Planning your meals is the best way to be successful with your eating regimen. Below I'm going to talk about how to structure your day(s) so you only have to plan and prep one meal each day. This strategy will allow you to save some time in your day, and ensure that you have a wholesome, nutritious meal for breakfast lunch and dinner.
The meal that you want to plan and prep each day is dinner. Here is the methodology behind only planning for dinner. If you do it right, you will have leftovers from dinner to have for lunch the next day. No worrying about prepping another meal, or having to run out during your lunch break to grab something a little less nutritious. So, lunch and dinner are covered. For breakfast, throwing together a smoothie or shake each morning takes less than a minute, and you can drink it on your way to work if you're in a hurry. I do have a specific shake that I believe in, support, and would recommend, but any high quality nutrition supplement works. Just be sure to look at the ingredients, and make sure you're getting what your body needs. Now that we know what meal we're planning for, let's look at some tips on how to do it most effectively, and efficiently... Know Your Schedule: Look at your schedule for the week. If you have busier nights than others, then you need to plan to be successful on these nights. Make your simplest meals are planned for those busy nights. Plan your prep: Some meals require more prep than others. Some preparation can be done ahead of time such as chopping vegetables or pre-measuring and mixing seasonings. You can plan to do this during a brief time frame on the weekend, or while your prepping for another meal during the week. This can be very useful for those aforementioned busy night meals. *Tip: Sometimes it’s worth paying for convenience. Many times stores will sell items pre-chopped, peeled, cooked, etc. Typically it will cost you a little more, but it may be worth it to save you some time. Utilize your pantry: If you have food items that may go bad soon, plan meals that would include those to avoid wasting these items. Also, if you need to buy ingredients that come in larger quantities but you only need small amounts for one meal, try to plan multiple meals that would use those ingredients. Plan for leftovers: This part is important as mentioned before. Leftover meals can save you SO much time, money and hassle during the week. They are perfect to have for lunch the next day, and will keep you from going out, hitting the drive through, and throwing away uneaten food. The crockpot is your friend: There are so many meals that can be cooked in a crockpot/slow cooker. Most of them require you to only put ingredients together, then cook all day while you’re at work. You can even prep it the night before, then throw it in the crockpot in the morning, turn it on, and dinner will be ready for you when you get home. Also great for those busy nights! When I see all these pictures online of how people have prepped out there entire week's worth of meals for breakfast lunch and dinner, it looks so pretty and inspiring. I tried it for several weeks, and found out one thing. It still takes a lot of time, and typically on the weekend. I find that planning just one meal for each day saves a lot of time and effort. And as I mentioned before, the shake for breakfast in the morning is an easy way to get quality nutrition in a short amount of time. Before I leave you, I will say that one area where planning out your entire week would be helpful is for snacks. Snacking is where many of us tend to get tripped up. Having a bunch of fruit or veggies cut up for easy access will only lead to better choices come snack time. As mentioned before, sometimes paying for convenience is worth it. You can most definitely buy fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. already cut, peeled, and/or portioned out. This can save even more time while still having a yummy wholesome snack. Get your plan in order, and be sure to set yourself up for success. Happy planning!
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Many of us get so caught up in life that everything going on consumes most, if not all of our time. Between work, running kids back and forth to different activities, and everything else that life throws at us, we have to make some choices on what to leave out of our schedule in order to get other things done. An easy choice for most people is exercise. When I say easy, I mean it is something that takes a little bit of a time commitment, and let's face it, it can be hard work! So, it is easy to justify to ourselves that we just don't have enough time to do it. But, it is an essential aspect of keeping ourselves healthy. What to do?
