Making Meal Time Work

by Kris Pitcher

If I had to rely on preparing each meal when it was time to eat...I wouldn't have time to do anything else. And this is a common pitfall and the reason we have a multi-billion dollar fast food industry. Most people are unprepared. But in order to make your goals work for you - you need to make meal time work.

This is easy to accomplish with another "trick of the trade". People who are successful with weight management plan ahead. You just have to. Now I recognize not to the extent of an athlete. But I'm going to share a few tricks to help you through your week a lot easier.

We've already organized our pantry. What? You didn't quite get to that project yet...well there's still time. Get your grocery list together, you're going shopping for your food for the next seven days. What will you need and how much? Look at your plan! I'm just going to talk you into a big circle here.

But you're right, you might need to get the calculator out. X number of meals, X number of days, times X number of family members...oh boy you're going to have to do some menu planning here! Once you do that, make your list and get your groceries.

Pick a day for food prep. Sunday is a great day. The family is lounging, or at least a little slower. It's time to wash and cut vegetables, and cook ahead. You'll need some nice big storage containers for the refrigerator. At our house, we grill a lot of chicken - so fire up the grill. Six pounds at a time I grill it up, cut it up (it's easier/faster to weigh it out for meal time) and store it .

Same goes for ground turkey. We go through a lot of that. It's on the stove at the same time. You're multi-tasking here. You may also be putting veggies in baggies for lunches, washing fruit, making a cous cous or quinoa salad. That salad can become a meal base you throw your protein into. See how easy meal time is going to be?

Cooking fish? We buy fish frozen - we live inland - I fill my broiler pan and cook 8 fillets at once, no need to thaw them or anything. Getting things prepped in bulk makes mealtime in the (busy) evenings a snap. With food prepared it is easy to fix lunches in the morning, or right alongside dinner in the evening.

Taking two hours on the weekend to prep for a successful week makes or breaks your nutritional plan. Like I've said before, good eating habits don't happen by themselves, and people who are successful at weight management practice it every day. Every. Day. Here is another great trick of the nutrition trade to help you be successful!