How to Make Meal Planning a Reality for Your Busy Lifestyle
Working professionals may feel they have little time to devote to meal planning. With all day meetings, client commitments, unrealistic deadlines, long office hours and on-boarding new hires; health and proper diet often take a backseat.
A sedentary desk job isn’t easy on your body or your mind. If you are not conscious of the types of food you eat and when to eat, your body would be soon transform into a vulnerable hotspot of life-threatening diseases like Type II diabetes, high cholesterol and high blood pressure.
Those with a full-time job and a young family are even more at risk of derailing well-intended health plans if there is simply no solid meal plan in place. This is why meal planning is essential, especially if you are busy and pressed for time.
Here are few tips to get you started:
Break your day up into breakfast, lunch, dinner and 2 x snacks. Then calculate how many of these you will have to plan for over the week.
Start with listing everything you need for your breakfasts (e.g. oats, milk, orange juice, eggs etc). Then do this for your lunches, dinners and snacks. Tip: make bulk dinners and lunches so that you have leftovers. You can also use frozen instead of fresh vegetables.
Divide your meals up into the 3 macronutrients: Carbohydrates (vegetables fruit, grains), Protein (legumes/beans, soy/tofu, meat/meat alternatives), fat (vegetable oils, avocado, pastes, condiments, sauces etc).
Divide your plate up into 3 sections: 1/2 the plate is vegetables (tip: colours of the rainbow!), 1/4 of the plate is protein, the other remaining 1/4 is starchy carbohydrates (e.g. rice, quinoa, potatoes, bread). The best way is to visualise what your plate can look like. For more detail on this, visit www.execfuel.com.au.
Make time in your week to plan your meals and you will develop healthier habits, whilst also regaining a sense of control over your health.
