Fighting with food...?!

I have always been one to procrastinate and find excuses particularly when it comes to my health. Lately, I have been inspired and somehow motivated to do something about it.

I have been doing a bit of reading and research on different recipes/foods that one can incorporate into a healthy eating lifestyle. Yes, i studied nutrition as part of the curriculum in the career path I've chosen, but there is always that one hiccup, that one can never put a finger to, when it comes to "diet" or "eating healthy"... I have really been making an effort to find a way to make it a lifestyle, to make it a permanent and yet not painful change in my day to day eating habits.

Of all the articles I read through, what seems to have stood out big and strong for me was planning!

I figured baby steps was the way to go! I would start by planning my meals, for the week, ahead of time starting with breakfast. Now breakfast was a meal I would not ordinarily eat, my excuse being "I can't eat early in the morning"... true translation "I can't actually be bothered to get up early enough to make or figure out what to eat, and will deal with it when the hunger strikes ie. buy some form of convenience food."

So, on Sunday past, I went through my kitchen cupboards to see if I had enough containers to prep my breakfast for the week.. thought about what would be a good start to my day, health and energy wise and concluded on Oats. So oats it would be for the breakfast for the entire week - now luckily I love oats so getting bored was not something I needed to worry about. I also had a back up plan just in case - eg. mixing in frozen berries, cinnamon, cutting fresh fruit into it etc.

I found some baby food containers that I had not used and they were the perfect size. I precooked all my oats for the week (the stove kind, will be looking for steel cut oats in the the health shop).. served it out into the containers and popped it into the fridge. This is was experimental, note, as I was not sure if it would last 5 days without going off... and it didn't :). I got up each morning, popped it into the microwave for a minute to reheat, picked up a different piece of fruit each day, had a cuppa tea on arrival to work and that was breakfast.. done!

Hoping that I will inspire someone else who has been struggling to make some changes, to walk this journey with me, I've found that it's a lot harder to try and change everything overnight, but doing it gradually may just be the key to success.

This weekend I will work on my lunches (although I made and took a salad everyday this week, I feel that possibly adding a bit more variety as opposed to the same salad would be an more appealing option), I will be posting a lunch update soon.

If you are not a morning person, like me, or just pre-plan your breakfasts as a general rule, please share what else you've made ahead that lasts all week... I would love to know and start looking at variety for the near future.