Monday, April 22, 2013

you do have time to eat better...

The most common reason I hear for not eating healthy food is "I do not have time" with "it is too expensive" being a close second.  Let's face it, we are all busy.  I work full time (overnights), have a very active toddler and still manage to find time to hit the gym everyday.  But you cannot work out enough to fix a bad diet.  Garbage in, garbage out I am afraid.....So how do we add eating right into our busy lives without breaking the bank? A little planning ahead.  Mondays are hard for me.  I work overnights on Sunday and Monday night.  I take my kid to preschool when I get off work Monday morning, hit the gym and then crawl home to get as much sleep as I can before I pick her back up from school and meet my husband to hand her off for the night when I head back to work.     So if I can manage to cook a meal for the family on a Monday, anyone can figure out how to fit it in.  Here's what I did today: bbq chicken, mashed sweet potatoes with spinach and "rice" that was finely chopped cauliflower and broccoli.  The chicken was on sale last week for 49 cents a pound, so I bought 2 whole chickens and roasted them.  That made for a lot of left over chicken and it took only a mere minute to toss it into the crock pot with some bbq sauce.  The cauliflower and broccoli concoction was also leftovers since I toss a head or 2 of each into the cuisinart at a time.  Sweet potatoes are cooked with the chicken 8 or so at a time (and on sale as well this week, yippee) and make for easy reheating or mashing. Spinach added was frozen and just mixed in.  Gluten free corn bread from a wegman's box mix that takes 2 minutes to mix and 24 minutes to bake in the oven.   Poof...healthy, fast and cheap :)  Yes it takes a bit more organization than phoning in your favorite take out, but it saves you money and you are getting a much better fuel for your body by eating real food.  Tossed some in my planet box container and headed to work tonight.