Episode 11
[00:00:00] Welcome to The Be About Being Better podcast, where we help people make evidence based sustainable. Small changes for their health that compounded the huge shifts towards a better, more vibrant life. I'm your host Ace, a health and life coach, future registered dietician, a master's graduate from Columbia University, and a certified intuitive eating counselor.
And I believe that we can't make lasting or meaningful change single handedly. So I'm so happy that you're here so that together you can see that a diet free, sustainable lifestyle is possible, and you can leverage that to live a better life. And remember my disclaimer, This podcast is meant to give you general information.
And it's not meant to substitute or replace medical advice, a diagnosis or serve as treatment.[00:01:00] Welcome back to the Be About Being Better podcast y'all. Do I have an update for you. So y'all know that recently I was in Asheville, North Carolina, left Nashville, went to Asheville, was with a couple friends in the woods, um, went hiking against my will. We were supposed to go on a huge mountain, but that didn't work out.
Thank God. Instead we went on another trail and I was like, Okay, this trail, like doesn't seem so bad, seems short, has a little bit of a creek, um, seems like it should be okay. Um, it was not, it was not okay. Number one I couldn't even get to the trail. Like I guess I just don't, People that hike probably know this, but sometimes it's hard to get to the actual trail.
Like it is not safe. We're on this windy road on a hill, [00:02:00] Cars are flying by and we're just like parked on the side of the road and then walking where there's no shoulder. So I'm like, I'm already hyperventilating. I'm like, This is not. And then we have to jump over this like little reel. And then it was so steep, y'all where this trail was, you couldn't even see the trail.
You had to like almost look over a cliff. I'm like, this can't be it . And they're like, Oh yeah, no, this is it. And to get down to where the creek was and it was pretty, Once we got down in this like super steep hill, Once we kind of hiked down, it was totally fine, but it was a full on Meredith Blake from the parent trap moment for me getting down this hill and getting back up.
But I'm like, What am I supposed to grab onto? And a couple times throughout the trail on the way [00:03:00] down there were these random ropes connected to either each other or connected to different trees. And they were all different colored ropes. And so you could tell. If someone from maybe the State Park Society, or I don't even know what they call it.
If someone in an official capacity put these ropes in, they would've all looked the same. So we already knew, okay, these were different people doing the trail in the past that have said, Hey, we need a rope here. And maybe these were people that were regular hikers. They just had a rope on hand, and people in the public, as they were doing the show, were starting to add these different ropes.
That's why they didn't look cohesive in. So it's clear that to get down and to get back up safely, you need to hang onto these ropes and no one in an official capacity put in these ropes. So this is what I'm dealing with. . It was so traumatizing. I, it [00:04:00] wasn't that long of a hike cuz you just gotta get down.
You take pictures at the bottom, you see the creek come back up. Thank God it wasn't that long, but I just realized like this is not. What I consider fun. I do not like hiking. Like I just, I just didn't like it. What I did like was after the hike, after I stopped crying in the car, literally started crying.
I'm not being dramatic. It was. I was just very overstimulated, very overwhelmed. Wasn't sure if I was gonna like slip and break an ankle, like it was very slippery cuz it had rained the night before. Like it was just not a good situation. I was holding onto those ropes for dear life, but the best part was once I stopped crying and we were driving away going home, we were just in the car and we were driving through, I guess it was like the Smokey Mountains National Park that you.
Drive through the mountains were absolutely beautiful with the foliage this time of year. The leaves were amazing. It really was [00:05:00] beautiful, and I got to observe that and experience nature. In the comfort of my car, in the comfort of a seatbelt and a vehicle, like I, I got to sit down. I didn't have to exert any effort.
I got to sip my coffee, stay hydrated, have a snack or two. It was amazing. I'm like, Why did we do this from the get go ? What we have to like fear for our lives, trying to like go down this steep cliff. That you needed. Literally, you couldn't walk down it on your own. You needed to hold onto these ropes Anyway, it was insane.
So that was my Asheville experience, my, when we were in town and we spent one day in downtown Asheville. Um, It's diff, I mean, if you are a beer person, it's definitely a great beer city. If you're really into art, it's a great art city. I loved going to the different galleries. That [00:06:00] was really cool for me.
I'm personally not a beer person or a brewery person, so didn't en enjoy that part, but um, but I really did like the Biltmore. I think if you can go to Asheville and pay to go on the grounds of the bilmore and have a picnic there, I wish we could have spent more time there and just like gotten lunch to go.
and brought so to the bill cuz really the gardens there and the sites there were also amazing. And then spending time driving through the Smoky Mountains, that was incredible. Um, but yeah, I'm just not a fan of the hiking, not a fan of the breweries. Um, yeah, so Asheville was okay. I think I like Nashville better personally.
