Are you eating enough? 3 steps to preparing for the week ahead.
A lot of people have been asking me lately about my giant shift in lifestyle, so in this post I'm going write a bit about what I've learned and the way in which I have incorporated all the lessons into my life.
I have learned a lot about health and nutrition through a number of avenues - eating plans that accompany exercise programmes, podcasts, clean eating challenges with meal plans (Shout out to Katherine) and good old internet research. I'm still learning every single day and it's one of the most eye-opening experiences I've ever had in my life.
I don't know why I was so uneducated about nutrition. Prior to 2015, I thought I was eating really well. I was still in the mind set that in order to keep my weight stable/down, I had to eat less and exercise as much as possible. This idea is so archaic and really doesn't serve us. My daily diet consisted of a LOT of cashew nuts, a LOT of biltong, maybe some form of chocolate if I was treating myself and then some kind of indulgent dinner.
Cashew nuts - I was taking in WAY too much fat
Biltong - WAY too much salt and chemicals (water retention much?!)
Chocolate - too much processed sugar (and other bad stuff!)
Of course I'm not saying that you should never eat these things. This is about balance - finding a way to eat food that you love, while taking in the nutrients you need and making it a sustainable lifestyle.
OK so here's the awesome part. Since correcting my eating, I have been able to eat SO much delicious food! Our bodies require a certain number of calories each day, but it DOES matter how we divide these calories up and where they go. You can't eat 1500 calories of protein or 1500 calories of fat. We need to get a certain amount of each macronutrient, every single day.
This is how I divide up my macronutrients. Macronutrients are defined as carbohydrate, fat and protein but I divide them further than that. (This is personal to my weight and lifestyle. Everyone is different and you'll need to find the right balance for you.)
SERVING SIZES FOR EACH MACRO ARE NOT EQUAL!
- 4 servings vegetables
- 3 servings fruit
- 3 moderate servings protein
- 2 small servings carbohydrate
- 1 tiny serving healthy fat
- 1 teeny tiny serving oils/seeds
I try and eat this amount of food every single day - it is a lot and sometimes I just can't get it in. I've never in my life berated myself for not eating enough, but I do a lot of that these days!
NOW..... The 3 steps to making sure you are prepared for the week ahead. Take it from me - if you don't prepare your food in advance, it is close to impossible to eat this way. It's not just about having healthy, clean and delicious food that you can grab on your way out the door, it's also about saving yourself time and money! Having these things ready to take with you to work means not having to pop into woolies or Kauai for that snack or meal. Your weekly shop may feel like a lot, but you will save so much money in the long run.
Another positive aspect about this way of eating is that, as far as possible, you are making everything you put into your body, yourself. The fact of the matter is that we can't control a lot when it comes to what goes into the ready made foods we buy, and we don't even know what is on the fresh produce we buy, but at least by starting with food in it's most basic form, we have a semblance of control over the final product.
STEP 1: Create a meal plan
Create a weekly meal plan (my example is below) so that you know exactly what ingredients and items you're going to need for breakfast, lunch, snacks and dinner every day in the coming week. Cleaning up your nutrition means cleaning out your kitchen. My kitchen went through a slow but very obvious tranformation. It's filled with things like coconut oil, lemons, green superfood powder, chia seeds, flax seeds and so much more. Make sure you know what ingredients you require for each recipe before you run off to the shops!
STEP 2: The Weekly Shop
Once a week, do a big grocery shop and buy all the things you need to create your meal plan for the coming week. I do the shopping on a Saturday so that I don't have to devote a whole day to shopping and food prepping. I find it helps to create 1 shopping list on my phone that I can add to/subtract from each week. Only buy the things on your list! Once you start eating correctly you will start to feel so content, that the urge to buy those items from the naughty isle, will completely go away.
This is an extract of what mine looks like:
STEP 3: Food Preparation
Come Sunday, it’s time to think about the week ahead. Have a look at your schedule, figure out where you’re going to be, which meals you’ll be eating out and what you’ll need to have in your fridge to get you through the week without needing to pick up unhealthy snacks.
This is just in example of what I do each Sunday morning to prepare myself for the week. This can obviously be adjusted in accordance with the foods you enjoy.
Boil 10 eggs/Bake 12 Egg Muffins
Grill Chicken Breasts (Between 6 and 8)
Chop Spinach, carrots, peppers, cucumber, beetroot
Bake batch of chocolate chickpea muffins/oat muffins
Portion out baby carrots/peppers into zip lock bags for snacks
As they say, the proof is in the eating and I have seen drastic changes in my body since I changed by eating habits in February this year.
I hope this post has been helpful for some people. Please subscribe to this website if you have any of your own helpful tips or healthy recipes that I can share!
After many discussions with friends and family, it's clear that a lot of people just aren't eating enough, and if they are eating enough, it's not of the right things. Huge respect to the people out there who managed to get to this point on their own, because I certainly needed a lot of guidance!
