#literally the BEST pizza. homemade pizza is legit the best

[sleep-nurse]

Hullo Fren!! I'm so sorry it's super stereotypical, but what are in your opinion the most underrated and overrated pizza toppings?? (For me Assorted Veggies are the underrated one because they are so good, and extra cheese is overrated, because my tum can barely handle the regular amount of cheese hahah)

OK SO BASING IT OFF YOUR CHOICES i think assorted veggies are really good, though of course it depends on what veggies you put on the pizza HJKSDGHJKEHJKHEG

as for extra cheese? NEVER. I HATE IT WITH ALL MY LIFE

#asks #my favourite topping that me and my family make with homemade pizza is like #mozzarella with bell peppers and onions #literally the BEST pizza. homemade pizza is legit the best #it comes out all soft and chunky.............I WANT SOME NOW #but yeah extra cheese pizza is literally the bane of my existence i can't handle so much cheese #let alone cheese on pizza. like i prefer specifically mozzarella on it #YES i know it's still cheese but I DONT CARE!!!!!!!!

[sarahunfiltered-blog1]

My Diet/Fitness/Nutrition Journey Thus Far

Most of the memories I have of life growing up revolve mostly around food. I remember growing up and all we’d eat was Sonic, Dairy Queen, Whataburger, McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, you name it, I ate it. I could still to this day probably tell you my order from each place. I was raised on Hamburger Helper, Ramen noodles, Rice a Roni, canned and boxed everything, candy and soda. 

I remember when I was around maaaaaybe 12-13 and my mom doing a diet that may have been slim quick or something along the lines of you eat chicken and veggies, take these pills and do some sort of workout. I had a really bad sweet tooth (still do) as a kid and I started to gain weight and at 13 I was 165lbs, so my mom included me into her diet routine and I would eat the chicken and veggies, rice cakes, a tbsp of coconut oil and would chew sugar gum and we’d walk between the stop signs on the street we lived on and I’d do her workouts with her. I remember watching my brothers and sisters eating candy while I ate my caramel rice cakes because I was the bigger one of all of them, so for the longest time I was just the fat tomboy of a girl that would stare at herself in the mirror and look at how big my butt was at 13 and hating it and my stomach to stuck out and my fat face. I remember I used to grab my stomach and cry and scream about how much I hated it. If only I were skinny I’d be enough. I would sneak and binge on sweets, it was my comfort, it was there for me and it made me feel better

When I got my period and more of my hormones kicked in I lost a lot of weight. I want to say I got down to 125 when I was around 14-15 and I wouldn’t eat because I was extremely depressed. My sweet tooth was still there, but I wouldn’t eat because I thought eating would make me fat, so I wouldn’t and when I did it was minimal. I ate a lot of 100 calorie snacks, drank juice like V8 because I thought it was healthy, diet coke because it was diet and wouldn’t make me fat. When I was 16 I started working at Target and they have a Pizza Hut Cafe and almost every shift I would go pick up there bread sticks and a diet Pepsi and that would be my lunch (the thought of that now literally makes me cringe). I went to a bible college from 17-almost 18 and ate Ramen noodles and whatever shit food they served while I was there, but I didn’t know any different so I just ate it. I was still pretty skinny because ya know I was 15-17 and you can eat like shit and still be a twig.

When I turned 18 and moved out of my parents house my diet didn’t suuuuper change. I was still living a hardcore Taco Bell and Pizza Hut bread sticks and diet coke life style because I was living on my own, broke as a joke and ate the food I was used to eating, but then I gained probably 30lbs easily within a short amount of time (surprise surprise). I had spent my whole time as a teenager not wanting to be the fat kid and here I was back at 165lbs... wtf. I didn’t really know how to cook, didn’t have money for groceries, refused to apply for food stamps, so I just thought starting to workout would cure all my problems. Well, it didn’t long story short. I mean why didn’t working out and running for an hour THEN going eat Taco Bell work? I was working out, right? HA.

I remember scrolling Pinterest when I discovered it and finding the “Military Diet” and giving that a go. You basically don’t eat anything for 3 days and could apparently lose 10lbs. I wanted to DIE during that diet. I made it the first time around and lost 5lbs, then gave it another go and didn’t make it 2 days and stopped by Taco Bell on my way home from work and binged on that. So my diet search continued... One of my coworkers at the time started using My Fitness Pal to track her calories and she was losing weight like crazy, so I obviously I needed to give it a go and the weight just started falling fall. I went from 165lbs to 125lbs within a matter a months. I didn’t work out, I just ate less than 1,500 calories a day, cold turkey stopped eating candy, drinking soft drinks and unfortunately my Pizza Hut bread sticks. Everything was going GREAT. When I wanted to go down to the next lbs and I was 0.2 from it I would pop a few laxatives the night before and then would weight myself the next morning after shitting my brains out, but I HAD to lose that 0.2lbs.. just had to. I became overly obsessed with counting calories and eating lean cuisines and and 100 calories snacks and drinking Naked juice and weighing myself DAILY and measuring every single little thing I ate and would legit cry if I went over my calories. Funny, not so funny story. One weekend I was headed to my mom’s and had already eaten all of my calories for the day, but was staaaaaaaarving, so I stopped by Jimmy John’s and ate a sandwich that was 800ish calories, which put me 800ish calories over what I was “allowed” to eat, so you bet your ass I drug all of my brother and sisters and mom to a walking trail and walked/ran until I burned off the entire sandwich because I wouldn’t sleep peaceful knowing what I did by eating that sandwich. It was bad, just so bad. I remember the day I hit a breaking point and just wanted some damn chocolate chop cookies, but didn’t have the calories saved for it, but I binged on them anyways and cried in Michael’s arms over what I did and he was telling me it was fiiiiiiine and all the sweet things he could, but it wasn’t to me in that moment, but in that moment I just knew I needed to stop all of this, so I did. I feel like I remember just deleting the app off my phone and being done with it. I was 20 at this point and working a standing job.

