Day Six, first week and maybe the hardest week almost over.
Feeling loads better this morning, always feel I get a better sleep when I don't have alarm set, still usually wake up at the same time, but think I get more restful sleep ?
So hopefully you made it this far and Friday night, didn't pose any problems for you ? And you feel a good sense of achievement, if you did have temptation put your way, but stayed strong ? Excellent if you did, Imagine how you would be feeling if you didn't!!
So as I said yesterday, a today's blog is some advice that may help you and how my weekend is helping me.
A few people have mentioned to me, one of the biggest problems/hurdles they face with starting and continuing with their new healthy food choices, is that although they're loving eating clean wholesome food, the energy and good feelings they get from it, it's the lack of time they sometimes have for cooking these wonderful new dishes.
This, to be honest was one of my biggest downfalls, before I even started on the Elimination Diet.
Being a Personal Trainer, I am used to working from 6am till maybe 7-7.30pm (luckily now that has changed) and everyday my breakfast and lunches were always good, it was dinners that let the side down.
As I said, working long days, I would find myself leaving the gym, very tired and hungry. Knowing that I didn't have anything in the house for dinner, I had to stop off at local shop to get something.
Shopping for your dinner when your tired and hungry is without doubt the worst time to do it ! I literally not care what I picked, processed meals, pizza, as thats quick (although by the time you've heated oven up and cooked it, probably 30 minutes !) anything just as long as I got something so I could go home.
As if that wasn't bad enough, then I'd go past confectionary shelves, give me some of that, that will boost my energy levels back up and be nice after the pizza, while watching TV !! (and I wonder why I could never sleep)
So once I realised this was my achilles heel, I made a plan to help, have you guessed what it is yet ? PREPARATION, I (hopefully) hear you all shout !
So this is where I kill two birds with one stone, tell you how I solved this problem, which may be your downfall too, and tell you what I'm doing this weekend, well a small part of it.
As we know
PREPARATION IS THE KEY
The easiest and most effective way I have found for stopping this evening shopping chaos is in two ways, either buy your dinners at lunchtime, better after you've actually eat your lunch, as you won't be hungry, so will be less tempted with those rash, 'I just need food ' purchases, simple eh ?
But that doesn't really help you, when you get home tired and hungry and you just want something good, quick and healthy.
This is where making 'one pot wonders' as I like to call them, comes in. At the weekends or whenever you have time, again this will surprise you how easy and quick this is (45minutes tops) make a large amount of something, soup, ratatouille, curries (like the red lentil one I posted a few days ago), casseroles etc.
Its almost as easy to make enough for 6 meals as it is for one. Once you've made it you can have some for your dinner that night, keep it in the fridge and have it for a couple of nights in a row, or like I do keep it in the freezer and when you know you have a long day coming up, or you just don't want to be preparing something, get it out the freezer and defrost it overnight and just heat it up when you get home.
This eliminates the need to visit the shop on the way home as you have food in the house, and as in my case stops you buying those small 'extra treats'. Simple eh ?
With this in my mind, and the fact I feel I have been eating a lot of the same foods this week, which you may find you do on the first week, stick to theED friendly foods you know you like, or are easy to prepare. Which is ok for week one, if it gets you through it, but one of the main principles of the Elimination Diet is restoring health, so if your sticking to the same 5 or 6 foods, you may, well probably are, missing out on vital minerals and nutrients.
So by making 'one pot wonders' you can start adding new foods that you may not of thought about before or like the taste of, on their own, but mixed in a casserole or ratatouille, you won't get their flavours coming through as strong, but still get the nutritional values from them.
Back to my weekend, very kindly one of my clients bought me a vegetarian recipe book as a Xmas present. Although I'm not a vegetarian I do have more vegetarian meals a week than I do with, fish or meat.
So last night my housemate and I went through the entire book, and picked out our top two dishes, we like to try. We decided that they both should be something we hadn't tried before, (and obviously Ed friendly, amazing how much diary in some recipes) after making a shortlist, then a shorterlist, we got down to the final two, Chickpea Hot Pot and Cashew Nut Paella, both these have slight modifications, changing oil or butter for coconut oil, but that aside, totally ED friendly.
We made up a shopping list last night, and will get that in today, make one tonight and one tomorrow night, so as well as my weekends dinners being taken care of we will both have some frozen dinners, just waiting to be defrosted reheated on nights when we need them, simple eh ?
So hopefully this can help you too, if your struggling for time/motivation to cook everynight.
Remember
PREPARATION IS THE KEY
Let me know if you try something new this weekend or have any good recipes, you think I should try.
Enjoy your weekend
Craig :-)
No comments:
Post a Comment