*The following post is written by the great Natalie Brainerd. Resident CFME ninja, and blogger extraordinaire! Always fantastic information over at
Real Women Squat*
The beginning of anything marks an appropriate time to make some realistic commitments to your
self. It's not necessarily just a list of dos and don'ts, but
opportunities to be great, and a series of choices that will ultimately
determine success- whatever that looks like to you.
And so here we find ourselves at that genesis of something
new and great. The Whole Life Challenge.
I started a new ‘journal’ 2 days ago, and broke it in with the above
exercise.
It starts with, ‘Be
Better: In the Next 60 days I will:…’
It is now my Whole Life diary, minus the ‘Dear’s’ and ‘Love’s,’.
This along with my training log(the hard
copy of
BeyondTheWhiteboard) are going to be where I input my data from this
grand experiment.
So why might you consider doing this too?
Information.
The more information
you can collect-from measurements, bodyfat, circumference, pictures, to the
emotions that arise when you wake up tomorrow morning and remember you can’t
put heavy cream in your coffee- the more empowered you are to make the right
decisions for you. It’s called body intelligence.
One of the commitments you have probably already considered
making, if you haven’t already begun, is the one that will ultimately make or
break your success in this challenge, food prep.
The Achilles heel of all things ‘diet’ and health and
wellness. Yes, each one of you knows how important it is, and some may even
lose a little sleep over the stress it can produce. ‘Ugh, I don’t have time to cut
vegetables.’ Or ‘Didn’t I just do this yesterday??!’ So. Much. Food. Prep. However it doesn’t have to be like that,
if you just change your perspective about what it means.
This shift happened for me when I stopped looking at food as
being just something I put it in my mouth, and started appreciating it for what
it was going toward creating. Everything I eat is broken down by the
incredible systems inside of me, and used to build, repair, and nourish, the
house ONLY I am responsible for taking care of. So I stopped eating sour patch kids, processed meats, and
the deranged assortment of ‘Nutrition’ bars and powders littering the aisles of
any supplement store, and started relying on real, healthy, powerful, high
quality food. Why?
Because I wanted a REAL, HEALTHY, POWERFUL, HIGH QUALITY
body.
Period. End of Story. This became more important to me than
the excuses I was making. It trumped my fatigue every time, and shut up that
voice inside that said, ‘It’s ok, you don’t have to be great.’
So if I really wanted this life for myself, things needed to
change and I needed to get uncomfortable.
And so began my healthy relationship with the food that I
eat. *and it wasn’t always healthy…
This is where the fun begins. When I look in my refrigerator
there are all sorts of meats and vegetables, fats, and fruits, but I don’t see
food, I see nutrients, and possibilities, and the question, ‘What do I want to
create?’
There is no short cut to food prep. Vegetables do not cut
themselves. This doesn’t mean that you need to make it complicated though.
So here are some steps to get you started.
1: You need these things
2: And a healthy assortment of these things (timer there to
prove point-keep reading)
3: And approx this much time-
4: Perhaps a calendar to plan when you will accomplish this-
and a jar of pickle erasers if it doesn’t work out, obviously.
5: Don’t buy the whole grocery store if you are just getting
started. Pick 2-3 proteins you will cook in bulk, and 3-5 vegetables you will
chop up. Then next time you go to the grocery store pick out 2-3 different
proteins and 3-5 different vegetables!
Same with your fruit. This is a great opportunity to try new foods, and
remember looking at food as nutrients? Each one has unique qualities all their
own-diff types but also different colors will yield certain vitamins and
minerals.
6: Don’t try to reinvent the wheel. You don’t have to become
Gordon Ramsay over night and prepare a 5 star meal every time you cook. Shit.
Nobody got time for that.
You know
the salad bar at Whole Foods? This is sort of what you are creating in your
refrigerator.
7: And lastly, you find already chopped up vegetables etc at
the grocery store for a reasonable price- BUY IT!! Someone already did the work
for you!! I will usually do this with squashes-because honestly I have no idea
how to crack into one of those successfully.
Alright so this should be a good start for you. Think stirfry(where
you put random things in a pan and cook them), salads(same thing but cold),
scrambles, ‘tacos,’and snacks-cut up carrots, celery, grapes, sweet peas- ready
for you to just grab and eat. In one of the Tupperware containers I combined
cilantro and celery. So each
night I will grab some containers, pull out the veggies and start combining,
throw some of the buffalo or chicken I cooked in there, slice an avocado on top
and there’s my food prep for the next day. 37 minutes today, 2 minutes tomorrow :)
