Nutrition: Planning Ahead

Here is a common scenario: you leave work and find yourself trying to figure out what to make for dinner as your drive home. You are already starting to feel hungry since it has been a few hours since lunch. As you mentally run through all the various items in your pantry, you realize that you don’t really have ingredients that work together to make a meal. You pass [insert fast food joint or restaurant here] and quickly decide that it would be easier to pick up a meal and bring it home. This way you don’t have to worry about taking the time to cook, not having the right ingredients, and you don’t have to wait to eat.

When you're hungry, all you want is to satisfy the hunger

Sounds familiar? It does to me! I used to never know what I was eating until it was time to eat, and then I was stumped for a few minutes while I tried to decide what to have. Of course, I was already super hungry by that point so my goal was to get yummy food, fast (that’s why Jimmy Johns is so successful with their “freaky fast” sandwich delivery!). There are a few reasons why this approach to nutrition is dangerous. First, when we are hungry we are more likely to make poorer nutrition choices because the focus isn’t on what we eat, but on getting food in our bellies as quickly as possible to satiate that hunger feeling. Second, because you are already hungry by the time you get food, you are likely to overeat because you will eat faster and your body has a bit of a delay in realizing that you’re full.

So, how do we combat this behavior? It has pretty much become the norm for many. The biggest change we can make is to start planning ahead. The rest will slowly fall into place if you start with this one change. Simply knowing what you are going to eat ahead of time will make you more aware of what you are ingesting into your body and help you avoid those situations where you make food decisions while hungry. This is the same reason you shouldn’t go grocery shopping when you’re hungry - you’re more likely to buy unhealthy foods because your hunger is making the decisions, not you!

How to start planning ahead:

• Spend some time thinking about what you’re going to eat. Write it down. I recommend taking some time on a day off and dedicate it to planning. I do this on Sundays to plan for the week ahead, but it might be a different day depending on your schedule… but try to plan out the whole week.

• During your planning, decide what you are going to have for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks. Don’t forget snacks! We often think of snacks as a bad thing, but that’s only because we often tend to think of chips, cookies, pretzels, or candy as “snacks.” Think of them instead as small meals to have in between your larger meals to keep you satiated and not feeling hungry in between breakfast and lunch, and lunch and dinner. Planned out, healthy snacks can be a great way to keep your nutrition on track.

• If you need help determining what to eat, find some yummy recipes. There are countless books and websites full of recipes to draw from. Be savvy and look for simple and healthy recipes rather than overly complicated and unhealthy ones. Stay away from the ones that include fried foods, high calorie, or sugary ingredients. Sometimes the unhealthy ingredients can be replaced with healthier options. Find recipes that you can make easily and that you would enjoy. If you like what you eat, you are more likely to want to eat it and make those healthy choices.

• Use the KISS method (Keep It Super Simple) - try not to make what you’re eating too complicated. We often get bogged down thinking we have to come up with some amazing meal where every ingredient deliciously complements the others and it has to be a meal with a name. Once I learned how to keep it simple, it made all the difference. I pick my protein (chicken, beef, tofu), veggies (frozen mixed veggies or salad), grains/starch (brown rice or sweet potato), and boom! I have dinner. It doesn’t have a fancy name, but it’s easy to make, satisfying, and healthy.

(The above examples of my dinner options are not an entire list; I just wanted to show you a few of the choices available, and those are MY go-tos. Yours might be different!)

• Once you’ve determined your meals, write out the ingredients you will need. THIS WILL BE YOUR GROCERY LIST. No more randomly walking the aisles, grabbing stuff you think you might be able to turn into a meal… You already know what you’re going to eat, and you just need to buy the ingredients for those meals. It makes grocery shopping much easier!

Daphne's Tip: when you find a website of recipes you like, bookmark it. Facebook has many pages and groups dedicated to healthy recipes, and you can save recipes and come back to them later. If you are looking through a recipe book, take pictures of the recipes you like and put them in a folder on your phone or tablet that's just for recipes. This way, when you need a meal idea, you have all of your recipes in a few easy to find places.

A meal plan calendar can help you get organized

I often hear clients saying they don’t have time to meal plan or prep. But, as you can see, it can be made simple and be efficient. By spending half an hour one day a week thinking about what you will eat during the week, you save all of those hours stressing about what to eat, going back to the grocery store for missing ingredients, buying fast food on the way home or cooking a quick dinner every night… and you will actually save money as well. You won’t waste money on groceries that go unused and you won’t be spending money at restaurants or fast food places for lunch or dinner. The average meal at a fast food restaurant costs $6 - if you go out 5 times a week for lunch at work, for example, that adds up to about $30 a week (more or less, depending on if you eat out more or less often). That adds up to about $120 a month. And that’s just for ONE meal. If you have a partner or a family, then double it or more. $120 a week gets you plenty of fresh and healthy groceries from which you can make many meals :)

The old me actually had this sign hanging in the kitchen!