Beginning in February of 2014 I started a corporate sitting job, so I didn’t have access to Starbucks or a grocery store on my breaks like I did working at Target, so I had to start bringing my lunches and snacks and to top it all off I was sitting. As you could maybe imagine I started gaining weight from being stagnant and snacking ALL day at my desk (#teamnutrigrain). I put on a good 20lbs within the first couple of months. So I started going for walks on my breaks, eating a lean cuisine a day, eating more fresh fruits and veggies, almonds, and limited my snacking to only in the afternoons and that kind of helped and worked for me for a long time and I stayed at a healthy maybe 140ish lbs and that worked for me because I was still skinny. All about that skinny life because skinny = healthy, right? Well, I thought so. 

I turned 21 and didn’t go crrazzzyy drinking, but I drank moscato and margarita’s often enough and still was all about my Friday candy binge. I was also drinking up to 3 cups of coffee a day at work and just couldn’t figure out why I was sweating and so anxious all the time. I genuinely thought it was from work when in reality I was just pumping myself with coffee after coffee after coffee day in and day out (I’ve learned since my lesson since then). I went through a phase of HIIT workout and running, but that faded really quick, but I really enjoyed hiking when I gave it a go, still do. Along with yoga which I am planning to make a goal of starting a practice in 2018. 

Around the time I turned 22-23 my older sister, Meghann, had a baby and really educated herself around living a more holistic lifestyle and it really intrigued me and around that time I had discovered podcasts and I realized how much processed foods aren’t the best choice and what I could do as an alternative way of going about eating, so I stopped lean cuisine’s (haven’t had one since), milk and yogurt along with limiting candy and processed snacks. I completely cleaned my desk out at work from all the sugar filled granola bars and whatever else I had in there and started to work with that. I shortly thereafter learned about one of the best ways of going about what to eat/not eat is if it didn’t come from the earth and/or has a label on it to think twice before eating it and READ the back of the label if you do. This is still newer-ish to me to do and I’m currently learning about all things nutrition, and how the mind, body and spirit all work together and you can’t have one fully without the other.

 As of now I don’t drink dairy milk, I limit cheese but still love it, I grocery shop once a week and buy as much organic produce as possible, I am still working on the meat switch when it comes to buying organic meat (not quite there yet), I cold turkey stopped eating candy and have found organic, non high fructose corn syrup filled alternatives when I have a sweet tooth, I haven’t been drinking alcohol much the last 2 months or so (don’t have a legit reasoning behind it, just doesn’t sound good), I am really into cooking paleo, vegan, Whole30 friendly foods because it coincides with my eating from the earth method I live by and when I want Whataburger breakfast on a Friday or a taco with a flour tortilla or a real homemade chocolate chip cookie I happily will eat it because I do not believe in living a restricted lifestyle. My entire life leading up to recently whether it was mentally, spiritually or physically has been restricted and I’m not OK with it because it’s limiting and keeps me in a box. I’m a believer in the energy you put into something is negative the outcome will be negative, so if I’m to sit here and say “this is cookie is SO bad for me. OMG. I am going to gain 10lbs.” Well, I’m asking for it to happen, versus eating the cookie cause I want the damn cookie and loving every bit. They doesn’t mean I sit there and eat 12, it just means my mindset around food was so terrible for so long and I know what it did to me mentally that is not worth it for me to be negative about it. I am content and happy with where I am out now, I don’t even care to weigh myself anymore, I don’t body shame myself anymore, I don’t calorie count, I don’t binge, I don’t use food as a reward system, I just educate myself around it, listen to my body and see how it feels and go from there. My anxiety has lessened, I sleep so much better, I feel so peaceful inside and out, and my skin has completely cleared up (I’ll talk about my skincare routine future post).  It’s been a long, ongoing journey, but I am thankful for the million and 2 podcasts I’ve listened to, my sister and everyone else along the way to get me to where I am today and I am excited to continue to learn and grow and now have a place to share all the info I am taking in and it maybe help someone else. :)

- Sarah xo

#food #nutrition #exercise #lifetip #health #wellness

[ktrxs]

1.24.19

I almost kms because I almost wrote 2018 instead of 2019.

I have so much fucking food to eat because I made chili and then I made spanish rice and I made a shit ton because one would assume the husband needs to fill his stomach as well but apparently the food turned out too spicy and the husband can’t handle spice because... child and now I have to eat this alone.

And there’s soooo much. Like, I knew the chili would be spicy. I was planning on eating that alone (literally like 5 jalapenos in that fucker). But, the spanish rice came from a box. And I did not expect the spice and Brandon was like... no.

So. I’m waiting for the food to be gone so I can make da pizzzzzzzzzzza.

I bought an 8 pack of tortillas and mudathuckas you know I’m eating 4 whole pizzas.

I eat chesseless pizza. But, it’s great because I have a chinese secret. No, the secret doesn’t come from pizza making chinese people. It come from a chinese sauce. Orange sauce... I put that shit on my pizza and OMG.

So, tortilla, homemade marinara, onions, pineapple, a shit ton of springmix and spinach, broccoli, bascially make that motherfucker green and then drizzle orange sauce on top. GUISE

Brandon will have a boring ass cheese and onion tortilla pizza and I will be downing some sucking goodness. The word “sucking” in the last sentence was a beautiful typo from the really real totally legit gods above.

