Skip to main content

Whole 30 Day 9 - Proper Prior Planning Prevents Poor Paleo Performance

Our society has become very accustomed to the quick meal, which is obviously a big reason for much of the obesity epidemic that is plaguing us today.  Cheap, ready-to-go foods that require little cooking knowledge and no preparation have become standards in America and elsewhere - even to the point where various brand names are synonymous with good times, family occasions, etc.  I remember my mother waxing nostalgic about watching football with her parents and eating Stouffer's French Bread Pizzas, and of course sharing Oreos with milk is a tradition to pass down from parent to child.  Hey, the commercials tell us so, right?  

My point here is that, because of that "I can always just pick something quick up" mindset, it's sometimes a challenge for us Paleoistas to get into a habit of preparing meals ahead of time - or worse, preparing food for preparation ahead of time.  Case in point: Tuesday night dinner.  

I'm getting a bit ahead of myself, though.  Tuesday started out normally, though I added some kipper snacks (smoked herring - yum!) to my sardines in the morning, 'cause I wanted to. Lunch was some ribs, broccoli, and carrots, and after work then I headed home for dinner.  

Hopefully your freezer looks like this! 
Luckily, I'd looked in the fridge the night before and noticed that we had no meat ready for dinner preparation.  Also luckily, we had quite a bit of meat in the freezer - none that would have been ready for Tuesday straight out of the freezer, but with some proper planning would be fine for that night by simply remembering to take it out of the freezer and throw it in the fridge on Monday evening (we don't like to use the microwave to defrost meat because it gets half-cooked before all the meat is thawed!).  

So instead of having to pick something up (which would probably have meant either intermittent fasting or totally busting my Whole30 for me), we had a great home-cooked meal of steak, green beans, and some fresh salad.  

So takeaways from Tuesday: prepare.  And prepare to prepare.  Have a list of meals for the week, and check it the night before going to bed.  Check for all the ingredients you need, too.  Make sure your shopping list is updated and comes with you to work the next day.  Ensure that all the meat you need is defrosting for the necessary amount of time.  Know how long it'll take for your meat to thaw.  And keep the necessities, like healthy fats, spices, butter, etc. in the house at all times.  

It takes some time to regain the mindset that our parents and grandparents had regarding food.  Big Food has made it too easy to get lazy about meal prep.  But taking a few minutes each night to prep the next day's food may mean the difference between a tasty healthy home-cooked meal, and a rotisserie chicken from the grocery store.  Again.  
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

How Essential Oils Are Manly

The real man's toolkit: essential oils and duck tape.  "Yeah, I use essential oils." Silence. This is the normal reaction I get why I, as an adult male human, tell other men that I use essential oils instead of things like aspirin, Tums or Rolaids, Ben Gay, or any number of other pharmaceuticals. There's this impression out there that essential oils are girly, I guess, or that they're like most other products that are primarily for making things smell nicer: they're for the ladies. Or even that they're new agey and woo-woo - to be used only when listening to Windham Hill CDs and cleansing your chakras. Real men don't care about smells, right? They thrive on sweat, piss and vinegar. They belch, fart, and otherwise release smells into the air that are simultaneously hilarious and relieving to the body. They get upset because their wives bought decorative soaps and guest towels for the bathroom that they're not allowed to use. They frown a
Post a Comment
Read more

Taking on a Challenge: Is It Worth It?

Over the past 30 days, I've been doing one of these internet meme athletic challenges, in this case the #PlankChallenge.  I'm sure you've seen them.  These are the challenges where someone posts a picture like this: It's pretty easy to see how this works.  You basically just do the prescribed amount of reps/time for the exercise in question for each day, and then announce your progress on social media using the indicated hashtag.   I think these are a great idea, but not necessarily for the reason you think they are. Yes, they help you get in better shape, especially when it's a challenge on a core muscle group like planks above.  That can't be denied.  I will take issue with the amount of rest this particular challenge allows you, however.  Some of these challenges will actually do a hard day, then drop back to an easier day as a rest of sorts... the one I just completed did not do this, as you can see.  That got to be pretty tough in the second ha
Post a Comment
Read more

Optimize and Socalize your Reading List with Goodreads

It sort of goes without saying that if you want to know more, you have to learn more.  And despite the influx of blogs, podcasts, videos, e-newsletters, etc. as sources of great knowledge in any and all topics, nothing beats the good old-fashioned book. Format of books aside (paper or digital is entirely up to you), books provide a complete look at a topic as an author intended - something that short blogs and random articles can't do.  If you're learning a personal development system, for example, you'll generally get an entire system to work with.  If you're learning an exercise program, you'll get the whole program at once and always have it at your fingertips.  The value and benefit of books can't really be overstated.   However...  The love of books generally translates into the creation of reading lists.  And reading lists can take a number of forms - from a group of books physically sitting on a shelf to detailed topic-driven lists of books
Post a Comment
Read more