Hello! Welcome to my first blog post about my journey to being one step stronger! One of the first things I am looking at is my health. In particular, what I am eating daily and how I can change it to make myself healthier. So, if you too want to join me on this journey feel free to follow what I do or adapt it to fit your needs. (Remember I am not a dietician, nutritionist, or doctor so make sure you do what fits you)
At a basic level most of us have come to know food as the fuel source of our body. It gives us the energy or fuel that our body needs to survive and thrive. But, it does so much more, think about all of the good times you have had with family or friends whether that be at holidays, birthdays, celebrations, or events. What is the one thing that all of these gatherings have in common? Food. I mean who doesn’t love a good Thanksgiving dinner, birthday cake, or grandma’s homemade cookies? Events are using food as a way to share time, laughs, and so much more. The food is what brings us all together. Food plays an extremely important role in our social lives, another words our social lives likely shape what we eat.
I do not think it is difficult for most to reasonably look at something they are eating and determine whether it is healthy or not. It is rather simple to identify what is healthy. So, why do we choose to not eat what is better for our bodies? For me it is because I usually lack the time and then motivation to make the meal. Usually speaking, junk food is easily accessible and easy to cook. So, how do we make healthy food easy to access and cook? The classic: meal prep.
Yes, I know the famous and extremely popular meal prepping what a surprise! Well, I mean seriously, consider how meal prepping can actually alleviate a lot of the stress/unnecessary wasted time around preparing food daily. Less of your extremely important time will wasted cooking and preparing meals throughout the week. Additionally, you will have the ability to personally prepare and consciously make the decision about what you will eat. It gives you control over your future. It gives you the ability to cook and prepare the meal once. Then, once the meal is cooked, you have that meal that you can eat throughout the week. This is critical because it makes it such that you will know what you are putting into your body and you will have easy access to that food.
I started doing this about a year or so ago and I will never look back. It has literally changed my life. One thing you might be thinking is well this is good and all but I don’t want the same meal everyday. The great thing about prepping is you have the control to do it however you please. I suggest alternating meals and maybe stick to recipes that only make three servings so you won’t be stuck with that meal forever. I personally find myself going back to the same meals and I am not too bothered by every day of the week having the same meal. But, you do you as each of us are different.
This week I will be making for breakfast a great recipe I found from The Meal Prep Manual. It is called Lemon Blueberry Baked Oatmeal on the MealPrepManual website linked here and it is amazing. This recipe has been a great one for me. I love having something sweet like this all ready for me to eat before I head off to work. You simply throw this into the microwave and enjoy. It is super simple to make and requires barely any work or cleanup considering how good it is. Here are some slight modifications to the recipe I have made: adding more egg whites usually double, using low-fat cream cheese, no butter, no sugar, and I don’t find the need for the lemon zest.
I challenge you to meal prep your meal of your choosing for the week. It is recommended that you do something healthy of course, but maybe you just don’t want healthy right away, that is fine too. Either way, do your meal prepping and tell me how it goes.
Remember though, use meal prepping as a way to generally have this easy access meal, but don’t let it get in the way of your social life. It is also important to enjoy your time with others and sometimes that might mean stepping away from the prepping for a bit which is okay!