I force myself to keep dreaming every day. I stay in bed for hours because in my dreams, Mamie is alive.

We had freezing temps the last few days and holy hell my pipes froze. Well.. the toilet and the kitchen sink froze. The shower and bathroom sink is always dripping for the cats because I’m the worst environmentalist but the best cat mom so they were okay.

But we could do dishes and it sucked and I couldn’t have filtered water and i am dehydrated.

So.. it came back on last night and FINALLY. So I have dishes to do. and I have water to drink.

I can’t wait to get started reading How Not to Die again. I’m going to have 3 weeks to read it to stay on track with my reading goals. It’s a massive textbook and last night I made a reading plan. I know how much to read a day and a week.

I read about half way last year. But never finished it. So, this time it’s happening.

I am so excited for my birthday because I am getting a daily dozen poster and a vegan sweater. Can’t. Wait.

I’m not exactly in love with the poster, but I love the concept and I might just make my own and have Staples print it for me.

[quizmeghan]

#13

1. What is your middle name? Sharleen. 2. Do you have any nicknames that aren’t derived from your actual name? I don’t. 2. Do you have any allergies? i’m allergic to msg that’s in most Chinese takeaway foods - not diagnosed or anything, but I cannot eat more than a few bites without feeling sick, shaky and sweaty, which generally takes away the enjoyment haha. 4. What is the longest your hair has ever been? above the bottom of my back. 5. How well can you write in cursive? I've been told I have really nice, neat handwriting, and I like writing in cursive, so I suppose quite well. 6. Name one item on your bucket list. I want to visit New York at Christmas time. 7. Have you ever been on a blind date? never. 8. What is the oldest piece of clothing you still wear and how old is it? I have an atl tshirt from their gig in 2009 but I don’t wear it anymore. 9. How often do you eat out at a fancy restaurant? before this i’d eat out at normal restaurants about once or twice a month, but never really FANCY places. 10. How grammatically correct are you when you text? i’m quite bad for being really grammatically correct, and autocorrect usually changes shortcuts for me as well. 11. Can you drive stick? I love getting to a certain question in these things then realising it was written by an American haha; yes I can drive stick. 12. What foreign country would you most like to visit and why? I've been to both italy and spain, but italy was around venice so i’d like to visit rome, and the last time i was in Barcelona i was about 7 or 8 years old, so i’d like to go there as an adult. 13. Nutella or peanut butter? Nutella!!! 14. At what age did you have your first kiss? like, 19. 15. DC or Marvel? please; marvel. 16. Have you ever hosted a wild party? no, and if you knew me you’d know why that’s so funny to me. 17. Name/author of the last book you read cover to cover. Do you recommend it? harry potter and the deathly hallows by she who shall not be named; and yes, i’d recommend the story but not the author. 18. How many of your Facebook friends do you actually hang with? legit, 4 or 5 at most. 19. Have you ever donated blood? i’m not allowed to, but I would if I could. 20. From 1-10, how much do you like decorating for holidays? 20! 21. Coffee or tea? if I had to pick; tea. 22. What is your go-to Starbucks drink? their strawberries and cream frappuccino drink, that’s always nice haha. 23. Last show you binge watched? me and my mum just finished seasons 1-5 of how to get away with murder on Netflix, and I accidentally spoiled s6 for myself by reading one of the actors insta’s. we can’t get s6 yet so I need to wait for Netflix, gdi. 24. Dogs or cats? dogs. 25. Favorite animated Disney character? Rapunzel is my fave. 26. Have you ever cooked a big family meal by yourself? yeah, I love cooking. 27. Favorite winter activity? ohhh, visiting Christmas markets. 28. Have you ever butt dialed anyone? a few times. 29. Can you blow a bubble gum bubble? yep. 30. How early in the year do you start celebrating Christmas? outwardly? as soon as my household allows it, but inwardly? October 31st after our work disco’s are finished hahah. 31. What emoji best describes your life right now? the facepalm one, the see no evil monkey one, the crying one and the crying laughing one. 32. Are you fluent in more than one language? I know a bit of French but i’m not fluent. 33. What is the longest you’ve ever kept a New Year’s resolution? I don’t even make them anymore haha. 34. Have you ever successfully been on a diet? Did you gain any of the weight back? no haha. 35. Are any of your grandparents still alive? my dad’s mum is still alive, but I don’t speak to her. 36. How good are you at communicating through facial expressions? very good. 37. Have you ever gotten a commercial jingle stuck in your head? all. the. time. 38. Have you ever left a movie theater before the movie was over? no and I take pride in that fact, despite actualy sitting through the newest fuckin’ blade runner movie. 39. Do you consider rapping singing? it’s a form of it, yes. 40. Does your home have a fireplace? yes. not a real one though haha. 41. Favorite non-chocolate candy? ooft… the only thing I can think of is peach heart gums. i’m not really a gum/candy sort of person. 42. If you could have only one superpower, what would you want and why? invisibility - you could literally sneak in anywhere. 43. Have you ever locked your keys in your car? nope. 44. Do you listen to any religious music? no. 45. Do you drink soda? If so, which one is your favorite? diet irn bru is my fave, but I do like a draught diet coke or pepsi max. but they have to be draught. 46. What was your ACT score? idek what that could be. 47. Rice or quinoa? basmati rice, mmm. 48. From 1-10, how good of a driver do you consider yourself? like, an 8 or 9. 49. Do you like horror movies? I love them but I also hate them. 50. How easily do you cry? all it takes is a tv advert really. 51. Do you have any tattoos? If so, of what and where? I have a lily on my right thigh, an anchor on my left wrist, pawprints just above my right ankle, and on the top of my left calf I have a butterfly, and my right is a wasp. 52. You are hanging with your closest friends. What are you most likely doing? if it’s a night in, eating pizza and chilling or a night out also eating pizza in one of our fave bars and then going to our fave club after haha. 53. Can you handle spicy foods? What is your spice limit? I can handle sort of moderate spice but nothing too hot. 54. Can you play any musical instruments? If so, which ones? in school I took lessons for guitar, bass, keyboard and vocals in school but don’t anymore. 