Making Meals Easy, Where Sparks Fly

by Kris Pitcher

I'm on a nutrition role here so I'm just going to give you one more on this topic. You might not like it, because I'm also feeling a bit of tough love coming through. I think people have a misinformed fantasy idea about meal time. And I'm not talking about everyone sitting down together, don't be crazy. But sparks are not going to fly each time you sit down to eat...they're just not. It's not going to be exciting, or new, or different. Give up the idea that it's a wild variety of culinary wonder. Let it go. Bye-bye...

When we are making changes, managing our weight, trying to lose weight, gaining control of our choices, increase our performance, run a marathon, go off insulin - fill in your own ad lib style goal there - our food becomes fuel. It's a tool. No longer is it recreation, celebration, or medication. It's fuel to run our body, and if we use it correctly we will meet our goals.

Making meals easy means preparing and planning ahead. Take a day and prepare food for at least 4 days. At any one time, we've got 2 or 3 kinds of protein cooked and ready in the refridgerator. When there are carb days, there's rice prepared ahead. Frozen veggies are waiting in the freezer. At meal time it's a matter of selecting your protein and veggies, done. Spice it up with different spice mixes, or sauces and your meal is ready. As things run low, it's to the freezer to bring something up to thaw, or put more chicken in the crock-pot.

Let go of the idea that your meals will be exciting and different every time, and begin to shift your view of food. You have to work for what you want and unfortunately our socialized views of food don't align with what most of us want (regardless of how fun that Happy Meal was). Look at where those views have gotten us. Trust me, meeting your goals is where the sparks will fly.