Meal Prep, Recipes, and Planning Ahead

Uh, let me go back and say that recipes are not bad. Like, you have two cookbooks, I have a cookbook with over 100 recipes, like recipes are great to give you ideas and, and to help you find you know, some new things, especially if you're getting, you know, bored of whatever you're doing. I was just kind of practicing that you don't have to follow recipes, you don't have to go make a scrap, scrap extravagant meals every single night, especially if you're busy, and you're working and all that.

And that comes back to the pre planning, right? Plan it out. Take a little bit of time to do that ahead of time, because it's going to save you so much more time during the week. And it's going to save you that that stress that comes with oh man, like it's five o'clock, what am I going to make for dinner tonight? Right? Like you don't have to. That's another thing too. Like you already have all these other stressors that are going on throughout the day, throughout the week, right? Especially if you're you're busy and you're trying to you know, stick to your own nutrition plan, stick to goals that you have your training your kids, whatever, like, why don't we take the stress from meal planning and thinking about what we're going to make for dinner tonight. And just put a little bit of time up front so that you don't have to worry about that.

And that comes with anything that you're doing right. So putting a little bit of work upfront to get that massive reward through the rest of the week. One thing that people might stress out about is feeling like they have to, like if they're sitting down to dinner with their family, like they all have to be eating the same thing. And I think that's something that we need to think about a little bit too, it's like, you can still absolutely enjoy an amazing dinner and the time that you're with your family eating the same exact food that doesn't have to be a thing. Like it doesn't matter, right.

The important part is that you're spending time you're, you know, having a meal together. But who cares if one person's eating something one person seen something else, you're eating something completely different? Like who cares, right? You're sharing that meal together? And yes, maybe there's some times where you want everybody to be eating the same thing. Maybe like, you know, on a Sunday night dinner, for example, you you all eat the same thing on Sunday night, but maybe during the week when people are, you know, have their own nutrition going on and things like that. It's totally fine to eat different things, right. So I think that's something that you also have to normalize within your own household that it's okay to do that. Because I know for me, that is something that I struggle with a little bit like if I had a specific goal that I was trying to reach.

And maybe I didn't want to, you know, if my mom was cooking, cooking dinner, and she was making something that had like maybe a little bit more fat or calories in it that I was that I wanted to consume at that meal, then I would kind of have to go and prep my own other thing. And so at first, I was kind of hesitant to do that I didn't like feel comfortable doing that, because everybody else was eating that meal. And I was like kind of over here, because it's also one of those things where it's like, you feel like maybe you're being disrespectful, because you're not eating that food, right or like it and this goes with going over someone else's house as well. But it's all about kind of owning it right? And be like, right, this is what these are the goals that I have.

And I know that I need to make these choices to get there. And sometimes I'm gonna have to, you know, switch things around and that's okay. Right. There's no shame in that. And so I think that's something to also realize that you like when you're sharing that meal. It's about being with those people. It's not about the actual food that you're eating. And you can even simply think about as you go out to dinner with someone like does everybody ordered the same exact meal that's on the menu? No. Like everyone has their own thing, but you're having that interaction. You're having that gathering. That's the important part.