I’ve always been really interested in nutrition and healthy eating, but actually following through on it has been quite a challenge for me as a mom, and especially the last few years as a mom of two. Even as I’ve learned more and more about what kinds of foods I should be eating and what really works for me, I’ve still had a hard time because, well, life. Busy schedules, picky eaters, traveling, pizza, all of these things have often just caused me to eat whatever everyone else would eat and whatever would keep everyone happy for that particular moment on that particular day. All the moms are nodding their heads in agreement right now, I just know it. 🙂
It’s been more and more frustrating for me, because the more I read and the more I learn, the more I really want to eat healthy and do what’s best for my body and my health. As time goes on though, it just seems like it has gotten harder and harder. Truthfully, when I do manage to eat healthy, I feel so so so much better, think more clearly, and (I think) am actually just a nicer and happier person to be around. I’m literally convinced that eating more real food actually makes me smile more. It’s a real thing. It’s been happening. So just ignoring my needs to eat healthier for the next few years until life “calms down” (Ha. Not happening.) really isn’t a good option.
But now the good news! I’m really just kicking butt when it comes to eating healthy lately. And by lately I mean for the last 4 months or so. I was doing pretty well for the last couple of years but now my healthy eating is really locked in and I’m thrilled.
I really wanted to share one of my little tricks with you today in case healthy eating has been a goal of yours as well and something that you haven’t quite gotten the hang of yet. Whether you’re a mom with mac and cheese and chicken fingers in your face all day, or whether you’re a master of industry who’s too busy taking over the world right now, this little “trick” is so simple it can work for almost anyone.
And it’s not weekly meal prep. Because seriously, why has no one called that “solution” out yet? The idea that most people should have an entire day every week to be able to stop their lives and just shop and chop and cook all day is baloney. I work from home and it still didn’t work for me. I wish every healthy eating expert would stop telling everyone that the only solution is to spend all day Sunday cooking. It’s just not realistic for a lot of people. OK, I’m done. End rant. 🙂
Anyway, here’s what I do instead and it has allowed me to always have healthy food that I love and look forward to more than pepperoni pizza ready and waiting for me at all times.
It’s all about one red lid.
The idea is that if I can just snap down one red lid everyday on a container of simple, healthy food for myself, then I’ll be good to go. Just one red lid on one container of food. Not a whole week’s worth of food.
It sounds kinda silly because it’s so overly simple, but I started doing this just to kind of help baby step my way over towards having healthy food at least sometimes, but once I started doing it, I found that it was actually all I needed to do to have healthy food all the time. I’ve been doing it consistently for months now and it never fails me.
I really do enjoy cooking when I get the time, so sometimes that container of food is a really simple homemade soup (something like this sweet potato soup), and sometimes it’s something really simple like plain brown rice, or even a can of beans that I just opened up. If I’m really busy, it only takes about 45 seconds to open and rinse a can of beans and then I have some nice healthy protein to sprinkle over salads, on top of rice, or add to a soup for the next couple of days.
The next day I might chop up a melon and put that in a container ready to go or even just some slices of cucumber for snacking. On weekends I usually make myself some healthy-ish noodles with some frozen veggies or something and dump them in a big container to reheat and eat for a few meals. And some days I might go crazy and do more than one container, but that’s just for bonus points. Totally not necessary.
Whatever I cook or prepare, as long as I snap down that one red lid everyday, since I make enough to last me for a few days, I always have enough and I can always whip something up for myself within about 2 minutes of feeling hungry!
It’s a miracle for this mom. It really is. And it doesn’t take a whole Sunday to make it work.
If you’re at a total loss for what to do about your healthy eating situation and you just don’t want to get mad yet again that you ate those two giant plates of spaghetti because you were just so darn tired at the end of the day, definitely give this a try.
And any color of lidded container works of course, we just have red ones. 🙂
I’ll make sure to put together a list of a few different ideas for healthy foods that you can snap a lid down on in the near future so you can try this out! Do you have any simple, healthy, quick-to-prepare foods that you like to make in advance to help you eat healthy?
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Courtenay Hartford is the author of creeklinehouse.com, a blog based on her adventures renovating a 120-year-old farmhouse in rural Ontario, Canada. On her blog, Courtenay shares interior design tips based on her own farmhouse and her work as founder and stylist of the interior photography firm Art & Spaces. She also writes about her farmhouse garden, plant-based recipes, family travel, and homekeeping best practices. Courtenay is the author of the book The Cleaning Ninja and has been featured in numerous magazines including Country Sampler Farmhouse Style, Better Homes and Gardens, Parents Magazine, Real Simple, and Our Homes.