There's just a little bit more going on, more my style. But it wasn't a bad weekend and I've survived. So overall it was good. So I had to give y'all an update on that. So to get into what we're gonna be discussing today, we are gonna be talking about all things meal prep.
We're gonna go over our be about being better meal planning and [00:07:00] prepping method. And this is so essential because I know if you're an RB about being better community, that you are very. and you're very high achieving. You have a lot of things on your plate, and you need nutrition to be easier. I can almost guarantee you that if you're listening to this right now, you spend a lot of time thinking about food.
Thinking about your next meal and thinking about nutrition, and if you could just clear out some of that mental real estate, clear out some of that mental head space. Think about how much more time, energy, attention you could devote to other things in your life that would actually move the needle. So meal prepping and meal planning will.
help you to be more successful in your life because you don't have to worry about it so much. Meal prepping and meal planning will help streamline things for you, and you might be thinking, Oh, like I'm hesitant to do it because I don't have a lot of time. [00:08:00] Like, you don't have time not to. You're so busy.
You need to be able to go to your fridge, pull out a piece, Tupperware, put it in the microwave for two minutes, and then start eating. Or pull out some topple ware, put it in your lunchbox and be able to go. Meal prepping and meal planning isn't supposed to make your life more stressful. It's supposed to make things easier, and it's supposed to make the more nutrient dense options convenient for yourself.
Yeah, it is easy to go to the vending machine. Yeah, it is really easy to go through a drive through. , how are those meals? How are those snacks making you feel? Because those options are usually not the most nutrient dense, and it's not that we can't have them, but we might wanna limit how often we're relying on those methods to get a meal or get a snack.
So by meal prepping and meal planning, it allows us to make decisions [00:09:00] earlier on in the. So we don't have to make those decisions later on the week. You can literally just focus on other things and it allows us to make the nutrient dense options more convenient. And before we get into the meal prepping and meal planning method that we use it be about being better.
I wanna preface this all by saying that you do not need to do everything for. , you're meal, meal prepping and meal planning. You do not need to do it all at one time, and you don't need to meal prep and meal plan every meal. You could just start out with prepping your lunches or maybe just doing some dinners or maybe just meal prepping your snacks if you're the type of person.
That after lunch and before dinner, you do get a little hungry, which this is most people. I definitely recommend having an afternoon snack, but if you tend to grab a bag of chips or another coffee or something sweet for a little, pick me up. [00:10:00] You would probably benefit from meal prepping beforehand. A little nutrient dense snack that's easy for you to take on the go with you wherever you are.
If you're working from home, just have it readily available. You would probably benefit from that. So maybe just start with your snacks and then work your way up. And also know that you don't have to meal prep everything all in one day. I mean, for me, I meal prep on Sundays, but I have also streamlined the meal prepping process where it only takes me an hour to do everything for the week.
So just know that it, it can be done. And I know that if I was prepping meals throughout the week and doing a lot of cooking and didn't prep anything in advance. It would take me way longer than an hour. It'd probably almost take me an almost an hour a day. I was doing Hello Fresh for a little bit of time at the beginning of Covid.
Cause they have so many deals. They're like, oh, 70% off your first box, or whatever it is. And um, [00:11:00] those, I thought that those meals would save me time, but each meal took me like 35 minutes. And I didn't enjoy cooking it well. I don't enjoy cooking at all, but , um, I didn't find that the Hello Fresh meals saved me time. It actually ended up being more stressful and I used other ingredients. Okay. It's kind of a sidebar. Why does every meal through Hello Fresh require sour cream? Like I don't understand, like I don't use sour cream in like my everyday life. Maybe here and there in like a burrito, but like, not even like if I go to Chipotle, I don't even get sour cream, but like what?
I've never seen a company. Have so many recipes that like require sour cream. I didn't know how to opt out of that. I didn't want them sending it. I felt bad like wasting so much of it, like I don't know if anyone else has said that experience, but that was my hello Fresh experience. Every meal took me 35 [00:12:00] minutes.
If not longer, and it wasn't saving me time. It actually ended up being more stress-inducing. Like, yes, it's great to have your groceries delivered to you, but it's only a couple meals, and it was only two serving, so I was cooking every other day, like it was just too much. So for me, I've been able to consolidate it to one day, but just know you don't have to do your meal prep in one day.
