Success Tip Sunday!

Okay Fit Lifers, what would you say are your top three reasons for not making healthy food choices? Mine would be stress/emotional triggers, boredom and plain ol' laziness. Yep, I'm admitting it - plain ol' laziness is one of my down falls. Well, today's success tip is all about beating the laziness. Our world today is so about instant gratification and convenience that there's a fast food joint on practically every corner. Yikes! What to do, what to do? Well, what about making the healthy choices more convenient?

Seriously, take an hour out of your day on the weekend to do a little food prep. Make your lunches, pack up snacks and wash your fruits and veggies so they're ready to eat. Here's what I've started doing in my kitchen:

*One of my new favorite snacks is 2 Wasa crackers, a wedge of Laughing Cow cheese and a half cup of grapes or a half a banana. So where does the food prep come in? Well, the banana is easy, but I pre-wash the grapes and then divvy them up into half cup servings in plastic reusable containers. Now, I have a grab and go serving of grapes. With the crackers, I divvy up the package and put 2 crackers in each sandwich bag (and since it's just crackers, you can reuse the bag and be green!).

*Another snack: carrots. I pre-wash and prep the carrots, and divvy them up into single servings too. Then I only shave carrots once a week (side note: if shaving a LOT of carrots at one time, don't put the shavings down the garbage disposal - I speak from personal experience.) You guessed it, just grab and go. A good idea is to put some water in the container with the carrots so they don't dry out.

*Lunch time! Just like the grapes and crackers, I pre-package my lunch. Here come those reusable containers again. I also make one big batch of chicken for the week instead of worrying about cooking every night. Now come lunch time, I grab it out of the fridge and pop it in the microwave. Heck, you can always heat it up in the oven too if you don't really like microwaves.

So when does all this food prep come in handy? How about when you've overslept, and you just don't have time to make your lunch and pack up snacks? This way, you open your fridge and grab what you need. Give it a try.

Check in tomorrow for Motivation Monday!

Court