I was talking to a friend a few months ago who was feeling tired and just not firing on all cylinders. She said she had a bad case of decision fatigue and felt totally overwhelmed with the many micro-decisions she had to make in a day. This resulted in her not having the space to give any thought to feeding herself or her family well consistently despite knowing better.
She’s a self motivated go-getter, runs a successful business, has four gorgeous kids and is a planning rock star, except when it comes to the food she eats. She always wings it and finds herself shopping daily, making poor choices and just not enjoying cooking because it’s always a scramble.
I know many of you might relate to her situation so I thought I’d share some of the advice I’ve given her to create sustainable habits that ensure she can reduce her cognitive load around ‘what to cook’ enabling her to eat well consistently…
Here’s my 5 Tips to Eat Well Consistently – hopefully they will help you too!
1. Meal Planning for busy families
We plan kids activities, social catch ups, work meetings but so few people plan meals. Planning out meals is the very best way to reduce the amount of time you spend in the kitchen. It also reduces trips to the shops, ensures you have a healthy range of food on the menu and minimises food waste (which saves $$). Start slowly and plan 2-3 meals a week to start with and build from there.
The Well Nourished Family membership is an incredible tool for easy meal planning for busy families. It provides you with done for you and customisable meal plans to suit every families size and tastes. And best of all, every plan generates both printable and digital shopping lists to really minimise your time in the kitchen.
2. Get everyone involved
Kids love to help plan. Perhaps you can create themed days – meat-free Monday, Taco Tuesday, Fish Friday. Invite your kids to chose one meal a week to go on the plan. If they pick the same thing every week, you could challenge them to find something new every second week for everyone to try. Put the plan on display so everyone can see what’s on the menu.
The Well Nourished Family membership meal plans can be easily printed and displayed on your fridge.
3. Create a shopping routine
Having a meal plan ensures you spend less time shopping, giving you more time to cook. I’d encourage you to choose one day a week to do the bulk of your shopping. Anything you can do to systemise your food shopping is a huge time saver. I personally shop at my farmers market once a week (bulk of what we eat comes from there).
Place an online supermarket order once every month or so and I order toilet paper to be delivered automatically (from Who Gives a Crap) which was handy when the pandemic toilet paper wars began.
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4. Cook clever
Chose recipes that have simple methods (with no unusual, hard to find ingredients) and that don’t keep you in the kitchen for hours. Easy weeknight dinners for families that can be prepped in minutes then set into the oven or slow cooker and forgotten about are fabulous. quick healthy family meals are also handy when you know you won’t have long to cook dinner. Also cook double batches of meals to reheat for the next night or to freeze for another day.
Having leftovers is great for making healthy lunches too.
5. Meal Prep ahead
If you have a busy week coming up, then taking a few hours over the weekend to get organised. You could prep ingredients or whole meals for the week ahead. Imagine leaving work or coming home from after school sport and dinner is ready to re-heat and enjoy. There’s no better feeling than knowing you’re nourishing yourself and your family well.
The Well Nourished Family membership provides you with a growing assortment of Meal Prep Plans for both meals and lunchboxes. They are fantastic to follow when you know you have a busy week ahead. They provide you with the menu as well as a flow chart to help you to multitask and spend as little time in the kitchen as possible.
I can take the thought out of what to cook
If you’re a busy parent drowning in decision fatigue, I’ve created a system inside the Well Nourished Family membership to take the daily “what’s for dinner?” question off your plate.
Helping families eat well consistently has always been at the core of Well Nourished. But over time, I realised many of you needed more than recipes, you needed the thinking done for you. That’s why I created the Well Nourished Family, a membership designed to remove the mental load around food.
Inside the membership, I create done-for-you meal plans every single week, designed for the season you’re in, wherever you live in the world. For extra-busy weeks, there are also ready-made Meal Prep and Lunchbox Prep plans so you can plan ahead and eliminate mealtime and lunchbox stress altogether.
Every plan is fully customisable. You can follow it as is, tweak it to suit your family’s tastes, dietary needs and size, or create your own using the inbuilt planning tools. It’s a true one-stop shop for planning, organising and cooking nourishing, doable meals.
If you’re ready to make eating well feel easier, you can join the family for less than $7 per week.
Click HERE to get started.
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