You can do like a Sunday Wednesday, you could do a Monday Thursday, you could do a Monday, Wednesday, Friday, or maybe it's a Sunday, Tuesday, Thursday. Like you could break it up where it's, you know, a couple days and you might also find that you like meal prepping, other meals like getting your breakfast so ready to go and your snacks, maybe your lunch, but dinner - maybe you enjoy cooking dinner because you're home with a loved one or a partner or a roommate, and that's your time to bond and maybe you actually do enjoy cooking, but maybe that's your time to bond and catch up. Or maybe you know [00:13:00] you're a mom with kids and you wanna get them involved in the cooking process.
That would actually be great if you have someone in your life that isn't eating super nutrient dense, but you would like them to eat more, more nutrient dense food. Um, if you have a picky eater at home and you want them to start expanding their palette, expanding their interests, get them involved in the cooking process, have them pick out some of the ingredients, have them chop something up and maybe start an herb garden or grow some vegetables. Like it's pretty easy to grow tomatoes just at your house. Like get them involved in the process of cooking it, making it, buying it, chopping it up, throwing a little seasoning on. Get them involved because they will be more emotionally attached to whatever you're cooking, whatever you're preparing, and then subsequently more likely to try it. They might not like it, but they're more likely to try it. And we know that with [00:14:00] repeat exposures to foods, especially vegetables that do have more of a bitter taste, it's an acquired taste. You need multiple, several exposures, somewhere between like nine and 13 exposures to start liking, whatever that is, if it's something that is an acquired taste. So to start the meal planning and prepping process, you have to meal plan first. This is essential whether you're gonna meal prep all of your meals or like a few meals or maybe just your snacks or doing this a couple times. You need to meal plan, and this is great, especially if you're someone that doesn't like to meal prep all of your meals because you don't like how leftovers taste and leftovers kind of gross you out.
That's fine. This message still applies. You still need to be meal planning and setting the intention, making decisions around what you're gonna make and what you're gonna buy so that it is more streamlined for yourself. Because I need all of you listening to this to think less about food and make things more [00:15:00] streamlined so that we can clear up that mental head space so you can focus on other things in your life.
So you have to meal plan. So what I recommend is getting a sheet of paper out and writing out: breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks. What are you going to make? And if you're the type of person that likes to eat the same thing Monday through Friday, go ahead do it. I find that most people don't like to eat the same thing every single day, and that gets a little boring.
So I recommend having like meal plan A and meal plan B. You have two different options, two sets of recipes for the week. So meal plan A, maybe you have that Monday, Wednesday, Friday. Meal Plan B would then be Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday. Or you could have some that's like Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and then Thursday, Friday, Saturday, something like that.
Um, if you don't mind having the same thing three days in a row, but want something different the next three days, so you can decide how you wanna divvy that up. Um, and the reason why I only [00:16:00] have you go through Monday through Saturday is because you need one day of the week as a catch all day. You need one day to eat leftovers, or maybe you will go out to dinner Thursday or uh, you know, another day of the week.
Maybe you just, it gets that meal and you don't feel like it, You don't wanna make every single meal at home cuz you wanna leave some room for having leftovers, adding some variety, getting some fun and treat meals and going out, things of that nature. So you don't wanna prep every single meal. You wanna have some variety.
So that's why we only do six days if you. Following this, this method and you wanna plan for that too, and know, okay, I think I'm gonna go, you know, Taco Tuesday with these friends, or I'm gonna go out Thursday, I think I'm going out for lunch this day. Or, uh, work is bringing in lunch this day. You know, stuff of that nature.
So you're gonna start planning ahead and setting the intention, but then get everything else that you can decide the things that you are going to prep. Get that out on a sheet of paper, write it out, [00:17:00] because that becomes your grocery list, because after you write all of this out, breakfast, lunch, dinner, snacks.
Don't forget snacks. For either meal plan A, if you're just gonna have the same meal plan the whole week or meal plan A meal plan B. If you're gonna have two different options, then that's when you go to your kitchen and you see what you already have. What do you actually need? This method saves my clients so much money because they realize, Wow, I was buying so much food that I thought that I needed, but I already had.
Um, and I realized I didn't need to get so many maybe foods. We have so many things that are in our pantry or in our freezer that we think, Oh, well maybe I'll eat this. And then it just stocks up. And if you stop buying those, maybe foods, cuz you probably already have so many, probably don't need to buy anymore for a while.
Cuz it's always good to have, you know, frozen meals or like frozen chicken fingers or something. Or a couple cans [00:18:00] of tuna or canned soup. Boxes of pasta, rice, things like, Like it's good to have those non-perishable or frozen items, but you don't need to be buying them every single week unless you're actually using them that week.