55. Are you more introverted or extroverted? I N T R O V E R T. 56. Last CD you bought? wake up sunshine by all time low. 57. Do you like roller coasters? LOVE them. I was in the car earlier and we were on the motorway so I shut my eyes and pretended I was in a theme park hahaha. disclaimer: I was not driving the car. 58. What day of the week is laundry day for you? whenever I need to do it. 59. Have you ever played spin the bottle? i have, but we played it as truth or dare, not having to kiss the person it lands on. 60. How long have you known your best friend? 15 years. 61. Can you eat using chopsticks? i can but it takes me forever and it’s an embarrassing time for all involved. 62. Do you have any stickers on your laptop computer? If so, what are they of?  no, i’m too anal to ‘ruin’ the look. 63. How often do you say y'all? only ironically. 64. Favorite flavor of ice cream? depends on the day, usually just vanilla or maybe raspberry ripple. i love mint chocolate chip too though. 65. How long was your longest relationship? Are you still with that person? hahaha, I've never been in a relationship. 66. Star Trek or Star Wars? trek (but only the new chris pine ones). 67. How good are you at math? fairly good.  68. Have you ever acted in a play or a musical? in the school nativity shows when i was aged between 4-10. 69. How often do you read/pay attention to your horoscope? only if i come across it do i read it but usually just to slag it. 70. What is the shortest your hair has ever been? when my mum gave me what was nothing short of a RIDICULING bowl-cut sort of hairdo. 71. Have you ever broken any bones? never. knock wood. 72. Do you like to go fishing? nope. 73. Do you believe in evolution? yes. 74. Favorite costume you wore for Hallowen? How old were you? i’m always partial to a cat, from when i was young to now, but my favourite was a witch which i used a few years running for disco’s in work. aged 20-odds. 75. Real or fake Christmas trees? real. 76. How many pillows do you sleep with? five. my head goes on one and the rest go around and about my body. 77. Do you live in an apartment or a house? house. 78. How many of your friends are of the opposite gender? none. 79. Have you ever had a near-death experience? no. 80. How long have you been at your current job? 8 years. 81. What kind of car do you drive (year, brand, model, color)? my dads HAHA. i used to drive a silver Renault clio before i got rid of my car. 82. Have you ever been fired from a job? nope. 83. Have you ever ended a romantic relationship? i mean, i ‘went out’ with someone for like a day then ended that, but i wouldn’t call that a romantic relationship. 84. Phrase you say the most? i say the word bangin’ a lot. 85. Have you ever kissed anyone of the same gender? If so, did you like it? little pecks, not a full-on kiss though. 86. Do you eat meat at all? i do but I've gone off it more and more. 87. Do you like fast food? love it; god damn you covid. 88. Have you ever given anyone CPR? thankfully no, although i am fully trained to do so. 89. Have you ever learned to do anything from a a how-to video on YouTube? yeah, mostly like, how to braid hair etc. 90. Describe your sense of humor. dry, sarcastic, dark, self-depreciating. 92. Favorite cereal? i don’t really eat cereal much, but i do like frosties. 93. Have you ever auditioned for a reality competition show? no. 94. Have you ever been in the audience for the taping of a TV show? no. 95. Do you believe in ghosts? i do. 96. Do you think there is life on other planets? i think so. 97. Have you ever given money to a street performer? i don’t remember. 98. Your deepest fear? the ocean haha. 99. Pancakes or waffles? waffles. 100. Are you still friends with anyone from high school? my only friends are my friends from high school. 101. From 1-10, how good of a dancer do you consider yourself? the lower end of that scale haha. 102. How much of a patient person are you? i’m really patient, but I've been known to lose patience quickly sometimes. 103. Do you know your IQ? no. 104. Do you own any homemade clothing? my friend knitted me a snood a few years ago for Christmas. 105. Do you own any clothes from a garage sale or a thrift store? i don’t think so. 106. Have you ever bought anything from a flea market? nope. 107. Have you ever quit a job? no, but I've been on the verge for years haha. 108. Have you ever gotten a song you dislike stuck in your head? all the time. 109. Any movie(s) you can watch over and over and over again and enjoy just as much each time? easy a, harry potter, Disney, literally any of these. 110. Have you ever gotten a TV theme song stuck in your head? yeah. 111. Have you ever skinny dipped? nope. 112. Are your birth parents together? they are. 113. Do you or have you ever worn glasses? I've been given glasses before which had the weakest prescription, but that was in the run-up to me being diagnosed as diabetic, so i reckon it was more to do with that. 114. Favorite type of cookie? milk chocolate chip. 115. Have you ever been broken up with? again, no relationship. 116. How often do you smile when getting your picture taken? all the time. i get nervous haha. 117. Have you ever accidentally dialed 911? no. 118. Oldest memory? i remember my sister being born when i was two. 119. Have you ever been the victim of a nasty prank? in school people would go about chuking those snapper fireworks, or would tape tacs to the ends of pens and stab people in their legs or arse; folk would call those pranks but i just call that stupidity. 120. How often do you snort when you laugh? not often. 121. From 1-10, how good of a singer do you consider yourself? people tell me i’m more towards an 8 but i’d say a 5 or 6. 122. Favorite Disney song? ohhh, i love i see the light from tangled, but i also really love i just can’t wait to be king from the lion king because it’s so fun. 123, Where do you see yourelf 10 years from now? hopefully finally being a teacher. 