers with 93/7 or 96/4 ground beer and the 100 cal whitewheat buns, or battered fish and mac&cheese (if you make the Kraft spirals with water and a spritz of butter spray rather than cheese and milk, it is 260 cals in half the box), or steak and broccoli and a baked potato (one Idaho potato is 100 cals, just use butter spray and ff sour cream)...
My problem is not the not knowing what to do, it is staying out of the beer and pizza and going to the ideas above!!
) but Cathie and Stephanie...what do each of you do for work?
and also in November I am doing a medieval themed wedding cake for 400 people or more...the way it's going it looks like it's going to be a castle 
Lucky for us, we caught it soon enough before major damage could be done but the poor thing had ulcers all over his mouth and in his tummy. Two weeks of medicine giving...not happy kitty. SO long story short I know exactly how scary it is for the fur kid to have to go to the ER! Keeping you and kitty in my thoughts 
I had my gallbladder removed and cheese is one of the things that really bothers my stomach now, due to the greasiness of it. So my first instinct was to grab a can of raviolis...and I actually did....warmed them up and everything....then stood there and said to myself...self...what are you doing??? SO I put the raviolis in the fridge (someone will eat them) and grilled a chicken breast instead adn had steamed broccoli, cauliflower, adn green beans instead. I was so proud of myself 
