Now I know what you’re already thinking…where’s our workout of the week!? But this week I want to stress the importance of combining healthy eating with these workouts each week! The past three weeks I have set you up with a full body workout, lower body workout and upper body workout for you to continue this week. So for today we are going to focus on nutrition!
Picture this: it’s 6 PM, you finally are ready to cook dinner and you’re exhausted from the day. All your meat is frozen, your produce has gone bad and you are just too exhausted to look up a recipe and cook a meal. So what’s the second option? Order a pizza? Frozen dinners? Boxed mac n’ cheese? Whatever your situation may be, a new mom or wife, working woman, college student, stay at home mom, all of these lifestyles encounter surprises and just overall busyness throughout the day and week, so it’s so easy to jump to these “quick, cheap, and easy” options…but is it best for your body?
So now you may be thinking “well no it’s not the best for my body, but you just said it, I don’t have time or energy to prep a meal.” And I have to 100% agree. After a long exhausting day, the last thing I want to do is go through the effort of defrosting meat and finding some recipe to make.
What if I told you there is a way to get cheap, easy, quick and HEALTHY?
Yes! Quick, easy, cheap and healthy. And no- before you click away thinking “I don’t want to spend 3 hours of my weekend meal prepping-” meal PREPPING is much different than meal PLANNING. All it takes is 5 or 10 minutes of your Saturday or Sunday and I have the perfect tool to help you get started. EVERY SUNDAY I sit down and plan out our meals for the week. This helps with a number of things…health, finances, and overall stress throughout the week. Cooking a healthy meal for you and your family should never be stressful and I have the perfect tool to help you get started.
As you can see, every single meal and snack is laid out for me. I don’t have an excuse to make a lunch run down the street to get Qdoba or an excuse to order a pizza on a Tuesday night. Saturday’s and Sunday’s are very flexible since we have plans changing constantly, so snacks, lunch and dinner is usually pretty flexible but we stick to those same snacks and lunches we had throughout the week. I plan out my busy nights as well, most Wednesdays we host a bible study at our house. So on Sunday I make sure to make some thing I know will have leftovers for dinner that night- and we don’t take the leftovers for lunch the next day! We only eat out once a week, usually Friday or Saturday night, and that’s for health AND budget purposes. (Be sure to keep up with the August Budget Challenge– more on that this week!)
NOW you may be thinking, how do you have time to prep all that food during a busy day? Well, whatever works for your schedule honestly, but it needs to become a priority. If you want to take the time out of your weekend to prep your breakfasts, snacks, lunches and dinners, go for it! For some that is much easier to get it all out of the way. Or maybe you’re like me and want to just do a little bit of prep on Sunday or Monday (next week I will share my breakfast burrito recipe and prep) and then prep as the week goes on. Every night before we go to bed, the lunches for the next day are always made so we don’t have the excuse of “I was running late and need to buy something,” and I check to see if anything will need to thaw out during the day the next day for dinner. That way when 6PM rolls around tomorrow and all I want to do is order that pizza, I already have my ingredients thawed and ready, recipe on hand and can quickly whip up a healthy, easy dinner.
What’s the next step?
If you’re anything like me, an impulsive eater, I definitely suggest using this document to get started to keep yourself accountable. If your on a low carb weight loss journey and read my “Losing Weight From Scratch” article, you may already be using the Atkins meal planning template, and that’s great! Keep it up! But if you’re more interested in just starting to eat healthier and live a healthier lifestyle this is a good place for step 1. After a few weeks or so of using this meal planning document, I guarantee you will get in the routine and not need the document. I actually just list our dinners on my phone every Sunday night. So don’t think you HAVE to use this to start eating healthy! But it’s something I want to offer if you don’t know where to start. Please head to my “Downloads Page” to get your own copy of this “Weekly Meal Planning Template.”
Health is not the only benefit you’ll get from meal planning… stay tuned this week for MORE tips on meal planning and how it will help you develop a healthier lifestyle and healthier bank account!