124. What is your Myers-Briggs personality type? isfj. 125. Have you ever had a fortune cookie fortune come true? well, we once went to a Chinese restaurant to celebrate me getting my degree and the fortune cookie was related to hard work paying off or something, so that’s about as true as they have ever been for me. 126. Name one thing you wish people would stop posting on social media. happy heavenly birthdays. bane of my LIFE. 127. Last musical artist you saw live? the Jonas brothers! (it should have been 5sos, but that and McFly were both rescheduled. up yours, covid). 128. Credit cards or cash? cards. 129. Favorite fandom? i flit between but i love the harry potter one. 130. What is your astrological sign? aquarius. 131. How flexible are you? i used to be soooo much more flexible. 132. Any hidden talents? i’m sort of crafty but it’s not really a hidden talent. 133. Can you surf? no and i’d hate to try it. 134. What motivates you to do well in life? i’m not really sure. 135. Your worst physical feature? all of it? 136. From 1-10, how much are you like your father? physically i look more like my dad but i act more like and get on better with my mum. 137. How lucky do you consider yourself? very. 138. Name a moment in your life when you were pleasently surprised. when i guy i liked liked me back (however briefly). 139. Have you ever been summoned for jury duty? never, and it’s so weird and slightly upsetting to me because my degree is in criminology. 140. What type of shoes do you wear the most? trainers. 141. Favorite summer activity? going out to parks or zoos with friends. 142. Favorite song to sing in the shower? depends on my mood! 143. Have you ever lived with a roommate you did not get along with? yeh, i moved into residential halls in uni and i didn’t speak to any of them. 144. Have you ever lived on a farm? nope. 145. Have you ever kept a diary or a journal?  when i was younger. 146. TV show or movie you quote/reference the most? anything Disney, or shrek. 147. How often do you get mad at yourself? a lot. 148. Have you ever gotten any stitches? no. 149. Have you ever been hunting? NO. 150. Favorite YouTube channel? i don’t really watch youtube. 151. Have you ever had a pet besides a dog or a cat? we’ve had fish, hamsters, rabbits, birds and gerbils as well as cats and dogs. 152. From 1-10, how well do you work with others? 8 or 9. 153. Are you friends with any of your exes? i have no exes. 154. Apple or PC? pc (but apple for phones). 155. Do you collect anything? concert tickets. 156. Have you ever seen any Broadway plays or musicals? not actually on broadway, but I've seen the lion king in Edinburgh and the cursed child parts 1 and 2 in London. 157. Any missed opporunites you wish you had taken? yep. 158. Have you ever uttered a spoken hashtag? yes haha. 159. Do you have a pool at your house? no, it’s Scotland, we’d freeze to death. 160. What is the longest you’ve gone without sleep? two and a bit days. 161. Last thing that made you laugh? question 159. 162. Disney or Nickelodeon? Disney. 163. Name one celebrity you wish was still alive. alan Rickman. 164. From 1-10, how much are you like your mother? physically, not much, but i’m more like her in personality. 165. Your best physical feature? eyes (or eye, seeing as one can’t really be counted as functioning at the moment). 166. Earbud or earmuff headphones? bud. anything else infects my piercings haha. 167. Have you ever wished you were born the opposite gender? i think most people might have thought it when they were younger, cos i did, but not truly. i know that can be a difficult idea for some to deal with. 168. Do you have any piercings anywhere besides your ear lobes? I've got three helix piercings. 169. How often do you wash your hair? I've tried to do it less over lockdown because i wash it too much, but i used to wash it every two days. 170. Showers or baths? showers! baths mean you’re just soaking in your own dirt. i only take baths if i’m in a lot of pain, and even if i do, i have to take a shower immediately after. 171. Have you ever been a bridesmaid or a groomsman? I've been a bridesmaid once. 172. Bottled or tap water? i’m not fussed, but prefer bottled. 173. What was your favorite TV show when you were a kid? i loved tots tv and barney. 174. Any guilty pleasures you’re willing to discuss? nothing that i can think of, i openly love cheesy shit. 175. Favorite video game? i don’t play them now but i used to love crash bandicoot and spyro the dragon. 176. Have you ever gotten a New Year’s kiss exactly at midnight? nope. 177. How many of the United States have you visited? one - florida, two years ago, and we literally didn’t leave the Disney bubble. 178. Have you ever given money to a homeless person? i think so. 179. Have you ever gotten a surgery? a couple. 180. Your least favorite food? turnip and potato mashed together, YUCK. 181. From 1-10, how competitive are you? maybe 3 or 4. 182. Do you like wearing hats? i don’t suit them. 183. How much of a jealous peron are you? not really jealous at all. 184. What was your SAT score? not relevanttt. 185. Have you ever voted for a reality competition show? yeah but only the free ones haha. 186. Does anyone in your family currently serve in your country’s military? nope. 187. Snowboarding or skiing? I've been skiing once before on a fake ramp and i prefer the idea of two skis to one skateboard. 188. What celebrity would you most want to play you in a movie about your life? emma stone or anna Kendrick. 189. Have you ever been a Boy or Girl Scout? i was a brownie. 190. Have you ever dyed your hair? since i was 9 years old. 191. From 1-10, how good of a cook do you consider yourself? 7 or 8. 192. You have just opened up a web browser. What is the first site you visit? google. 193. How many things can you do with your weaker hand? what sort of question is that? hahaha. 194. Were you involved in any academic clubs in high school? nope. 195. Have you ever played hooky from school? yes, but with my mums permission so idk if that really counts as playing hooky. there was also one time that i literally walked out because i was so stressed and sad but i went back under an hour later lol. 196. Are you comfortable with watching rated R movies? yep. 197. Do you root for any sports teams? nope. 198. First thing you do when you wake up in the morning? check my phone then take my insulin. 199. If you could take home any one animal from the zoo, which one would you choose? a giraffe. 200. Tell something about yourself most people don’t know. no because i’m lazy and i just answered 199 questions about myself.

