Eating while working out...

Is very important to losing weight and getting in shape or even just maintaining your current weight. Everyone knows that the more calories you burn and the less calories you consume the more weight you will lose. This is of course a very slippery slope.

I tend to accidentally have an issue with this. I am obviously working out and burning calories and I am also trying to eat less so I can lose weight. However, there are days I feel like I haven't eaten enough. If you don't give your body fuel it will go into starvation mode and you won't lose weight. If you don't give your body enough fuel it will not create the muscle tone/change that you want it to. My issue comes with the later. I am eating...just some days not enough it seems. I don't want to cut down my activity as I am having fun so the only answer is to eat more.

That is easier said then done. One reason this is hard is because I am so used to eating small amounts multiple times a day that I can't eat a lot at one time. Another reason is that I hate feeling like I am constantly eating. It doesn't matter what I am eating, I hate feeling like I spent all day eating even if it was only carrots. My schedule also makes it harder since I can't eat at my desk and can only really get up from my desk on my designated breaks.

I don't like to eat unless I am hungry. However, I am a big girl so I force myself to something before I leave work. My preferred breakfast is an English Muffin with Jam but right now it is a piece of bread with peanut butter since I ran out of English Muffins. I don't eat anything during my first/second break so I think I might add something there although that will end up being very close to my breakfast time so I won't be hungry or even thinking about food. Also not sure what I would add since I only have a 10 minute break and I would have to get to the break room on the other side of the building to eat whatever it is I brought. Since I work out during lunch I eat a Nutri Grain bar after the gym. I am running out of Nutri Grain bars so I am going have to use a Zone bar which might actually help. That typically holds me until 3-3:15 with my 2nd/3rd break where I eat lunch. My lunch is typically left overs from the night before. After work I go work out and get home where I start dinner and eat that.

Some days it isn't about how many times I eat but more of how many calories I consumed that day. I made Potato Corn chowder the other night so I brought that for "lunch" yesterday and today and I just don't think that has enough calories to hold me over. I need to up the calories without going to high and remaining healthy.

So my solution:

Breakfast: Bread or English muffin with Peanut Butter on it. Holds me over better then jam/jelly
First/Second Break: Hard boiled egg or something like that
Lunch: Nutri Grain bar
Second/Third Break: left overs from the night before
Dinner: Regular dinner

Any ideas on what I could eat on my first or second break other then a hard boiled egg?

(I only really get 2 breaks a day each being 15 minutes long. When I am in training they do two 10 minute breaks in the morning assuming we will only take 10 minutes in the afternoon but as our peer coaches take 15 minutes in the afternoon we end up with an extra 5 minutes as break time. The first break is usually between 9-9:30 where I would eat the extra snack. The second being at 11 which I don't want to eat in yet unless I feel like I need to. A) it is awful close to 9-9:30 and 12:45 when I get out of the gym and B) I don't like going to the gym with food in my stomach)