Tough Enough Nutrition and Fitness: Plan Ahead...it's that simlple!!!...or is it?

www.hoosierhomemade.com

As a Dietitian and fitness enthusiast I am ALWAYS reading the latest nutrition trends and find a lot of diets to be a bit extreme and ridiculous. However, there are a couple philosophies that really stand out and are pretty legitimate. One philosophy that I am truly an advocate for is eating clean. Although I think this is an excellent idea, I also think it can be VERY challenging in our mass food producing society.

A nutritional practice that I strongly support, that can also help with successful clean eating, natural eating, is planning meals ahead. The rest of this write up will be about how to prepare food ahead of time to take some of the "thought" out of meal planning and your busy week to intuitively react to your nutrition needs. I realize this sounds silly...plan and prepare to avoid planning and preparing...nice :).

Eating is about fueling our bodies. Metabolic optimization and timing is about nutritionally training our bodies to maintain an active metabolism. My goal with planning ahead, and why it is an attractive option, is this is also a helpful method to support a more intuitive eating approach. With planning ahead you can have plenty of clean and healthy foods available to choose from as needed and conveniently on the spot. You eat it, when you need it. The idea is to have one big day of work for a week of easy yum :) (or as my nephew says...easy peezy lemon squeezy). The image below is a great pictorial example of the intuitive eating approach created by Evelyn Tribole R.D. from http://carlenesfigments.wordpress.com. This nutrition perspective is not about dieting but understanding how to respect your body and its needs.

http://carlenesfigments.wordpress.com

Overall...This write up is in response to my own personal challenge with clean eating, and that is preparing food ahead of time. I do not really want to be thinking about food all the time or always planning what I am going to eat next. This article will tell you how to EFFECTIVELY make meals ahead of time while reducing food waste and taking a bit of the non-stop food thoughts away from eating every 2-3hr for optimal metabolic response.

The Benefits of Planning Meals Ahead
-Saves you time
-Potentially saves energy (gas/electric)
-Provides you with readily available healthy food options
-Can save you money (with the right budgeting and prep...look at my article meal planning and budgeting)
-Takes the daily thought and nag out of cooking. Make it easy.

Make A-head Meal Summary:

Cook When You Can - 2-3Hr
Make the Basics
Make in Bulk
Label It
Buy Prepared/Pre-Packaged (5 ingredients or less) Foods to Save Time (EX: diced onions, small pre-packaged yogurts, granola bars, etc.)
Freeze It
DON'T GO CRAZY

Cook when you can
Plan for 1 day of the week when you can set aside 2-3 hours to cook your main "basic" foods. This 2-3 hour time span will cover most of your cooking needs and some food portioning for the week.

What are the Basics?:
I personally think this is the MOST important step. Ask yourself, what do most of your clean recipes stem from? Analyze what the main emphasis of your meal is. a grain? a protein? vegetables? Some good examples include chopped, sliced, diced, browned beef/chicken/pork/turkey, or soup stocks, or diced and sauted vegetables, or pre-portioned cooked grains. Remember the goal is cooking now to make the future easier.

Cook in Bulk
Prepare two or more of an item. One to cook and serve now and more for another day. I often do this with chicken for myself and my husband. This way we have a good protein source to take to work for lunch the next couple days and an easy way to whip up dinner on a busy evening. In fact, now I even like cooking 6-10 at a time. I will keep 2-4 in the fridge for ready to use purposes and the rest tightly packed and dated in the freezer.

Label It:
Be sure to label your items and try to organize your refrigerator, pantry, and freezer. Check out this chart to see how long certain items can safely stay in the freezer USDA Food Freezing Information and Storage Chart.

Buy Prepared Food That Will Help You Save Time
If you do not want to chop, dice, cube etc. your meats/vegetables it may be to your benefit to buy them already prepared. Keep in mind this can cost more money...but it is your own personal preference. ALSO along this same idea is pre-portioned and pre-packaged food items. Try to utilize items with 5 ingredients or less. Examples: small greek yogurt containers (I like stoneyfield - Oikos with honey), granola bars, apples and peanut butter, tuna fish and crackers, mini salami sticks. These are snacky foods that you can grab and keep with you on the go. **Look in your local grocers frozen food aisle for fruits and vegetables. Frozen produce is a great way to have delicious produce that was packaged in its prime and held with adequately maintained nutritional value**

Freeze your Pre-Prep:
Once you have some of your basic needs made you can create quite a bit. Your freezer can REALLY be your friend. Once you cook your pre-prep foods of choice, place them in an air tight container or bag and freeze them. Try freezing your soup stocks in ice cube trays. The FASTER your foods freeze the better they hold their original quality. Less air in the container also prevents oxidation and maintains food quality longer. Remember to pull out the food a little ahead of time to thaw or you do need to defrost it BUT it is already cooked :).
How to Freeze Your Food - T.E.N.F
Quick Start Guide to Freezer Cooking - Life as a Mom Blog

Decent Quality Bags/Containers

Ziploc Vacuum Bags Buy It - I just bought this and it is surprisingly awesome!!! and $4.00
Glass dish w/ a lid Buy It - These hold quality very well and are nice to go straight from your freezer and into your oven...but they can be expensive to have a lot of them for food holding in your freezer.
Ziploc double zipper heavy duty freezer bags Buy It (these can be found at your local grocer too)
Green n pack eco friendly freezer bag Buy It
Tupperware freezer containers Buy It (Look for twist n'lock containers too)

Dont go crazy!:

This whole article has been about making foods in bulk and how helpful it is BUT you can go a little over board. For example try to shoot for...

1-2 main protein sources (Ex: container of baked chickens and a container of ground turkey)
1 container of sauce
1-2 grains (rice/pasta)
1-2 snacks (Ex: turkey muffin or protein bar recipe)

Organization is key! Label your foods, keep a first in first out approach (put the newest items in the back and oldest at the front for easiest access), stack foods with common groups so you know where to find things. Once things start getting lost in the abyss of your freezer/refrigerator...good luck :)

Additional Make Ahead Information and Recipes

Turkey Meatloaf Muffins - Jamie Eason
Italian Turkey Burgers - Jamie Eason
Eat Clean Get Lean Recipe Page - Protein Bars
http://www.thegraciouspantry.com/category/basics/ This is a cool link on how to make some easy clean eating basics. When you have some of the basics in your house you can utilize these to build different meals and dishes.
http://makeaheadmeals.blogspot.com/ I found this to be a nice blog all about foods that freeze well which make them excellent for making ahead. These are not necessarily "eating clean" recipes but still appear delicious and are a great start to planning ahead.

If you would like more information on clean eating check out my article the 28 Day Eat Clean Challenge or additional helpful resources such as...

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