#13 #quiz #source: tumblr

[parentingguide8-blog]

19 Parents Spill About Their Kids Weirdest Friends

New Post has been published on https://parentinguideto.com/must-see/19-parents-spill-about-their-kids-weirdest-friends/

19 Parents Spill About Their Kids Weirdest Friends

Parents don’t always have control over who their kids befriend, as much as they’d like to.

Most of the time, that’s totally fine!

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But sometimes, your kid comes home with a friend like this:

Some kids are just weird.

Here, 19 parents share the strangest kids their children have ever brought home. Do you have a story of your own?

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Stolen everything

via: Shutterstock

This kid lives down the road and shows up to take things from my kids: their bikes, their shoes, literally anything that isn’t bolted down.

It’s weird when he takes their bikes because he bikes to our house.

I’m pretty sure he doesn’t go to school? It is usually after the kids are in class he will just walk up in our house and be watching tv.

We have to tell him to go home often because he either is being raised by wolves or doesn’t care –NarawynSeven

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Super soaked

via: Shutterstock

My son brought home a kid to play at our house when he was in 3rd grade.

This kid was a giant bundle of nervous energy and always getting in trouble. Doing things he wasn’t supposed to.

It didn’t matter how many times you warned him; he didn’t seem to listen.

It was the next day that I discovered one of my son’s Super Soaker water guns lying in the flower bed. When I picked it up, I noticed a strange smell of gasoline.

He must have used the 1-gallon plastic gasoline can I stored next to my mower and filled the gun up with flammable fluid.

We banned him from coming over again. –spangdooler

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Too young

via: Shutterstock

There’s a kid who lives down the street, and he keeps coming over to hang out with my brothers.

We all agree that he’s a little weird, but we don’t want him over right now because he walked outside and asked my mum if he and my brothers could watch porn.

The kid is 12, and my brothers are 12 and 10. –mechilide

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17:38

via: Shutterstock

My step-daughter brought a girl back after school once, a very odd girl. They’d have been about 12 at the time.

So I asked if she wanted to stay for tea which she did.

Then a little while later I asked when her mum was picking her up and this was her reply, “I have asked mother to collect me at 17:38. So that is when I shall leave, oh and if I feel like coming tomorrow can we have something better for tea.”

She was not back again tomorrow –donbanana

The next one is legit creepy.

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FOOD

via: Shutterstock

Lol. My sister had a friend when they 7 or so. She had her spend the night.

The next morning, she got up, went to the kitchen where my mom was doing something and said very emphatically “FOOD.”

Now, my momma isn’t one to take any guff, so she turned around, cocked her eyebrow and said, “Excuse me?”.

This little girl’s response: “Now.” –hihelloneighboroonie

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Meow

via: Shutterstock

I have a coworker that meows at people. She’s in her 60’s. –banjo11

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Pee on toys

via: Shutterstock

One that when things did not go his way, unzipped his pants and peed all over one of my kids’ toys. He was 9 at the time.

We sent him on his way, with the toy in question (an old parking-thingy for Hotwheels that my kids didn’t play with anymore).

Within 5 minutes, the kid’s dad is at the door. Dad asks nicely why we made his child take the thing with him.

We explain, also nicely, that the parking garage he is clutching in his hands has been urinated upon by his son.

He understood and went back. Son came back 5 mins later to apologize. –YouKeepThisLove

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Fluffy

via: Shutterstock

My brother once brought home a tiny ball of fluff. He had a very active imagination and insisted that it was a mouse that he had rescued from a sewer drain.

It was pretty obviously just a cotton ball or pompom, so my parents decided to humor him when he named it “Fluffy.”

About 10 minutes later the cotton ball jumped or moved or something, and my parents freaked out.

Turns out it actually was a wild mouse that he rescued from a sewer drain, and by that time my mom had allowed him to keep it.

My brother was heartbroken when they explained that wild animals lived in the wild, and we couldn’t keep Fluffy here. –Kyocrazy

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Unfathomable

via: Shutterstock

My brother brought home a friend that drank his milk with ice in it –sarcasmandirony

The next one is a doozy.

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Cardboard box

via: Shutterstock

My daughter had a friend in first grade who creeped me out.

My daughter was a quirky kid herself and didn’t fit in with the mainstream girls so at first, I was happy she found someone.

But this girl, Becky, was so weird. She never spoke directly to me, and whenever she came over to play, she always carried this cardboard box. She was very pale and wore her hair in two very tight pigtails.

Inside the box was a large chunk of styrofoam with these huge bugs she had pinned to it and labeled in marker. Giant centipedes, house spiders…I’m not sure where she got them.

I was so happy when that silent, strange girl moved away at the end of the school year. –AlexandraPants

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via: Shutterstock

Not a parent, but my older brother once brought a friend home when there was no one in the house.

My parents get home (having never met this kid) and he suddenly swivels around in my dad’s office chair and shouts in his best bond villain voice “I’VE BEEN EXPECTING YOU!” –carterhatesmemes

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Sneaky

via: Shutterstock

My sister had a friend growing up who would just magically find a way into our house on occasion.

