Plan Meal with 20 Minute Meals Planning for Your Healthy Living

Nutrition: 20 Minutes to “Real” Change

SqueezeItIn.com Girls

Sue and Angelle of NourishMD are back this week with the real story behind real food and how you can make your next shopping trip a “real” adventure:

We want to eat healthier. We intend to most days. Work, kids, appointments, and all the other daily responsibilities often get in the way of these good intentions.

There’s no way around it. Eating REAL food, the food that our bodies thrive on, takes some planning. Planning takes time and we don’t have a lot of time. The good news is you don’t need a lot of time – maybe 20 minutes per week – and you will be on your way to creating better health for you and your family. We can all squeeze in 20 minutes a week for better health, right?

Before you go grocery shopping, sit down and plan out 4-5 breakfast, lunch and dinner meals. Also, plan ‘fast food’ snacks. The key is to include some Powerful Protein, Friendly Fats and Colorful Carbs for each meal and snack.

Powerful Proteins include high quality animal proteins like meat, poultry, eggs and dairy. Grass-fed and/or organic animal products are healthiest. Wild-caught fish falls into this category as well as nut and seed butters, quinoa, organic traditionally prepared soy and combinations of grains and legumes.

Friendly Fats come from wild-caught fish, especially the ones high in Omega 3 oils like salmon. Friendly Fats are also found in olive oil, flax seed oil, coconut oil, nuts, seeds, ghee and organic butter. Despite what we often hear in the mainstream, we need some saturated fats for cellular health so don’t shy away from them completely. For more on Friendly Fats, click HERE.

Colorful Carbs are the gorgeous fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains that should take up most of the room on our plates. They are filled with phytonutrients – the plant nutrients that play a key role in keeping us healthy. Go easy on the grains – even whole-grains, which are difficult for many people to digest – and instead load up on vegetables and low-glycemic fruits like berries. If you eat a lot of white foods – pasta, bread, cereal, crackers, bagels, etc. – start substituting more Colorful Carbs. Think variety and color!

Starting this week take 20 minutes to plan out meals and snacks. If that feels too overwhelming, focus on planning for just one meal or snack each day. To learn more about the first step in our One Easy System, Planning Made Simple, and to download a FREE form to help you get started, click HERE.

NourishMD.com saves you time and money by connecting you with experts and resources in a like-minded holistic community. It’s a unique combination of research-based solutions and practical REAL life answers and the only on-line resource created by two moms who are also health experts: a Holistic Pediatrician and a Holistic Health Counselor with a masters degree in education. As trained health-care professionals, they bring their collective knowledge and expertise to the NourishMD.com community. As moms they bring their “far-from-perfect” REAL life experiences as well. NourishMD strives to create a vision of how to feed your family REAL food and incorporate healthy living into your busy life, everyday.

Please note: The information provided here is for educational purposes only. It is not a substitute for the advice or treatment given by your doctor or dietitian. Please consult with a registered dietitian or your doctor if you have any questions about the information in this post.