Life Time Fitness, 5 Keys to Overcoming the Inconvenience of Eating Well

This article was written by Tom Nikkola - Director of Nutrition & Weight Management for Life Time Fitness.

I wanted to share with you all how easy it can be to eat healthy, thanks for the information Tom!

—Gina Batcheller, Health and Fitness Professional, Life Time Fitness

Being unhealthy is far less convenient than eating well. As a health and fitness professional, over the years, I’ve ended up in countless conversations with people about nutrition. The conversations often start out about a specific nutrition topic and then moves to the question of "what do I eat?" I often share the Life Time Nutrition Position, and the response is almost always the same, “I just don’t have the time to eat like that.”

Unfortunately, the perception is that eating “real food” is much more time-consuming than it really is. What follows are five keys for getting over the mental hurdle of “eating well is inconvenient”.

There was a time when there was no such thing as packaged convenience foods. Meals had to be prepared with ingredients. Meats needed to be properly grilled, baked or broiled. Vegetables needed to be steamed or sautéed. Sauces were made from scratch.

The nutrient quality of the foods people ate was dramatically different from what people eat today. And the impact on people’s health is evident. Obesity, diabetes, PCOS, cancer, Alzheimer’s, heart disease, arthritis and many other degenerative diseases are related to the foods we eat each day.

Every time you eat a meal or snack, the food you choose either enhances your health or promotes disease. It’s hard to find something that has no effect on your health. Choosing “real food” meals is not only investing in your current health but your future health as well.

The mindsets of “just this once,” “it’s a special occasion” or “I had a hard day” must be abandoned. It’s never “just this once,” there are “special occasions” almost every week — if not more than once a week — and the truth is, you deserve to give yourself the best health you can. You do more for your body by eating high-quality, real food than you do by giving in to your processed food cravings.

Today, packaged foods have changed our approach to cooking. However, they only change our approach if we allow it. Unhealthy food choices can be avoided simply by not buying them. If you consider pre-packaged foods an option when shopping at the grocery store, you’ll continue to rely on them. But if they aren’t in the house, they won’t be eaten. When our family goes to the store, some of the foods that are not options in our grocery cart are breakfast cereals, bread, crackers, chips, soda, juice, cookies and pasta.

No one in our home is tempted to eat cereal for breakfast because we never buy it. If we had it in the house, our boys would eat it. Since we don’t, they make bacon and eggs, all-natural chicken patties or something similar for breakfast in the morning. Rather than drinking soda or juice, they know how to make iced tea.

The point is, if cereal, frozen meals, boxed dinners or pizza delivery are seen as options, you’ll likely fall back on them — not just during times of severe time constraints, but also at other times when you  talk yourself out of preparing real food meals.

Does that sound too drastic? Is it difficult to fathom not having several boxes of microwavable meals in the freezer and a half dozen boxed meals in the pantry? If so, take it as a challenge. For one week, just one week, only allow real food in your house and force yourself to eat this food.

Part of the challenge of eating well during the week is running out of food or running out of ideas. Our family tends to shop for groceries just once a week. Ideally, fresh foods should be used within a few days of purchase, so for produce we buy some fresh and some frozen. Fresh-frozen vegetables and fruit have as many and sometimes more nutrients in them as fresh vegetables and fruit. Later in the week, when you’ve used up the fresh, you can start using the frozen.

Planning ahead also means thinking through what you’ll be eating and how you’ll prepare it. You can bake, grill, broil and stir-fry a lot more food than just what you’ll need for a given meal. Make extra and then bring the leftovers for lunch. Grill chicken and season it for dinner one night, shred it for a salad the next. Meal prep doesn’t have to be a daily or nightly occurrence. With a little thought, you can spend a few extra minutes one evening to have food ready for the next couple evenings.

Finally, remember this. You don’t have to eat something different every day and night. If you cook in bulk and eat the same thing for a couple days, so be it. If it’s a meal you enjoy, you’ll be just as likely to enjoy it the next day as you did the first. If the issue is that you run out of ideas for healthy meals, check out the recipes on this site, many of which have been contributed by Healthy Living How To.

We’ve written a lot about the importance of eating high-quality food. Grass-fed meat or dairy, pasture-raised poultry, and organic vegetables and fruit are ideal, but you shouldn’t let the pursuit of “ideal” discourage you when it isn’t feasible. If these foods aren’t an option because of finances, availability or some other reason, just do the best you can without resorting to convenience foods.

I was reminded of this when our family came back from visiting my parents in northern Minnesota. All of our meat was in the freezer and we’d eaten all our vegetables and fruit before we left. Getting home on that Friday evening, we didn’t want to spend a lot of time shopping. We stopped into our local grocery store and picked up a rotisserie chicken, a container of salad greens and some strawberries. Within five minutes of dropping our bags in the house, we’d mixed up a salad with some homemade dressing, strawberries and sunflower seeds, and ate it along with the chicken.

Was it a pasture-raised chicken? No. Did it have the perfect blend of seasoning on it? Probably not. Did we care? Not really. It was a nutrient dense, high-protein, reduced-carb meal and it took very little time to prepare. It was a much better option than Chinese takeout, pizza or a microwavable meal. Make the best choice you can, but avoid the temptation to call pre-packaged, processed foods your best option.

If you have kids, you have an opportunity to help them understand how important it is to put the best quality food in their bodies every day. When kids see their parents preparing real food each day, they’ll be more likely to grow up with those same habits. If they grow up eating convenience foods, they’ll likely continue that pattern well into adulthood. Though meals can provide a sense of enjoyment, food is also the most significant factor that determine our health. If you have children, you have the opportunity to set an example for them to see. If you don’t have kids but plan to in the future, more research is showing the significance of both parents eating a high-quality diet long before conception. The choices you make today may impact the health of your baby in the future.

That’s it for now. Remember, I’m here for YOU so if you have other ideas to help people overcome the objections to eating healthy please share questions and comments below!