What food/fitness/health "hack" has made a big difference for you?
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Breakfasts are the same and I like it that way.
Lunch is where I meal prep with variety. "My" drawer in the work refrig has 100 calorie burrito wraps, no calorie chipotle ranch dressing, tomatillo salsa, maybe some leftovers, and whatever veggies. The freezer has some vegan crispy tenders. Some days I wrap, if I have LOTS of greens I salad and top it with the tenders, if I am craving something different I get 3 oz of smoked turkey and deviled eggs from the cafeteria and chop it on the salad. So it's easy, cheap, and enough variety to be okay.6 -
Short term (sort of) freezing. I get boneless skinless chicken breasts in the big frozen bag, thaw, marinate (various) and bake them all. Usually I do it as a dinner for family, but due to differing diets, usually only 2 or three serving get eaten. I take it to work for lunch with some salad, but not every day and it can take too long to use up, so I will split it into 2 or 3 batches and use the quart freezer bags. As I use up one, I grab another out of the freezer and put it in the fridge. They aren't frozen long enough to have any ill effects and they get used up without going bad. I also do this with medallions sliced from turkey tenderloins. Nearly always having some cooed chicken handy that is reasonably fresh without paying the high price for the convenient stuff helps me.4
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seltzermint555 wrote: »I'm not trying to say meal prep is a bad thing (far from it) but I do think it varies by person/household. I would be much more likely to say "forget this" and just go out to dinner if I was on day #3 of a prepped-ahead-of-time meal that I just had to heat up. It would have long lost its novelty. I see the lovely prepped meals on Pinterest and all I can think is how much I would hate eating the same thing every night or even every day for lunch.
I'm sure not every person does it that way (same items every day of the week) but I definitely wouldn't like that.
I feel the same way. I also don’t like reheated food (unless it’s something like soup or a meat sauce for pasta), so the thought of reheated food for an entire week is really offputting. I have to have meat and vegetables freshly cooked.
I do pre-plan my meals in advance, though. I’ll usually plan what I’m going to eat 3 or 4 days ahead of time so I can have everything ready and I know what I’m going to be having.6 -
Mostly just psychology hacks...sticking to the same prepacked food portions, using the same size bowl/plates/etc., eating in the same setting, cutting up food as needed (slows down pace), using more solid foods when trying to lose weight, using more liquid/easy digesting foods when trying to gain, etc.5
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I've just gone back to uni as a mature aged student. This requires copious amounts of reading and video watching. If I don't need to take notes this is now done while on the treadmill. It keeps my step count up and after an hour long online lecture that treat has already be burnt off.
On top of that I always make sure I've cooked enough for two meals when I know I have a full uni day the following day so it is a simple reheat when I get home.7 -
Lillymoo01 wrote: »I've just gone back to uni as a mature aged student. This requires copious amounts of reading and video watching. If I don't need to take notes this is now done while on the treadmill. It keeps my step count up and after an hour long online lecture that treat has already be burnt off.
On top of that I always make sure I've cooked enough for two meals when I know I have a full uni day the following day so it is a simple reheat when I get home.
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Oh! And making a priority of not getting over hungry, so having things on hand I'm ok turning to if I need to snack, and thinking ahead for mealtimes.7
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seltzermint555 wrote: »I'm not trying to say meal prep is a bad thing (far from it) but I do think it varies by person/household. I would be much more likely to say "forget this" and just go out to dinner if I was on day #3 of a prepped-ahead-of-time meal that I just had to heat up. It would have long lost its novelty. I see the lovely prepped meals on Pinterest and all I can think is how much I would hate eating the same thing every night or even every day for lunch.
I'm sure not every person does it that way (same items every day of the week) but I definitely wouldn't like that.
Finally I know I’m not the only one!! The rows and rows of the same thing every day for a week?! I’m good with leftovers once, twice if it’s spaghetti... but four days of it??
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Meal prep, kids meals, single serving size snacks. Having a plan allows me to fit in the other two. The other two give me just enough to be satisfied and stay within my plan.3
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Sleep!!! Or rather, instead of sitting watching tv in the evening and risking a snack blowout, I’ll go to bed. I will mess around on my phone until I go to sleep, but being in pyjamas, under a thick duvet, removes me from the temptation to undo my hard work for the day.
I like this. It works for me too!4 -
hometeamwins wrote: »seltzermint555 wrote: »I'm not trying to say meal prep is a bad thing (far from it) but I do think it varies by person/household. I would be much more likely to say "forget this" and just go out to dinner if I was on day #3 of a prepped-ahead-of-time meal that I just had to heat up. It would have long lost its novelty. I see the lovely prepped meals on Pinterest and all I can think is how much I would hate eating the same thing every night or even every day for lunch.
I'm sure not every person does it that way (same items every day of the week) but I definitely wouldn't like that.
Finally I know I’m not the only one!! The rows and rows of the same thing every day for a week?! I’m good with leftovers once, twice if it’s spaghetti... but four days of it??
Yeah, more meal prep hate...few times I've tried it, I would wind up eating twice as much (lots of readily available food is not good) & it's just not as satisfying as straight out the oven food. Different stroke for different folks3 -
Making everything I'd eat on a sandwich or a burger into a giant salad minus the dressing and using laughing cow cheese wedges.11
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Booking my free gym reviews (every 4 weeks) with a PT in advance to motivate me x1
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Definitely meal planning, especially for lunches at work!3
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to just do my warmup on the days when I'm really "but I don't feel like exercise", before 100% deciding to skip the day...chances are, unless I'm genuinely not feeling well, if I do the warmup I end up doing the whole thing without a problem... so it's usually just an issue of getting started11
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Planning out my meals was a game changer.
Not having a plan made it too easy to go out and grab fast food.
This helps makes grocery shopping easier, makes me able to fit in the things I want to eat and it doesn't take long to do. Just a couple minutes a day.11 -
Eat raw red onions. Seriously. You're welcome.8
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I work out for at least 30 min everyday - usually quite intensely. It took me a long time, but I’ve learned that the self-disappointment I feel when I skip a work out is worse than any inconvenience, difficulty or discomfort that might happen during exercise. So, skipping a work out is worse than squeezing one in!3
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crabbybrianna wrote: »seltzermint555 wrote: »I'm not trying to say meal prep is a bad thing (far from it) but I do think it varies by person/household. I would be much more likely to say "forget this" and just go out to dinner if I was on day #3 of a prepped-ahead-of-time meal that I just had to heat up. It would have long lost its novelty. I see the lovely prepped meals on Pinterest and all I can think is how much I would hate eating the same thing every night or even every day for lunch.
I'm sure not every person does it that way (same items every day of the week) but I definitely wouldn't like that.
I feel the same way. I also don’t like reheated food (unless it’s something like soup or a meat sauce for pasta), so the thought of reheated food for an entire week is really offputting. I have to have meat and vegetables freshly cooked.
I do pre-plan my meals in advance, though. I’ll usually plan what I’m going to eat 3 or 4 days ahead of time so I can have everything ready and I know what I’m going to be having.
Yes! We do that in my home too. What works best for me and my husband is to come up with x number of breakfasts, lunches & dinners to fit the week. We buy the stuff and then eat the "quickest to go bad" things on the first couple of days (iffy produce selections for example) but for the most part, we have flexibility in choosing what we'll make each night. We don't eat meat at home so there's really no thawing concern most of the time. If we have an easy day at work we might do a pretty ambitious meal that night, and when we have something going on in the evening we'll make it an easy night with a really simple stir fry, or something like that.4
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