Think about the good things in life. Whether it’s a beautiful visual, a great song, a healthy body, or a meaningful and productive lifestyle, they all have one thing in common: rhythm. A good rhythm is essential to every part of health, including diet, digestion, heart health, exercise routine, and sleep pattern. Rhythm helps to create a balance and prevent excess chaos in our life and health. While chaos can be exciting in moderation, it’s often destructive to our wellbeing.
So, how does one achieve a rhythm?
First, remember that Rome wasn’t built in a day. Good things take time. A core part of rhythm is that it must build up gradually to be stable. In life, the building blocks of rhythm are our habits. I was first exposed to the true importance of our habits when I read Charles Duhigg’s “The Power of Habit”. Since then, I have aimed to add at least one new healthy good habit to my repertoire every year.
I recommend starting your journey toward a healthy rhythm by improving eating habits. This is because we are what we eat, so you must first make sure that you’re getting the fuel you need. Over time, you can refine your rhythm further by working on exercise habits, sleep habits, and more.
If you’re a carnivore, one example of an achievable healthy eating habit to explore is Meatless Monday. Setting aside one day a week for a vegetarian diet is a great way to boost your vegetable intake while doing something good for the planet.
Most people want to eat healthily and recognize how good they feel when they do eat nutritious food. Unfortunately, the most accessible “foods” are those that are ready at a moment’s notice because they’re highly processed. The easiest way to improve our eating habits is to set aside some time once a week to make sure that we will have easy access to healthy, unprocessed foods in the days ahead. This is usually referred to as meal preparation or “meal prep”.
Remember the Rule of 5 P’s: “Proper Preparation Prevents Poor Performance”.
Rather than a one-size-fits-all diet, meal prep is a highly adaptable way of eating healthy foods, allowing you to choose foods that work best for you. An added bonus of meal prep is that it can be a great social activity. I like to get together with family and friends on a Sunday afternoon and prepare a few meals for the week ahead. It feels great to work together in the moment and to know that we’re all coming together to benefit our health. Many hands make light work!
While many people prepare full meals in advance that only need to be warmed up, you can also use meal prep time to lighten the day-to-day work of putting a meal on the table. This can include preparing a pot of lentils and rice to be combined with other foods before the meal, or simply chopping up the ingredients of a salad and waiting to add the dressing.
When choosing what to cook when meal prepping, my advice is to keep beauty in mind. We eat with our eyes first. It can make a big difference to the overall experience when your plate is full of a variety of colours, textures, and shapes.
While it’s pretty simple to start, meal prepping is easiest when you have the right tools for the job. To help you get started, I’ve invited my friend Vira to contribute to this month’s blog with some great recommendations to make your meal prep experience a breeze.
Vira’s Favorite Things
Hi I’m Vira. I am a mother of two, a fiercel believer that healthy eating and exercise are the best medicine, and when it comes to food and entertaining I believe that love is in the details. Thanks to my Italian heritage I have always loved the notion of La Dolce Vita (the sweet life). I believe that it is the simple everyday things in our life like preparing and sharing a good meal with beautiful quality ingredients with friends and family that make life so much sweeter.
Over the years I have taken great joy and pleasure in sourcing and sharing my lifestyle discoveries and great finds with friends and family. I am very excited to now be able to share some of those items here with you in this section on Melissa’s blog. I have cultivated a list of all my favorite products that I regularly use in my kitchen and home for my health, lifestyle and beauty needs. I hope you love them as much as I do.
Mepal Food Containers
I few years ago I discovered Mepal food storage containers and I love how they combine functionality, beautiful design (offered in an assortment of colours) and good quality (BPA free, unbreakable and dishwasher safe). I believe that the key to eating healthy on the go is preparing in advance and having the right containers to make that task easier.
These are three of my favourite Mepal containers for snacks or meals on the go:
1. Mepal’s Ellipse Fruit & Veggie Pot
The fruit and veggie pot comes with three components: a mini colander so you can wash and drain your berries or vegetables before placing them in in the outer container so that your berries won’t get soggy and your vegetables stay crunchy. They have also ingeniously incorporated a fork that fits in next to the colander.
2. Mepal’s Ellipse Duo Salad Box
I gifted this salad box to Melissa and she adores when she needs to pack a salad for lunch. It features two compartments that allow you to keep your greens and protein separate from your dressing (comes with a small container for your dressing) and any other ingredients you want to keep dry or crunchy (ex: bread, nuts or croutons). The transparent box is large enough to toss a main meal salad once you are ready to combine all the ingredients.
3. Mepal’s Lunchpot Ellipse
This container is perfect for my favorite breakfast on the road: greek yogurt with berries. You will notice that it is hard to find a high protein/low sugar yogurt on the run. Most options on the road are laden with sugar so I have gotten into the habit of bringing my own with me. This container makes it easy since it has two separate compartments to keep your crunchy nut topping or berries separate from your yogurt. The clever part of this container is that both compartments have separate lids and the two compartments can be separated with a simple twist.
Souper cubes
These silicone trays are portion friendly and stackable and they make freezing and reheating stocks and soups so easy and convenient. I love the one cup tray because I can freeze my chicken broth in one cup blocks that I can then use as a base in my soups. Follow them on instagram for great meal prep ideas.
The Benefits of Meal Prepping
Meal prep allows you to plan balanced meals in advance that that meet your caloric and macronutrient needs (carbs, protein and healthy fats). You control your portion sizes (weight and measurements) as well as the quality of your ingredients. You can ensure that your calories are coming from mostly nutrient dense whole foods.
By eating home cooked meals you significantly consume less sodium, saturated fat and sugar. Most commercial salad dressings are made with highly inflammatory seed oils rather than heart healthy olive oil and most of the yogurts on the shelves of quick service restaurants are loaded with sugar. When cooking your own meals or prepping healthy snacks in advance you ensure you get the best quality ingredients because you are selecting them yourself. It ensures you always have options on hand that meet your dietary needs so when hunger hits you are less likely to indulge in unhealthy choices. In short, meal prep is great for weight loss and maintenance.
Meal prep can save you time and money and stress. Whether you just pre-chop ingredients or you cook a week’s worth of meals on the weekend, when you get home after a long day with kids or at work, you will be thankful that some or all the components of your meal are already prepared. This frees up more time for yourself and your family. Meals at home become a whole lot easier to make when you invest in having some key elements ready to go, such as roasted sweet potatoes, steamed broccoli, grilled chicken and hard boiled eggs. This way you can assemble different dishes and snacks on the spot in much less time.
You are likely saving money as well because you are not ordering out and you can take advantage of selecting ingredients that are in season or on sale and therefore less costly.. Another cost savings is less food waste. It’s a great idea to use leftovers for packing a healthy lunch for the next day. Once you have a meal prep routine established, you will know how much of each ingredient you need which will reduce food waste and therefore save you money.
Thank you for the meal prep inspiration! The time I devoted to prepping on Sunday afternoon majorly payed off Monday though Friday. I made salads in a jar for each day and prepped veggies and protein so they were ready to cook each weeknight. As you say, it did save me time in the end and I avoided turning to ready-made and processed options. Will check out Vira's favourites too!