Prep for Sprint to Spring Succes by Nutritionist, Allison Slee
My name is Allison Slee. I am a Nutritionist and Health Coach at Vitality Lifestyle. I help women lose weight long term and gain the energy back they so desperately want.
I am passionate about empowering women to give up dieting, to stop focusing on the scales and to find the balance in reaching their healthiest self. I don’t dwell on counting calories, or create lists of restrictions. Healthy eating is more than just numbers, it is about enjoyment and nourishment, without the guilt! Once your focus shifts from weight to health and you are living your healthiest lifestyle your body will naturally follow.
More often than not the dieting industry has conditioned people to believe they just need to eat less and exercise more to lose weight. This can often leave people feeling deprived and restricted, feeling like they can’t lose weight no matter what. It is my passion to change this paradigm. I want the harshness of the dieting industry to fade into a more holistic health focused approach. I do this by focusing on your nutrition whilst also looking at underlying factors such thyroid health, adrenal health, gut health, hormones, sleep, daily habits and mindset.
I am sure you have heard the saying, “failing to plan is planning to fail”. Amidst hectic weekday schedules, meal prep or meal planning is a great way to help keep us on a healthy eating track, and although any type of meal prep requires planning, there is no one correct method, as it can differ on food preferences, cooking abilities, schedules and personal goals.
Contrary to popular belief, meal planning does not have to be expensive - it actually saves you money, nor does it have to take up your entire weekend, be a lot of work, inflexible or entirely home cooked - I am a big fan of planning for leftovers and honestly you don’t even need to be a good cook.
In spite of this, meal planning can however be one of those situations where it can be all too overwhelming, so let’s make sure we do this slowly as fallout is real - it is about making this process a habit.
Habits are efficient because we don’t have to think about them. In order to make meal prepping a habit, initially we need to attach the habit to a cue so the moment you encounter that cue, you will be automatically triggered to perform that behaviour without needing motivation or self-control. We do this by anchoring the habit i.e., meal prepping to something you already do. For example, when I get home from the doing the groceries, I will chop up my veges and pop them in the fridge or when I get home from doing my workout at Pineapple Fitness on a Saturday morning, I will cook up some grains and prep my ingredients for my smoothies for the week.
Now, rather than jumping into planning every meal for an entire week, start by choosing one meal to focus on for the first week or 2. Start by planning a week of breakfasts, putting your effort into crafting a nutritious and satisfying breakfast menu. Get a list of all your trusted recipes making sure you have a few family friendly recipes that are easy to make with minimal washing up!! Once you are nailing that then move onto dinners, lunch and snacks. Remember with lunch and dinner it is great to cook once and eat twice, that is, get creative with leftovers e.g., if you have cooked too much rice, add some egg and veges and toss in a wok or saucepan to turn it into a high vege fried rice.
Often people tend to cook a big batch of the same meal for lunches through the week and possibly a second for dinners and then Thursday rolls around and you are sick of eating the same meal. A strategy to avoid this is to just prep ingredients rather than lots of the same meal. Ideas are:
Roast your veges such as potatoes, pumpkin, beetroot, red onion, zucchini, capsicum, cherry tomatoes,
Wash your salad leaves
Cut up salad ingredients/vege sticks
Cook up some eggs or chicken
Dice up onion and garlic
By doing this you can mix and match and create simple meals with ingredients you have in front of you. Just make sure you are making a big batch of the ingredients you can freeze. Regardless of your specific strategy, the key to success is making time and staying consistent.
Make sure you don’t limit yourself to fresh salads though, pantry heroes such as tinned tomatoes, chickpeas, lentils, curry paste, coconut milk, wholegrains, broth, olives and feta add flavour and simplify menu creation. By keeping some of these basic essentials you only need to worry about picking up fresh items in your weekly grocery shop.
Eating nutritious foods does not have to take up your whole weekend or be difficult, select a day of the week and designate some time to tasks such as planning your meals, (it is difficult to meal prep without some sort of meal plan), writing up your grocery list and doing your food shopping. Breaking up these tasks will help keep meal planning manageable.
Some good meal planning apps that can help you organise your recipes, plan meals as well as make grocery lists are:
meal board
paprika
pepper plate
avocado meal planner
yummly
plate joy, plan buy cook
Mealtime meal plans and recipes
Plan to eat
Another thing to think about and get organised with is your jars/containers and oven pans. I would recommend using containers that are freezer safe, microwavable, stackable and BPA free and dishwasher safe if you have one. It’s also handy to have a variety of sizes for different types of food.
When it comes to meal planning and prepping it is important to get out of the mindset that it is a chore. If you are stuck in that mindset, you won’t be motivated to get into the kitchen. Instead make it fun, it doesn’t have to be complicated.
Throw on some music, get an accountability buddy, see it as a way to get more creative, keep in mind who you are doing this for. And remember counting calories becomes completely unnecessary when your food doesn’t have labels.
Fall in love with taking care of yourself, make sure you are planning food that is delicious, makes you feel good and energised throughout the day and remember the secret of getting ahead is getting started.
If you would like to know more about me and my programs, check out my website www.vitalitylifestyle.com.au.
Here is one of my recipes that can be made in advance for lunches or dinners! Expect more recipes of mine through the challenge!
