How Simplifying Food Choices Fuels Lasting Success
Food influencers, fitness gurus, and the latest medical research have a way of putting intense pressure on your dietary plans. But good quality food doesn’t need to be complicated.
By simplifying your food choices, you can create a massive ripple effect across your entire life. Improve your mood, health, and time management skills with this simple, straightforward change.
When you purposefully streamline routines, menu planning, and shopping, you reduce the daily fatigue that mealtimes can fuel. Plus, with greater predictability, you can see improvements in your health markers, stress levels, and even your relationships.
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Stress Less By Trimming Down Decisions
Decision fatigue is a real thing – that’s why some of the most successful and efficient restaurants limit your options. Too many choices leads to decision paralysis, when you are so overwhelmed with options you fail to choose at all.
The amount of time you spend trying to decide only adds more stress to an already tense situation. Before long, an hour has passed, your family is starving, and you haven’t narrowed down your ingredients.
Cut the stress immediately by cutting out the options. Look at your meal as something you need to arrange, rather than create from scratch. Skip the social media recipe feeds for now, and return to a simpler way of meal planning.
Consider basic food groups and energy types, specifically proteins, carbohydrates, and fats. Next, assess your and your family’s health goals to determine what percentage of your servings should come from each category. Kids will need protein and carbohydrates to keep up with sports and growth spurts while parents will need other ratios.
Finally, narrow down your list of ingredients among the most nutrient-dense, crowd-pleasing, and cost-effective for your household. Healthy meal kits can fill in on the days where shopping trips are too time-consuming. These pre-portioned kits include exactly what you need to prepare a delicious meal without wasting time or ingredients.
Reclaim Time and Energy Each Day
With your simplified meal plan in hand, grocery shopping has become quicker, easier, and eliminates aimless, and temptation-driven shopping. You have a plan for success and have already done the work to craft your new food strategy.
Assign a theme to a day, like “meatless Monday,” or “taco Tuesday” to guide your plan. Tacos can be filled with practically anything, making it easier to opt for sale items or reimagine leftovers. Make it even easier by creating a bi-weekly menu that’s repeated all year long.
Reserve creative meals and those inspired by beautiful photos for a weekend when you have time to dedicate the effort. This way, you relieve yourself from the pressure to perform and prepare something extravagant when it’s not practical. Plus, you’ll enjoy the experience more and infuse the opportunity to connect with your spouse or children who are willing to help.
Budget Better and Waste Less
When you keep meals simple, you nearly eliminate temptations from grocery end-cap displays, coupon blitzes, and the like. With a simplified meal plan, you use what you buy. While you may keep duplicates in stock, your pantry and refrigerator will soon feature a solid rotation of ingredients.
If you’re debating this approach, do the math on how much of each ingredient, especially fresh, one can eat weekly. Chances are, your household struggles to keep up with fresh produce, tossing money away more than you’d care to tabulate.
Your rotating meal plan can leverage in-season ingredients, gaining the best flavor and favorable pricing. Adjust your produce purchases to right-size your order based on your needs. A giant bag of potatoes before the holidays is easily eaten but may require creativity throughout the year.
By designing a simplified meal plan, you create predictability in your weekly grocery purchases and their cost. Review your re-orders to identify patterns and approach your shopping like an inventory manager would. Find items you can put on auto-order to reduce manual purchases, in-store shopping, and eliminate emergency orders.
Gain Predictability for Nutrition, Digestion, and Health Goals
If you’re pursuing better health, you need a plan to help you get there. Make your nutrition plan one you can stick to by simplifying meals across the board. This approach increases the nutritional value of your meals and reduces the need for empty calories and unnecessary fillers.
Plan a protein-centered meal based on a rotisserie chicken and serve it with simple, on-ingredient sides like steamed vegetables. Take the leftover chicken and mix it with Greek yogurt and seasonings and make tomorrow’s lunch a delicious chicken salad. Dip your chicken salad out with sweet peppers and you have a protein-powerhouse of a meal.
These simple meals aren’t just delicious – they’re packed with nutrients that help manage blood sugar and offer lasting energy. Build a plan based on your goals and the simplistic food life will make it easier to stick to. Before long, you’ll see your health goals become your healthy reality, all thanks to simplifying your food choices.
Support Your Wellbeing by Simplifying Mealtimes
Life is complicated enough, so give yourself permission to simplify where you can. By decluttering your fridge, recipe file, and to-do list, you simplify the process of managing mealtimes. Reclaim your time for what’s most important to you in whatever season of life you’re in.
Make the transition between the workday and evening smoother, allowing for ample time to decompress and reset. Build in a healthier buffer between dinner and bedtime, using your regained breathing room to connect with your kids. No matter what you do with your newfound time, you’re in control of your life without the stress of mealtimes.