The saying goes, "If you fail to prep, you prep to fail" and t's so true. How many times did you come home from school pick up, a doctor's appointment, church, etc and you were starving so you opened the fridge and say NO GOOD OPTIONS??? Right?!? I can't be the only one that has done this. You know what is quick and readily available.... PROCESSED FOODS! They can sit in your pantry for 1-2 years and still be "good" or "fresh," if you will, and they satisfy hunger feelings perfectly...or so we think. During those few seconds it is the prefect solution until our body crashes! Your glucose is off, you get tired, you might even get hungrier because of the salt or other additives in the food that tell your brain you are hungry rather than just bored sometimes. Eating is an activity, so when you're bored, it naturally feels good and keeps you busy. HELLO WEIGHT GAIN!
This is where prep work comes in and it's not as hard as you might think! This morning I printed my menu, my grocery list, and my other options (yes, we can substitute within that food group - carbs get a little tricky because there are "starchy" and "non-starchy" carbs) and went shopping, prepped fro 3 days and then went to work out. All that took 3 hours from shopping, to chopping, assembling and sweating and now I have 3 days that I don't have to cook a thing except for my kids. They can eat what I'm planning, but decided to make more "fun foods" this week using the same ingredients. When I have a salad (spinach, red leaf lettuce, tomatoes, carrots, chick peas, chicken, avocado) they will have chicken quesadillas, guacamole and carrots. I'm not on any "diet" in their eyes and one meal can serve us all.
The best secret I have...I pretend I'm on TV. Try it, it works! 1) play some great music, 2) assemble all your ingredients, 3) pour a glass of wine (they might not do that on TV but they should - probably a liability with all the knives and fire - I'm not insured, "don't try this at home" lol) and 4) get 'er done!
So, ask yourself this, how hard is it really? Not excuses, reasons...how hard is it? Anything worth working for is usually hard. Marriage, weight loss, exercise, even travel...what's on the other side can be amazing and fun, but sometimes it's still hard to get there! But it's so beautiful when you follow through! My next round of Shift Shop starts on Monday Aug 14th! Don't miss out because 21 days from now, you'll be reading about all the success stories and you'll want to be featured, not reading about someone else :)
3 breakfasts ready to go! 2 eggs, 1 cup spinach, 2 TBSP cheese each (looks better when it's shredded, but we don't have one yet, so sliced was only option). BAM - I am ready for next 3 busy mornings and will not be late to school because of cooking. Now to figure out how to simplify the shoes / socks issue in our house :))))))