I want to talk through three steps, or questions for you to answer in order to create your own exercise. What do I mean by this? Exercise does not have to mean, going to the gym, or getting dressed up and doing a punishing workout until you're drenched in sweat. That may be what is preferred by some, but for the purposes of the situation previously mentioned, that's not our goal. I'm talking about how to create exercise through activities that you are already doing throughout your day. Just tweaking some of the "tasks" you may have, can easily add some physical activity into your day. So, let's get into it. What Are Your Daily "Tasks?" This is the easy part. Think about all of the things that you do throughout a normal day. This could be for work, fun, family or kid's activities. Anything you are doing that leaves you no time for an actual workout. Don't be afraid to be specific either. If you have multiple phone meetings or discussions per day, say that. Don't just write down "work." Knowing specific activities will make it easier to answer question number two. How Can You Turn Your Tasks Into Exercise? Now we're getting somewhere. Think of the tasks that you identified through answering the first question. Now we're going to think about how to incorporate exercise into those tasks. Let's use the phone meetings example again. What if you got a Bluetooth headset, and walked while you were on these meetings? You're still on the phone conducting your meeting, but now you are incorporating some movement. If you have to wear more formal clothes to work (heels, dress shoes), keep a pair sneakers under your desk. You don't have to block off any additional time on your calendar because you were already booked for the meeting. Obviously I made that sound really simple, and I understand in some cases you won't be able to walk during meetings. You may need information on your computer to discuss with the other party. But the idea here is to think about how you can create activity within what you're already doing. Give it some serious thought, and see what you come up with. Is The Activity Scalable? To continue seeing improvements, your exercise is going to eventually have to progress in intensity. So, whatever activity you are thinking of turning into exercise, think about how you can scale it to continue challenging yourself as well. You may get to the point where it's time for you to start "working out" rather than just getting more exercise. That's a good thing, and there is no right or wrong time to do that. But if you're thinking you just want to keep fitting exercise into your daily activities, then you will need to think about how to progress as well. In some cases, this may be easier than others. Sticking with the same phone meeting example, perhaps you start out by walking during one of your meetings throughout the day. To progress, start walking for more than one meeting per day. Or, you can even convince your coworkers to do walking meetings that are scheduled in person. Now you've moved from improving your health, to helping other's improve theirs as well. And by the way, not sacrificing any time within your day to complete your/their tasks. If you continue to accumulate bouts of exercise throughout your day, you are heading in the right direction. I focused on one example in this post, but there are many things you can do to incorporate exercise into your day. As you're thinking through this, just remember that exercise doesn't have to leave you spent and sweat-soaked. All you are doing is trying to increase your heart-rate for prolonged periods of time, and make your muscles work harder than they normally would. If you are new to exercise, this may not take much. Also remember, some exercise is ALWAYS better than no exercise. If you can only get a little bit in on some days, that's better than writing it off. Hopefully this was useful information for you. Many of us find ourselves in a continuous routine of going from one thing to another until the day is over. Unfortunately, when we find ourselves short on time, it's the activities most important to our health that seem to suffer. The above is just a technique to address this issue. If you find yourself still struggling and are looking for additional support and guidance, I urge you to consider getting a Coach. And since you're already here, that Coach can be me! You can click on the button below to find out more information on my Coaching program and how it can help. If you're not ready for that, then just stay tuned to this blog for helpful tips on how you can stay healthy while in a hurry. There is no doubt that we are currently living in a highly stressful time. Our lives have been altered in ways we can't imagine, our entire family is stuck at home, and for many of us we are forced to balance home-schooling our kids, while still trying to perform our job tasks from home. And that's if you haven't had the misfortune of losing your job. Perhaps the worst part is no one knows when it will end and begin returning to "normal." Perhaps not for a very long time depending on your perception of what normal is or will be. We all have different ways we respond to or deal with our stress. One fairly common way is eating. Many people tend to reach for a satisfying snack when they are feeling stressed in an attempt that it will make them happy or calm then down. The feeling of satisfaction tends to be only temporary, as after you've eaten these snacks, or just eaten a lot, you feel worse and the stress hasn't gone away. Not to mention the regret of eating what you did, and now you might be stressing over that! I probably do not have to tell you the negatives of stress eating as far as your weight is concerned. If you are continually snacking or trying to bury your stress in food, the shear calorie consumption is eventually going to lead to weight gain. Also, your body secretes hormones when you are anxious or stressed that can also lead to storing calories. But, the issue can also go deeper than that. If you are under consistent amounts of stress, and your escape is food, then you may be forming a habit that could be hard to control moving forward. For a habit to stick, one thing you need is a trigger. This trigger sends your brain a signal to let it know what is typically coming next. If you have a habit of reading in bed before you go to sleep, the reading is a trigger for you to begin shutting down and getting ready to go to sleep. If your habit is eating chocolate when you're feeling stressed, then every time you begin to experience stress, you will most likely crave chocolate. And, if you continue this habit you will be trapped in a vicious cycle of stress, snacking, regret, more stress, and so on. But the good news is, not all habits or triggers for your stress response need to be bad! You can create a healthy habit in response to rising stress just as you've created the unhealthy one. Instead of reaching for the chocolate, reach for a piece of fruit. Or, go for a walk. This is obviously going to take some training to develop this habit, just as the chocolate took multiple times to become a habit. Whatever trigger you want to establish, begin by being mindful of when you are stressed, and make the choice to develop a new trigger by grabbing an apple rather than the candy bar. It's not easy, and will take some practice and patience. But, it will be worth it in the long run as you begin to develop healthier ways to combat the stresses in your life. Now, this is just a general overview of what I've learned. I of course know absolutely nothing about what happens in your brain when you feel stressed, nor do I have any idea what your coping mechanism might be, so please simply take this as you wish. However, if this sounds a little too familiar to you, then my hope is that it will bring awareness to an unhealthy habit that may be forming. Once you know what you're doing, you can then create a better habit that will better promote your health and well-being, while also helping you better deal with the stress in your life. I will end by saying that it is virtually impossible to eliminate stress in our lives. Many times we have no control of the situations we end up in, or the actions of others that lead to our stress. The focus should not be on eliminating stressors, but rather dealing with them as they come up in a healthy way. Finding those actions that both promote a healthy lifestyle, as well as reducing your stress as opposed to adding to it. Also, taking care of yourself on a regular basis with proper nutrition, sleep, and exercise will better prepare your body to take on these stressors, and potentially minimize their impact. There is no escaping stress, but you can conquer it! Want to learn more about how to help your body combat stress,
while also satisfying and curbing potential sweets cravings? |
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