If you want to climb a mountain, you don't just show up at the base of the mountain and start walking. Weeks of preparation and planning go into a climb, with teams of people working extra hard to make sure that the right supplies have been acquired, the right training has been completed, and the right expectations are set. People die every year in our area because they go hiking on our local mountains without the right supplies or know-how, and they hit a situation they weren't expecting only to find themselves unequipped to survive.
Unlike a mountain climb or even a hike, you don't have to start your health journey today already possessing everything you'll between now and the end of it. But you do need to be prepared.
How prepared are you this week?
In our busy world preparation becomes especially important to your health. Cooking a healthy meal takes time, cooking several healthy meals in a day takes more time, and if you're unprepared the task can be downright overwhelming. In our busy lives it can feel like we barely have time to eat, much less cook! How do we overcome this? With preparation, and lots of it.
1. Work with a menu.
I don't know about you but for me the hardest part of cooking a healthy meal is often deciding what to cook. Especially when I'm tired after a long day, I find myself staring into the fridge and thinking "What's even in here? Cheese. But cheese isn't dinner. What else is here....broccoli? Yes, broccoli. Broccoli is easy. Now meat. Chicken or beef? Chicken or beef? Which one's easier to cook? I'm so tired, why don't have a robotic personal chef to make these decisions for me?"
Enter your menu! Even if you don't follow it strictly, a menu allows you to only stock the fridge and pantry with things you're actually going to eat and it gives you a road map that you can later use for decision making. I find it helpful to stick my menu on the fridge with a magnet and cross off the meals as I make them (which explains why it's Monday and Thursday is crossed off). That way if I'm tired I'm not deciding between components. Instead I can look at the menu and say "Hamburgers with broccoli. Got it."
This also saves you from getting your heart set on a specific dinner only to get home and realize that you don't have a key ingredient and you're too tired to go to the store.
If you need help putting together a healthy menu, there's tons of resources (and even a company that will do it for you!) over at the 100 Days of Real Food blog. Be sure to say "hi" to Lisa for me.
2. Stock your pantry (and fridge, and freezer) with healthy options
Tofu isn't anywhere on my menu, because my husband...basically hates it. Despite this, there's at this moment three packages of tofu in my fridge. Why? 1) It takes forever to go bad, so it can sit there for a while if I decide not to use it. And 2) because if I happen to look at my menu and think "Blech," I know I've got tofu as a fall back option. A little olive oil and salt in a pan turns sliced tofu into a crunchy, crispy, salted slice of deliciousness.
If you're like me, you like to have options. Make sure those options are good for you.
3. Do as much chopping, mixing, and portioning ahead of time as possible
The majority of the time that goes into cooking a healthy meal is the chopping, mixing, portioning, etc. After all, how long does it take to cook a hamburger or steam broccoli? Ten-ish minutes? But all of the steps that come before cooking can be time consuming and messy. The simple solution? Schedule time in for those leading up steps.
I grocery shop every 3 or 4 days, because that's the schedule that works for me. It gets enough food in my fridge that I have options, without putting too much food in there so the options are overwhelming, and it makes my trips to the grocery store quick and efficient. Some people I know shop for a whole month, and my hat goes off to them. I don't have that kind of attention span.
A friend of mine not only shops for the whole month; she does this on a Sunday between church and lunch, and she spends THE REST OF THE DAY chopping, mixing, portioning, freezing (where appropriate), and so on. I swear, I don't know how she does it. She even has kids!
I do things a little differently. When I get home from the grocery store I toss everything - bags and all - into the refrigerator. I let it sit there for a few hours. Then, when it's time for me to make dinner, I pull out all of one item (say, all of the packages of hamburger meat) and prepare it at once. I cook what I need for that meal, portion out the rest, and put it away. Then, while my dinner is cooking, I pull the rest of the groceries out of their bags and organize what I've brought home. It works for me to do things this way because it keeps me from over-sapping my energy and messing something up.
4. PLAN AHEAD
What's today, Monday? Tomorrow's the first, that means I have to work late to finish all that paperwork so I can leave work early on Wednesday for John's doctor appointment. Then I have to run to the pharmacy on the other side of town before Jen's Girl Scout meeting is over. After that there's some parent teacher science fair thing happening. And the kids will still need to do homework before bed, so they'll be extra tired in the morning, so I'll have to wake up early to spend the extra time fighting with them to get up. Then I have to rush to the office for that presentation...which I haven't finished the powerpoint for yet. Shoot. And I still need to take the car in, that check engine light has been on for weeks...
Sound familiar? We all have days like this. Kids or no kids, job or no job, seventeen or seventy five, we all have these days. You've got to know when these days are going to happen so you can be prepared, and you've got to prepare for the days when it's going to happen without you knowing it ahead of time. McDonald's looks mighty tempting when you're busy, so make sure to have plenty of "shelf-stable" snacks on hand wherever you go. I find that roasted nuts or seeds are an excellent option for this, and keeping a case of water in the car as well leaves me with no excuse to swing through the drive thru.Preparation takes a little extra time, and a little extra thought, but in the long run it will relieve stress and make your life easier in addition to allowing you to continue making healthy choices no matter the circumstance.
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