Making time for food

The events of the previous three days have been somewhat unexpected and really hectic. Getting healthy would have taken a back seat if I had been less prepared. Eating healthy does take a lot of work, planning meals, shopping, preparing ingredients and cooking. Unhealthy foods are easy, grab a ready meal and nuke it, or the nice people on the other end of my phone will bring me pizza.

We sit down once or twice a week and plan out meals for the next few days, where possible we cook large batches of freezable meals, so it doesn't feel like we spend hours on end in the kitchen every day. I also chop up a lot of the veggies we buy and freeze them in recipe friendly portions. That way when I don't feel like all the hassle of cooking or when I return home, ready to tear chunks off a scabby horse, a nutritious meal is only minutes away.

This week I've had little time to cook, so microwaving portions of chilli and spaghetti bolognaise have saved my sanity and diet. On the days where I have been able to cook fresh food, I found that chopping all the ingredients I would use for the entire day, in the morning before I got busy, meant that when I got hungry, I could pull all the ingredients out of the fridge and whip up a masterpiece in minutes, just like the TV chefs and their dozens of little pots of ingredients (you can guarantee they don't have to do the washing up afterwards).

Another tip for when you are too busy to buy healthy food, is to let someone else do the shopping for you. Here in the UK our main supermarkets allow you to shop online and have your food delivered. The delivery prices have dropped to just a pound for certain days of the week and in some cases free if you spend enough. I've found I can do a week's shop in about a third of the time on my computer, with the benefit of never having to go near the chocolate biscuit aisle.

I've not managed to get out and be as active as I would have liked this week, but I've still managed to stick to the healthy eating plan and am looking forward to getting my 2½ stone award and my precious sticker at tomorrow's weigh in.