So it can save you a lot of money if you're getting rid of those maybe foods from your grocery list. Things where like, Oh, maybe I'll eat this. So you could save a lot of money by really streamlining, what do you actually need to buy? So you write out your list, you write out your meal plan, and. You go to your pantry, see what you already have, and cross those things off, or highlight the things that you actually do need to buy or restock on.
And then that is your grocery list. And then when you go to the grocery store, you're not just buying spinach because spinach is healthy and I should buy spinach. You're buying spinach because you know, okay, meal plan A, I'm gonna have a spinach salad, and then for meal plan B, I'm gonna use that spinach in [00:19:00] a stir fry and add that to a different recipe so you know exactly what you're using it.
A lot of people are hesitant to buy more nutrient dense items because they're like, Well, vegetables are just, they're gonna get wilty. Like I either don't know how to prepare them, or I don't cook them quickly enough, and then they go bad, and that ends up being a waste, so I'm just not gonna buy them.
That's what I was saying. But maybe get frozen vegetables if you're not totally sure when you're going to use it, or if you don't want things to go bad, but you could also meal plan in this way, so you know exactly where the nutrient dense items are going for your recipe. So it's very specific. You're not just buying things because they're healthy, you're getting things for your recipe.
Once we're ready to start cooking, you wanna start with your oven, Set that to 350 and then do a couple sheet pan dinners. Now you'll see in the show notes I have a link to download my free meal [00:20:00] prepping and planning guide walks you through this whole process and it gives you a space to write out what is my meal plan A, what is my meal?
Plan B gives you a couple sample shopping lists, Um, gives you some options if you're not sure what to have for snacks or different things like that. I also give some suggestions for sheet pan dinners, where on one pan you have a protein source, you have a carb source and you have a vegetable, and you put it all in the oven to roast at 350 degrees for 20 minutes.
So you can throw a couple sheet pan dinners in, or you can make proteins in bulk. You can just like put a bunch of shrimp on. You could put a bunch of salmon, you could put a bunch of chicken or Turkey meatballs or get a couple, a bunch of vegetables, like roast some carrots and roast some broccoli.
Uh, put some sweet potatoes on, like you could have a bunch of sheet pans to make things in bulk. Um, or you could have one pan with several things on it. Um, that's what I recommend start with the oven. Once everything's in the oven, I have about 20 minutes to [00:21:00] not worry about it. So then start with the stove top.
After that, this is when you can start making ground Turkey or making some stir fries, or making pasta or making rice or quinoa, Any other things that would require the stove top do that at that point. So start with the oven, then go to the stove top. Once the stove top is stable, then I would move to the microwave.
This is when I just start, boom, boom, boom, back to back, putting in frozen vegetables and it makes it really easy. I put stuff in there for five or so minutes, and just cook a bunch of frozen vegetables. Then once that's all going, then I will turn to my counter and prepare my non cook related things. Most of the time, this is when I'm preparing my snacks.
So I normally, for myself, I love baby carrots and I [00:22:00] love mixed nuts. I like fruit, Um, cheese sticks. , I, I feel like I have so many different types of snacks, a goldfish. I love having goldfish too. So I will prepare all of those snacks and put them in serving sizes. So I'll put stuff in little Ziploc baggies, or I have small boxes of Tupperware.
And I'll fill that up with goldfish, fill that up with mixed nuts. I'll get a cheese stick out. Um, and I will put things in, in different serving sizes for how many portions I'm gonna need. So preparing for five or six days, I will make five or five or six servings for each snack. , and I'll do the same thing at this point for my breakfast.
If I'm making overnight oats, I will do that. At this point. Lately I've been taking cottage cheese, protein powder, and a vanilla jello packet with a little [00:23:00] bit of oat milk and mixing that in my blender. I hate cottage cheese. I hate the texture, but I love that it's a lean source of protein. Great source of calcium, all the things.
But I hate the texture. So when I blend it up and then sweeten it and even add a more protein with the protein powder, ends up being the most delicious snack. So, and I've been liking that better, more than overnight oats because it's a protein packed, like pudding, basically it tastes so, so good. And I'll sprinkle on some crumbled Graham cracker.
With a chopped up half banana. I'll add the banana, the graham cracker when I actually eat it. But when it's prepping in the fridge, you know, I'll either do overnight oat, so that's what I'm making that week. Or I will do this kind of new like cottage cheese, protein packed pudding and it tastes so good.
