I think nutrition is over-rated. Hold off on those angry letters until I explain. Sure, a nice hot lunch with vegetables, a protein source and maybe a glass of H2O has been an important part of the work day for, I don’t know, as long as people have worked. If we’re being honest with ourselves, lunch is probably the highlight of your 9 to 5—a beautiful respite between those mindless TPS reports we have to file.
But I think you should start skipping lunch, or at the very least, redefine what lunch is. Yesterday, lunch for me was a beer and a Clif bar, scarfed down on the chair lift at my local resort outside of town. There was barely enough nourishment there to fuel my frantic laps of the 700-vert resort, but it was the best damn lunch I’ve had in months. I took a long mid-day break and spent an hour yo-yoing up and down my local hill, giggling the entire time because I felt like I was getting away with something. Because I wasn’t sitting in a restaurant, or worse yet, working through a sandwich at my desk like I normally do.
It was a Tuesday, and there was a thin, but fresh blanket of snow on the mountains. I’ll be damned if I choose nutrition over an hour of semi-freshies on a work day. I call it the “LunchSki” (trademark applied for), as in today, I think I’ll have a “LunchSki.” You need two things for a proper “LunchSki”: snow and a beer. But the same principle can be applied to any adventurous pursuit—a ride on your in town trail system, a run through the neighborhood…as long as there’s sweating, a change of scenery, and a beer involved. The beer is key, here. I can’t stress that enough. A mid-day beer after some strenuous exercise is like a mini vacation. It’s rejuvenating. (Note: If you operate public transportation for a living, please disregard this advice). The idea is to take back that hour in the middle of the day. That’s your hour, damn it. Make it useful. Make it something you can really look forward to.
As for the lunch itself, I chose a peanut crunch Clif Bar and a can of Action Man, a lager from Howard Brewing, which operates somewhere on the eastern edge of Pisgah National Forest. Action Man is a hell of a lager—creamy, smooth, incredibly drinkable—the perfect daylight beer. And it paired well with that Clif Bar and that fresh blanket of snow. My only regret is that I only brought one of them for lunch.