We would all be gone for the day and come to her sitting on the couch in the living room even though we had locked the doors on the way out.

Super weird. –ZM_Tendie_Bear

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Fairy

via: Shutterstock

Not a parent, but as a former child, I have an answer to this.

I had a friend growing up who claimed (for a very long time) that she was a fairy and would turn into one of those ’90s butterfly hair clips when nobody was looking.

I also watched her grab a handful of grass from my front yard and eat it, dirt and all because she insisted that was part of her normal diet.

Strange kid. –MyStageName

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Steiner school

via: Shutterstock

My sister once brought home a Steiner school student once (no bloody idea how she met her given the Steiner school was on the other side of town and she was 7).

She was… interesting.

She said she couldn’t eat homemade Anzac biscuits because she didn’t know what chemicals I had put in them and then went outside to stick sticks into the ground and pick a bunch of stinging nettles to make tea with (she didn’t make the tea though. There was no f*cking way I’d let a bunch of stinging nettles anywhere near my tea strainer).

She was a real fruitcake.

Weirder than my friend whose family still acted like they were still living in East Germany according to my parents. –Plethora_of_squids

The next one is actually kind of hilarious.

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Michael Jackson

via: Shutterstock

There is this one kid my daughter brings over often that legit speaks exactly like Michael Jackson. –rlw0312

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Yard dump

via: Shutterstock

The kid had been to our house many times before and was at least 7 at the time.

He and my son were playing outside when the kid pulls down his pants and drops a deuce in my yard. The dad saw it and berated me for “taking my eyes off of him.”

A few other things have occurred with him, so he’s not allowed to even come in my yard anymore. –BaconSlapThatHoe

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Turn signal

via: Shutterstock

Not a parent, but I brought home some weirdos.

In 9th grade, my “best friend” of the month needed a ride to the public library, and my mom agreed to give her one.

Every time my mom used the turn signals, this girl started imitating them, making loud clicking noises until they turned off.

I questioned this, and she said she just really liked the sound.

At one point she complained about being hungry and proceeded to pull a several-days-old pizza crust out of the bottom of her backpack and eat it. I don’t think we hung out again after that.

My mom still brings up “that girl with the clicky noises” from time to time. –Limpslinky

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Oswald

via: Shutterstock

Not me, but my mom.

My oldest sister brought a friend by after school. This kid was apparently weird in many ways, but one, in particular, stood out.

My sister went to my mom who was making a snack in the kitchen. She started to complain that her friend kept telling her that her father had shot the president.

Turns out to be true. Junie Oswald was her original name, don’t remember her new name. Bragging about that was really strange. –mel2mdl

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Chocolates

via: Shutterstock

Not a parent, but had a friend who, when she was in middle school, brought home this girl who later proceeded to eat an entire container of chocolates.

She then ran down the street full blast, went into a fancy restaurant and threw up on a couple of newlyweds enjoying their first meal as husband and wife.

–ItsVesper-time

Share this with a parent who would understand the struggle!

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Read more: http://twentytwowords.com/

[albertcaldwellne]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2rgHQin

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[joshuabradleyn]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2rgHQin

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[johnclapperne]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2rgHQin

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[almajonesnjna]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2rgHQin

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[ruthellisneda]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2rgHQin

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[neilmillerne]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2rgHQin

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[neilmillerne]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2oYbQMf

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[johnclapperne]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2oYbQMf

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[almajonesnjna]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2oYbQMf

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[albertcaldwellne]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2oYbQMf

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

[ruthellisneda]

The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time

“What do you want to eat?’”

On the surface, it’s such a simple question. And it has endless possibilities. But the simplicity combined with the variety is the exact reason why this question stops you in your tracks and makes meal prep — and deciding what to eat — feel much harder than it should.

The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect.

It can keep you standing still in long cereal aisles, staring at a restaurant menu, or sitting for in front of a blank page that’s supposed to be your grocery list.

The time you spend thinking about what you want to eat is considerable. Add it up across your lifetime and it probably feels like a lot of wasted time.

Making matters worse, these choices literally wear you down—and make you more prone to bad decisions. After all, willpower is an exhaustible quantity. Studies show that the same is true of sound decision making. Researchers have found that the more decisions a person made, the less self-control they had. Psychologists call the phenomenon “decision fatigue.”

Don’t think you’re a willpower weakling for falling victim to this. The phenomenon runs true for even the most trained of minds taking on their most common tasks. For proof, look no further than this analysis of parole board decisions. Researchers found that the judges were more likely to rule in favor of a parolee on two occasions: 1) earlier in the day, or 2) nearer to a meal. As the day wore on, judged drifted toward automatically choosing the easier decision: rejecting the application.

You’re not a judge, but each day, three times a day or more, you’re making judgments about what you should eat. And you know what happens when you run out of energy and start looking for easy answers. It’s drive-thru. Or a vending machine. Or a bag of nachos in the cupboard because it’s right there. And hey, pizza is a vegetable, right?

Look, when it comes to healthy eating and upgraded meal prep, less is more.

That doesn’t mean less food. In fact, sometimes the problem that’s holding someone back is that they aren’t eating enough—not enough calories to build muscle, or not enough protein, or not enough healthy fat to feel full. Coaching clients are often surprised to find out that they can eat more and get leaner.

No. What we mean is less thinking.

What if you could make healthy eating or meal prep so simple it was almost reflexive? Then you could give your body exactly what it needs, spend a whole lot less time worrying, and enjoy the results—both at the table (with delicious meals) and at the beach (hey look, abs!).

The good news is you can simplify the meal prep and planning process. Start saving time today by using these tips to declutter your grocery list (and your brain), and make it easier for you to choose the meals that are best for your body (and taste buds).

