How to be healthy when your time is limited

We all are extremely busy these days. Work, family, cleaning, shopping, cooking, taking care of the kids and so much more. Quite often, it’s time to eat lunch or dinner and you are not prepared or you find out you don’t have the ingredients you need to cook. That leads to regular takeaways, ready cooked meals that might be unhealthy or even skipping meals and binge eating. How can we overcome this problem? These 5 tips will help you be healthy when your time is limited!

1. Plan and shop in advance

Plan your meals for the whole week before you go shopping and make a list. Make sure you provide yourself with all the necessary ingredients for your main meals, not forgetting fruit, nuts, yogurt, cheese and corn to use for snacks, as they don’t need a lot of time to prepare. You could even shop online, as it saves you time and money. Did you know that you could spend 1,5 times more money when doing your shopping in the actual store? It’s also practical, as everything is delivered to you.

2. Cook in large batches

Cook large batches of food at the weekends and store them in the freezer. It’s essential to be realistic with your planning, for example, if you know you won’t have time to cook on Wednesday, cook a larger batch on Tuesday or cook 3-4 different meals on Sunday to have through the week. Then divide them into portions and put them in the freezer. You can easily take out as many portions as you need the morning before work and have it ready when you’re back. Alternatively, you could use a slow cooker, put it on before you go to bed and have the food cooked by the time you wake up.

3. Prepare ‘grab and go’ snacks the night before

Snacks can keep you full until your next meal! Fruit, nuts, cheese fingers, boiled eggs, sandwiches, yogurt, carrots and hummus and overnight oats are great choices. You can also make your own pop corn and seal it in an air tight bag to grab and go at any time! Try having a variety of snacks so that you don’t get bored. In this way, you are also ensuring that you’re providing your body with all the right nutrients. Another plus, is that if you feel full and can easily say no to treats or to a birthday cake a college brought to work.

4. Control your Drinks

Try avoiding liquid calories like ready juices and smoothies as they are high in calories and don’t keep you feeling full for long. These are the so-called ‘empty’ calories as they don’t have any significant nutritional value. So if you’re trying to lose weight, these drinks are not your friend!

Empty liquid calories vs Nutritious calories that keep you full for 2~3 hours

Of course, do keep yourself hydrated by consuming 1~3 litres of water a day. Tea and coffee are great options as well, as they are very low in calories!

5. Keep Moving

Stay active! Take the stairs instead of the elevator, walk to the park to drink your coffee on a Sunday instead of watching TV at home, do some stretching, walk your dog more often, plan family activities like biking, hiking or just enjoying long walks. Did you know that going to the super-market can take 2000 steps or more? Your body deserves movement! Keep that in mind and stay active when you can!