Lazy and hungry= Bad food choices
Bad Food choices don’t always cultivate because you’ve set out to eat junk. They sometimes sneak in on us through our environment (family, friends, places…..) and our attitude at the time of hunger (tired, angry, lazy…….). No matter what the situation that stumbles us, we can benefit by a little preparation and planning. Being lazy and leaving your food choices to chance is a recipe for disaster if your trying to get healthier. Here are some tips to avoid the stumbling pitfalls that are all around us as we live our day to day lives.
Tip #1: THINK AHEAD!!! This allows us to not only get used to pre-planning our meals and snacks but also sets a good habit of not forgetting things and being more pro-active. Think about what you wanna eat for lunch and pre make it the night before. Think about what is a good choice for an afternoon snack and package it yourself rather than settling for the package in the vending machine. Being prepared nutritionally not only is healthier but also gives us small things for us to look forward to as we go through our day.
Tip #2: Get acquainted with your knife and cutting board! Veggies is in my .com and its for a reason! They rule! Get in the habit of pre-cooking or cutting veggies to eat for the next day. Whether pre-cooked or raw, you really can’t go wrong! I like carrots, green beans, snow peas, or broccoli. Vegetables offer a filling (because of the fiber) that no bag of chips can even touch. Case and Point,take a look at the picture below:
Those Fritos on the right, combined have the same amount of calories as that entire bag of green beans. I personally couldn’t eat enough of those chips to get full but probably couldn’t eat half of that bag of green beans! That stupid half of a handful of chips in one of those bags would just make me hungrier compared to handful of green beans which is pretty satisfying. Foods from the earth will make human feel better over foods from a factory any day!
Tip #3: Get familiar with your kitchen! Do yourself a favor- spend less time at home on the tv or internet and more time in your kitchen taking pride in what you eat. Here is a great study about how cooking in the kitchen helped mental illness, depression, and even addiction by giving people a sense of accomplishment and self efficacy by creating their food choices. Not only is it therapeutic, but its also soooo much healthier than putting your trust in packaged foods. Keeping a container of pre-cut veggies is great for commercial breaks when you wanna munch. That means you have to keep pre-cut veggies around. Don’t wanna cut them? Fine by the pre-cut bags, but make your own dip to enjoy them with. Most dips are full of preservatives(soy bean oils, corn oils, etc) that make them bad food choices. Wanna be lazy but still cook good healthy food? Get creative- roast all your veggies and meat in the oven at the same time using spices and herbs, or do the same thing and use your grill for great grilled veggies and tasty meat that has the easiest clean up of all! The point is to make your own food! That way you know whats in it, and you build value in it by investing time and effort to make it.
Tip #4: Make too much dinner! I do this almost everyday, you know why? Because it makes my lunch for me the next day! So as long as i keep making healthy dinners then i keep eating healthy lunches too! And it saves loads of time making a lunch from scratch after already making dinner…. A lot of times this involves making more meat than you know you will eat for dinner, than you grab or cut a few veggies, throw it all in a dish and bam you have lunch made for the next day! Simple and efficient!
Take control of your nutrition, and don’t leave things to chance when it comes to figuring out what to eat. Hunger also has a correlation with making poor choices in general. So why put yourself in that position if you know its coming during the middle of a busy day, or a relaxing night. Plan ahead, be efficient, and reach a higher state of living than just floating through life obliviously…..