SAD dietary self-help

Preparing Meals in Advance

Maybe everyone already does this, and this was a revelation only to me? However I discovered this year that I eat a lot more healthily, and I have more control over what I eat, if I prepare my meals in advance.

What I do now is each night I make my breakfast (cereal with rice/oatmilk), snacks (2 x 2 pieces of fruit), and lunch (some sort of salad with wholegrains and protein and raw vegetables) - to take with me to work.

On the weekend I make a couple of vegetarian stews/casseroles for my evening meals. I freeze these in meal-sized portions and defrost one for the following day. I steam some fresh vegetables and stir them into my heated-up casserole.

I still have days when the carbs cravings are hellish and I eat my bodyweight in chocolate. But I have more days when I am eating at least something which is wholesome.

Lodger

Welcome to the forum Lodger.

I'm sure that giving meals some thought in advance is a great help to me eating well, I know that eating well helps to prevent (not stop!) those days when the only thing that will do is carbs!

I try and make sure that for the winter I don't just lob lumps of meat into the freezer, but to make it into home made ready meals, so that if I don't feel moved to cook that night, or if we're busy, then I all I have to do is to cook rice/potatoes/pasta/veg. I try and have some of those in the freezer as well...casseroled red cabbage, mushy peas, bubble and squeak seem less like frozen veg than the stuff that comes in bags. I have vegetarian options as well, nut burgers, curries, refried beans etc etc

I do batch cook and try and keep a ready made supply of home made tomato sauce (for pasta and pizzas), ready cooked pulses (not keen on cans) and other building blocks for quick meals. I favour cooking from scratch over shop bought stuff, but I realise that this is personal preference, but I'm sure it's good for us,as well as being kind to my food budget.

The nutrition thread is comprehensive, but like you, at this time of year in particular I couldn't tackle it. I think it's also rather too easy to get hung up on all that, I feel for me that my time and effort are best spent getting home cooked food on the table.

In other threads you will find much information about what helps other people and I'm sure you'll find lots of inspiration for things you can do in the realms of self help.

You must be very efficient, I'm impressed! I think it's a really good idea to prepare things in advance, I think I need to work on my multi-tasking!

Yes, similar, but I'm taking Omega 3 Supreme 1360 mg so just taking it once a day as that's what the instructions say. I hope they work for you too!

Hi SGL, glad the omega 3 is helping you too. The holiday sounds great, I can imagine how much better you must feel with all that sun. I have been trying to eat more fresh fruit and veg too and less carbs. Also, I'm trying to cut down on sugar and caffeine. I think it's given me more energy. Enjoy the rest of your hol xx