Break down recipes into simple blocks

When meal prep consists of choosing which recipes you want to eat out of a 500-page cookbook, the process is undeniably overwhelming. Here’s the thing: You don’t have to pick a new recipe for every single meal. Instead, you can follow a formula that hits on all of the macronutrients you need—and does so in a format you like.

Take stir-fry, for example. It really only has four elements:

vegetables (broccoli, onions, bell peppers, snap peas—whichever ones you like),

a protein source (chicken, fish, steak, or tempeh tofu for example),

a carbohydrate (quinoa, rice, or sweet potatoes), and…

healthy fat (olive oil or coconut oil) to cook it in.

You can pick what you like from each category and eat it the same way every time. Or you can choose different options and mix it up in almost countless ways. However you go about it, instead of having to write down a laundry list of ingredients, you can walk into a store knowing you just need those four things.

You can repeat this process with almost any meal. For example:

Omelette

Eggs

Vegetables

Cheese (if you like)

Soup

Protein

Vegetables

Stock (perhaps made by boiling the protein)

Carbohydrate

Salad

Leafy Green

Protein source

Additional veggies (or even fruit! Ever tried blueberries or strawberries on spinach salad? They’re legit.)

Dressing (we like olive oil and balsamic vinegar, but go with what works for you)

When you narrow down your list of needs for meal prep, you free up brain space. You can use that extra RAM to get creative and put a new spin on your favorite standby. Or you can just speed through the grocery store for the four (or eight, or whatever) things you need, get in, get out, and get on with your day.

Embrace “last-minute” meals

Look, it’s fashionable nowadays in nutrition circles to say that you should “eat whole foods” and “avoid processing.” And yes, if all things are equal and you have the time, it’d be ideal if you could drive yourself down to a local, organic farmer’s market, pick out the items that look the freshest, then drive back to your house, chop all of them up, and turn them into a delicious meal. But let’s face it, there will always be days when don’t have time for that.

In fact, there are going to be days when you don’t have time for washing and chopping. And that’s fine—if you have a backup plan in place. Let’s go back to the stir-fry example.

If I’m in a hurry, I’ll take that same formula, combine it with a little bit of frozen convenience and make this 10-minute peanut stir-fry. It’s just frozen organic veggies, eggs and whatever carb I have available from meal prep day (more on that in a sec). You can make it more involved if you like, but if you’re in a hurry, that combo will get you a tasty meal in—you guessed it—10 minutes or less.

The takeaway here? Buy and prepare fresh whole foods when you can, but it’s also a good idea to have frozen veggies (or fruits for smoothies) that work in your meals on hand. And bonus points if you’ve got a healthy carb source ready-to-go thanks to…

Master Meal Prep Day (with imperfection in mind)

Instead of thinking, “What will I eat?” every day, draw up a plan one day per week (I prefer Sunday) for meal prep, and then follow your menu. That could mean putting together an entire meal (soups are especially good, since they keep well), or it might just mean preparing the more time-consuming essentials that you’ll know you’ll need during the week, like boiling brown rice or roasting sweet potatoes. The hour-ish cook times on these items is way less daunting when you already did it two days ago.

[Editor’s note: The point of meal prep is not to be perfect. It’s to make it easier for you to be imperfect. Look at it this way, if meal prep feels daunting, just focus on the meals that are most difficult for you. For many people, this means lunch. Try to prep 80% of your lunches for the week. This could mean just 4 meals (for weekdays). When 80% of your meals are covered, the day that you decide to go out for lunch or eat something different won’t derail your plan, and it can fit in perfectly with your goal. When you enable imperfection within any plan, it gives you the freedom to eat what you enjoy and see results. – AB]

Use simple cooking techniques

If you’re relatively new to cooking—or your relationship with the kitchen is less based on love and more based on need (as in: you need to eat)—then the seemingly endless array of ways to cook can feel pretty daunting. Roasting, steaming, blending, pan-searing—there’s a lot to learn. You shouldn’t expect yourself to master all of those techniques overnight. In fact, some of them you probably don’t need to learn at all. (Will you ever really broast something? Probably not unless you work in a restaurant.)

To make the learning process easier, choose one method of cooking (roasting, steaming, blending, etc.) and stick with that. You’ll be amazed at how far learning just one technique will take you.

Do you know what vegetables taste great roasted? Answer: All of them. Roasted brussels sprouts, sweet potatoes, asparagus—they’re all seriously delicious. When you work your way up to pro status, then sure, go ahead and roast one thing while steaming another and blending together a sauce. But until then, simple and easy always wins.

Fill your freezer with “in case of emergency” items

Making larger servings for everything can save you those times when you’re in a pinch. Freeze soups, casseroles, homemade breads, protein cookies, veggies, cooked proteins, etc. for grab-and-go meals. Think of these as your backup “911” options. That way, when life happens and you need something to eat right now, you don’t have to wonder what you’re going to do. The decision is made for you, and it’s healthy, homemade, and delicious.

McKel Hill, MS RD, is a registered Dietitian Nutritionist and Founder of Nutrition Stripped. 

Editor’s note: If batch cooking and meal planning for every day of the week sounds dreamy but like something that’s not gonna happen, then check out the NS Society: A Guide to Master Meal Planning can help you learn how to eat well for life with simple tools, a yearly meal plan, 100+ healthy recipes, cooking videos, and support from a global community. Born Fitness has no financial stake in Nutrition Stripped, but we do believe it’s a valuable resource and community. Learn more here.

The post The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time appeared first on Born Fitness.

http://ift.tt/2oYbQMf

#The Simple Way to Upgrade Your Meal Prep and Eat Healthier in Less Time