Feeling overwhelmed and struggling to balance your busy schedule while maintaining your health goals?
You’re not alone. Many people find it challenging to prioritize their well-being amidst hectic schedules and during holiday seasons. However, with a strategic approach, you can achieve your health goals and improve your overall quality of life, even with the busiest of schedules.
This article serves as a 3-step guide to help you navigate your busy lifestyle, and reach your mental health and physical health goals too.
Step #1 - Learn The Plate Method
May seem stupid simple, but learning the plate method is key to eating a healthy diet – especially when you are an extremely busy person. The plate method is a simple way to ensure you’re eating balanced meals and eliminates the need to count macros which requires weighing and measuring your food. Who has time for that unless you are training for an extreme sport or athletic pursuit.
The plate method allows you to eat mindful balanced meals wether you are running through a fast food joint, or picking things up quickly from the grocery store after work because you didn’t plan ahead.
The plate method involves dividing your plate into portions to put your food:
1/2 the plate should be made of non starchy vegetables like broccoli, tomato, green beans, cauliflower, etc.
1/4 of the plate should be made of lean protein which could be fish, chicken, turkey, shrimp, or lean beef like 99% lean ground meat or sirloin
1/4 of the plate should be a whole grain or starchy carbs like brown rice, quinoa, sweet potatoes, beans, etc
Finish with a thumb of fat if the protein you eat is lean
At Healthy Steps Nutrition, we teach all of our nutrition coaching program clients how to use the plate method. It works so well because it can be practiced anywhere, helps with lowering blood sugar, is key to living a healthy lifestyle, and reinforces healthier habits.
Step #2 - Prepare And Adapt
Preparation can take various forms, but it is essential for avoiding unhealthy last-minute food choices and supports working towards your health goals. The easiest way to steer clear of unhealthy last-minute choices is to expect life circumstances to happen, and plan your meals in advance. Planning meals ultimately requires the least effort, because you list what meals/snacks you will have during the week and plan shopping and prepping upfront. This planning is a form of self care and helps people avoid eating ultra processed foods and work towards their health objectives.
Tips For Planning Meals
We teach everyone in our nutrition program how to meal prep and plan. When meal planning you will need to break down your meals by protein, carbs, veggies, and fat.
Step #1 – Choose a few staple items that are easy to make
Healthy Step Nutrition recipes like pulled chicken or egg muffins will help fill the protein gaps with breakfast and dinner.
Step #2 – Pair your Carb/Fruit + Veggie
For instance, pair pulled chicken with brown rice, sweet potatoes, green beans, or asparagus.
The egg muffins have veggies in them, so you could add a carb like steel-cut oats or fruits such as berries or a peach.
Step #3 – Add in a healthy fat if necessary
For the pulled chicken dish, add avocado or cook the veggies in olive oil for a balanced meal.
For a breakfast like egg muffins, the protein already contains fat. No additional fat is needed.
Combination recipes:
The HSN Cheesy Beef and Broccoli Bake is an absolute favorite for most clients. However, finding balance here isn’t as clear as with the previous recipes.
When looking at this meal, ask yourself if it contains protein, carbohydrates, veggies, and fat.
It is very close, let’s look at it:
✔️Beef = Protein
✔️Broccoli + Mashed ✔️cauliflower = Veggies
✔️Low-fat shredded cheddar cheese = Fat
So what are we missing?
CARBS!
While the veggies and cheese provide some carbs, you can boost the carb content in this recipe by adding a starch like potatoes, squash, or beans.
Key Points
Proper preparation prevents unhealthy choices and keeps you working towards a health goal. While you have specific habits and objectives to achieve, some adjustments might be necessary when preparing and adapting to your week.
Always remember that prioritizing nutrition is crucial, and a busier schedule might require you to adapt to ensure your nutritional needs are met. Having a meal planning and grocery shopping day each week is key. Looking ahead at your calendar is an excellent way to stay flexible, stay focused, and manage your time effectively.
If you travel on weekends, consider shifting your meal planning, grocery shopping, and preparation from Sunday to a weekday!
Alternatively, you can utilize services like Instacart or curbside pickup to save time!
If you find yourself with limited options while traveling, be prepared by bringing your own snacks in a cooler for your car. Remember that the same plate method principle applies to snacks as it does main meals.
Did you know that 70% of foods in the United States are ultra processed foods. Such a sad statistic but not surprising considering the microwave society we live in and peoples lack of knowledge around maintaining a healthy diet in general.
We need all the help we can get which leads us into our next point.
Make The Healthy Choice The Easy Choice
When you are working towards health goals that will improve your mental and physical health, having healthy foods ready and accessible is a MUST so here are some tips!
Fruit is nature’s candy! We love having a fruit bowl stocked and ready in our house! What family wouldn’t love having apples and oranges readily available to grab and go out the door! This also makes it easy to pair these carbs with a protein like a hard-boiled egg or single serve greek yogurt.
Have veggies chopped and pre-packed can help lower the barrier to consuming more whole foods. A few easy go-to options for veggies are sliced bell peppers, snack-size carrots, raw broccoli or cauliflower, and snap peas. Adding these produce items into containers to store in the fridge immediately after purchasing them is a time saver!
Making your own trail mix for yogurt parfaits can help you incorporate your protein with fruit or carbs.
The point is if your healthy foods are made easily accessible, they become the first choice rather than UPF’s that have no nutritional value.
Step #3 - Speedy Eats For The Win
Buy back your time by making food that is quick to prepare. Crockpots and Instapots are king for when busy schedules require cooking quick meals.
A few under-30-minute recipes on the Healthy Steps Nutrition recipe catalog include:
Frozen Foods
Having frozen options available can be helpful when you truly have no time on your hands! You can get home, turn on the oven, or pop something in the air fryer while getting everything organized from a chaotic day.
Here are some frozen food ideas to help get you through the week:
Frozen veggies
Frozen fruit
Frozen protein like chicken breasts, salmon, shrimp, or cod
Mix these staple veggie and proteins with things like brown rice, or whole wheat noodles and low sugar pasta sauce.
A healthier lifestyle and positive habits are just inches away. These recipes can help decrease time spent in the kitchen and increase time spent as a family.
Yes, nutrition is a pillar of the HSN holistic framework, but a support system is equally as valuable! So, buying time back with healthy, quick, and easy recipes will surely be a win for the whole family.
Wrap Up
According to over 75% of our nutrition clients, cooking family dinners is often a struggle because of practices, school events and everyone in the family running different directions. Even if you pick one of these nutrition tips to follow, you will be one step further than you are right now. Wether you have personal health goals, want to loose a few pounds, improve gut health or simply desire to improve your overall health, following this guide will set you up for success.
