I get it.
Life is full, and convenient food options are easily accessible. However, you might feel that building your diet out of these quick and easy options might impact your health and want to do better. Argh! But it’s hard!
Maybe you’re managing a condition like PCOS or type 2 diabetes. Maybe your gut is not feeling so great, or you’ve just left the GP’s office with a fresh blood test showing high cholesterol. Perhaps you’re tired and run down and feel your diet contributes to that.
Whatever your motivation, you might find that the demands of life: work, parenting, caring, having too many pets ( my issue 😂), after-school/work activities, etc are a barrier to creating a healthy meal that will both nourish and satisfy you.
Here are my top tips for putting something nourishing on the table and into your belly, even when life is chaotic!
Become a food planner
Thinking about what food you will eat in advance, aka meal planning, is one of the most helpful skills you can build to help you eat well long term. Planning what you’re going to eat means that you can think about how much time you’ll have, where you’ll be, how much food you’ve got to make and what food you’ll make and organise yourself accordingly. Then, you can go grocery shopping or do a bit of pre-prep to ensure it’s ready to go.
When I’ve got a food plan, I finish a big day of work, wander into the kitchen (I work from home), check out my Ayla Health app, and start prepping what I’ve planned for dinner. Because I’ve planned, I’ve got the food I need all ready to go, and if I’m really organised (which I am occasionally, not all the time), I’ve pre-chopped vegetables, pre-made the sauce or de-frosted the meat, poultry or seafood.
Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you have to execute your plan perfectly. Psychology tells us that this black-and-white thinking is unhelpful. The most mentally healthy individuals are flexible and can handle changes and adjustments as they go. This is also a skill that you can build, so don’t expect yourself to get it overnight.
If things don’t go according to plan, you can rely on some backups (more on that later), or you can just do what you can and return to the plan when you can. It takes time to learn how to create a meal plan that works for you, and it also takes time to learn to follow it and adjust it if you need to.
If you’re a ‘fly by the seat of your pants’ kind of person (and I don’t judge you if you are; I fully relate to that identity), then you either need other strategies to help you make healthy food choices on the go or you just need to be okay with the fact that life may throw obstacles at you from time to time. A third option is to learn to plan your meals.
Have back ups
Like I mentioned above, sometimes the day will unfold and what you’ve planned to eat doesn’t work out.
Maybe you forget to take your pre-made lunch to work (I’m guilty of this when I used to work at the office). Maybe the chicken you planned for dinner has spoiled, maybe one of your children ends up in emergency, maybe it’s been a crappy day and you want to eat something more comforting. Whatever happens, if you’ve got some back up food options up your sleeve, the complexities and uncertainties of life can be more easily managed.
In saying that, because life is complex and uncertain, there is nothing wrong with eating a meal that may not be the best from a nutritional perspective. Firstly, there is no such thing as the perfect diet or the perfect healthy meal, you’re just a human, eating food. Secondly, judgment, negative self-talk and beating yourself up over a food choice doesn’t help you improve them long term if this is your goal. Be kind to yourself. Self-compassion is an underrated super power when it comes to self care. If you eat something that you’re unhappy with, get curious about why and how that choice made you feel. Then you can think about how you might tackle that situation differently.
Here are some ideas for back up, when things don’t go your way:
You get takeaway and add vegetables
A side salad can boost the nutrient density of fried chicken or pizza. If you feel like takeaway, get it, and serve half your plate with salad. You could also plan to buy food out that contains a side salad already or it’s a salad packed sandwich or a meal with a side of vegetables.
You have your pantry stocked with easy staples
Tinned tuna, pre-cooked rice serves, wholemeal wraps, frozen vegetables, pre-chopped coleslaws or salad bags, 4 bean mix, BBQ chicken meat shredded in your fridge, individually portioned fish fillets, instant wholegrain noodles…
These are all examples of foods that you can call on to whip up a quick, balanced meal for when you’ve run out of time or things didn’t go the way you thought they would. There are so many options on the market today, so do a quick brainstorm or browse online, to get a feel for what options might work for you. Then, stock up your kitchen and feel great knowing that your plan B is sorted!
You do a swap-sy
I do this a lot. I have my meals all planned out in the Ayla Health App at the beginning of the week. However, as the week progresses, I frequently move things around. This happens mostly because I’m a ‘feel-y’ eater. This is not an official term but it just means that I decide what to eat based on what I feel like eating. I might look at a lunch option and think, I don’t really feel like that and so I’ll eat what I’ve planned for another day. This flexibility helps keep me consistent because I don’t feel locked into the plan, I feel free to make the food choices that feel right for me at the time.
You build your skills in the kitchen
‘Easy’ is a relative term and is 100% based on the skill level of the individual who is doing the task. It is easy for me to cook a fillet of salmon. For someone who has never tried this, it is not as easy or maybe just their perception that it is hard or they are unsure, makes this task difficult. What I’m trying to say is that the greater your food skills, the easier it will be to whip up a meal when you’re busy that both nourishes and satisfies you.
You don’t have to be a foodie, passionate home chef or cooking enthusiast. However, a desire to build your skills in this areas so that you can feed yourself well, is a worth endeavour in my books.
I’ve been cooking for myself and my household for 20 years and I can 100% tell you that it is SO much easier for me to cook at the end of busy day now, than it was when I first started. Don’t get me wrong, I still have times when I look at my family and think: “Do I have to fee you people again?’ but I can, if I really want to, put a nourishing and satisfying meal on the table in amongst the business of it all.
We’re so passionate about helping you stay organised that we’ve created a meal planning tool that not only plans your meals, but teaches you how to do it so you can reach your health goals!