So at that point, I have everything cleared off the counter, stuff's normally ready to come outta the oven. Stuff's ready on the stove, um, to be taken down. And at that point I [00:24:00] will put everything in individual tupperware containers. I would recommend not leaving stuff in bulk in your fridge, unless you're the type of person that likes to component meal prep. Like if you just make a bunch of sweet potatoes and you know, Okay, I'm gonna heat up some of these sweet potatoes and I'm gonna have them for dinner, but then some, I'm gonna save for my lunches because I'll make more of a grain bowl.
Okay, I could see that, But I would still encourage you to not leave the sweet potatoes all in one huge container. I would recommend divvying that up into the different portion sizes so that literally, You can just take a container out of the fridge, heat it up for two minutes and start eating it, or take it out of the fridge, put it in your lunchbox, and be, you know, on the go.
So it just takes one step out and you can do that right from the get go once it's done, just div eat up into the portion sizes. That's what I would recommend. And. [00:25:00] It ends up being a really streamlined process. I say when you're starting this off, just start small. Start with one meal or just start with your snacks and maybe just do it for a couple days.
Maybe just do a little prep on Sunday, and then yeah, just enough to get you through Wednesday. Break it up a little bit. If you go from zero to 100 where you're prepping absolutely nothing to try and prep everything, and you're really not that great at cooking, not you don't love cooking. It can be really hard to stick with.
It's like anything with a healthy lifestyle. If you do too much too fast, you might not be able to sustain it. You might get frustrated and then you end up just doing nothing. So it's better to do something rather than nothing and ease yourself into it. Build on it over time, and also know that once you start meal prepping, It's gonna take a bit of time.
You're gonna have to work out the kinks and get into your flow and figure out what works for you. This is what works for me. This is what we coach most of our [00:26:00] clients through and what works for them. But even then, when we walk through the system with them, they are still meal planning their own things.
They have their own food preferences. They know if they like leftovers or not. They know what days they're choosing, what days they're meal prepping and what meals they're also planning for. So you can really individualize this and and ease into it, and that's what I would recommend is starting small building on it.
And it might take you a longer amount of time in the beginning, but you will streamline as you. So take comfort in that, that if it takes you two hours or even more than that the first week, don't get overwhelmed. Don't get discouraged. Use that as feedback for yourself. Okay, where could I streamline? Do I need to make everything all in one day?
Did I, you know, bite off more that I could chew? and where can I streamline this and, and keep trying, keep refining and, and ease into it [00:27:00] because ultimately this is supposed to make your life easier. You're making decisions earlier on in your week so that you can devote time, energy, and attention to other things, and so that you can make the nutrient dense options convenient for your.
So right now I'd recommend you go to the show notes, download our free meal plan and prep guide. It goes through the method again, and it gives you spaces to write out, Okay, here's my meal plan A, here's my meal, plan b. I offer a sample grocery list, and you could look at that. You don't have to buy all those items, but it can give you ideas.
Oh, here are some greens I can try or, Oh, here are some other vegetables I didn't think about. I give you a couple recipe options. I give you some options for sheet pan dinners and different combinations you can do. I give you some seasoning combinations and options cuz if you know that you like chicken or you like salmon, but you wanna make things a little bit more interest, , you might just need a list of different ideas for how [00:28:00] to season something, make it just taste slightly different, that could keep things interesting for you and still nutrient dense.
So I'd recommend downloading that free guide and, and using that, printing it out or using an electronic version of it and just testing it out and, and putting an emphasis on the meal planning, because that will structure your grocery. Actually save you money cuz you're just getting what you need and what portion sizes you need it for.
Cause you know how many servings you're gonna have of every single thing so you know exactly what to buy and how much. And then from there, you know exactly when you get to the kitchen, what you're making, what the purpose of every food that you're buying is for. So I hope that this was helpful, dme, if you have any questions, download that free guide in the show notes and I'll see you in the next episode.
[00:29:00] Hey y'all. Thanks again for listening to the Be about Being Better podcast. I so appreciate you. If this episode made you laugh, smile, think about yourself or your life differently, in any way, making your life better, I empower you to share the show with three people who just like you, need to hear this message and have this type of transformation in their lives.
I personally read all the reviews the show and see the Instagram story shares. It honestly gives me so much joy to see that our mission is making people's lives better, and the reviews really do help in increasing our impact. So thank you so much for taking the time to do that. If you need personalized support with anything discussed in today's episode or need help creating a sustainable diet free lifestyle, take my quiz.
It's Linked Flow in the show notes, and that quiz will help you see which one of our coaching programs is right for you. Thank you so much again for listening and here's to being about being better.
