Planning Out Your Week for Success!

Happy Monday,

I am still trucking away on interviews and job applications, but no luck as of yet. I am staying optimistic though that something will happen soon. I am staying busy with my workouts and runs, as well as seeing friends and family that I didn't get to see much in the last two years while in Chicago. I am looking at it as a vacation from Graduate School :) except that it is an unpaid vacation! :) The best advice I have gotten though is to stay as busy as possible so that I don't allow myself to get down about having little-to-no income. That is another reason I enjoy this blog so much- it keeps me busy and keeps me thinking on health/wellness which is what I want to work in. Ok, enough update on me. 

As we begin this week today, I figured this would be a great time to give some suggestions about how to plan for your week so that you will have a successfully healthy one! One of my FAVORITE suggestions I give to people trying to lose weight or stay on a healthy eating regiment is to PLAN, PLAN, PLAN your meals for the week/month. That way, when you are at the grocery store you know exactly what you need and leave the junk behind! Now, when I say plan, I mean know what you are going to have for breakfasts, lunches, snacks, and dinners for those 7+ days (however long you want to plan). Another part of the planning is go ahead and cook or divide up the ingredients for your meals (aka cook and pack your lunches for the week) and have dinners already made and in the fridge OR already made and divided up into appropriate portion sizes in the fridge. 

I like this idea because we all know how sometimes we get home from a long day and snack while we are making dinner, OR worse, grab the first thing we see and warm it up and eat it. Those don't usually tend to be the healthiest options. When it is already ready for you to eat, and divided up, then all you have to do is take your tubberware (glass, not plastic* - see reason for at bottom of page) and warm it up! Voila! 

There are many sites out there that have templates for grocery lists to help with this process, as well as recipe ideas for the week. I will give some examples:

Lunches for the week that you can pack ahead of time and take to work/school/etc:

-salads (hold the dressing until you eat it) in mason jars or tubberware containers. You can make up to 6  or more on Sunday to eat M-F. Add all the veggies and toppings you want (that are HEALTHY AND LOW FAT) in the container and just take it with you as you leave in the morning. Get creative :)

-fruit salads: divide up into containers in appropriate portion sizes for the week. Bring with your salads. 

-Bake/Cook a meal like grilled chicken with veggies and rice and divide up into 4-6 meals you can have for lunches or dinners so that all you have to do is heat it up. Even add it to your salad :) 

It is as easy as 1-2-3!! Sure, on Saturdays or Sundays it may take a little bit longer to make a more detailed list of groceries and meals. But it will take away time during the week of trying to figure out a meal(s) and will also keep you on the healthy track to wellness! Get creative and try it out this week with what you have in your house already. :) 


Good luck & let me know how it goes this week! 

SARAH


*It is safer to use glass containers (such as Pyrex) when warming up food than plastic containers. The plastic containers are made with multiple chemicals that seep into your food every time you put it in the microwave and heat up. The chemicals have been known as cancer-causing in the plastic tubberware products when heated up. They are useful if just used for cold storage.