Working as a health coach one of the struggles I see for many individuals is the challenge of eating out. There are numerous reasons eating in restaurants, take-out food and or any prepared food is a common practice, here’s a short list of stated motives.
- Convenience
- Travel frequently
- Lack of preparation
- Do not enjoy cooking
- Feel it is too complicated
I’ll put my cards right on the table, the more you control your food (read cook your own food) the more you control your health. When you outsource your food to others, your nutrition is basically in their hands. If vibrant health is a priority, taking control of your food is in my mind a BIG piece of the overall well-being puzzle.
OK got that off my chest, let’s dive in. Convenience or what many say, I don’t have time to cook, ordering out seems easy. I think it’s good to take a step back and see if there are first other options beyond getting food-to-go.
Is meal prepping or doing batch cooking an option? Can you get others in the house to contribute time to support your efforts? Can we look at meals that require minimal prep time? In other words, shift the mentality from focusing on “a problem” to finding a solution.
When one prepares big batches of stew, casseroles, soups or other “one dish” meals it builds in extra time on other days. How? You can spread these meals out of several days. In addition to potentially stocking your freezer for a meal down the road.
Some individuals say I’m too tired at the end of the day to fix a meal. How about having a “breakfast” type meal in the evening, scrambled eggs, and bacon or whatever left over fish or meat you had the day before? Eggs can be thrown in the pan in minutes. Another quick option is to make a charcuterie plate, cheese, sliced meats, olives, and few nuts for the crunch. If carnivore an easy option is a hamburger with eggs or a quick pan-fried steak is done in minutes.
Let’s say you shop just one time per week. That should always include some staples that you can throw together in a short time, like eggs, ground meat, yoghurt, cheese, canned tuna or sardines and any other items you enjoy putting together quickly.
Let’s talk about food prep. What does that mean?
Food prep could be in the form of cooking large pots of stew, casseroles, and big dishes so you have extras in your fridge or freezer. For some individuals food prep is cutting up salad-based options into smaller bags so they can throw together a bowl of items at the last minute. Diet Doctor has their 10 top keto salads here. One of our go-to egg casseroles is from Mark Sisson link here. (by the way we use butter and olive oil not avocado oil in this recipe, choice is yours).
We’ve found some fun recipes on the website Food Wishes Blog, with Chef John. He is of course a chef not focused on low carb, but you don’t have to use the carbohydrate or sugar ingredients and apply your own creativity to make it work with your nutritional plan.
Before talking about traveling let’s explore some of the negative factors on why eating out is challenging right now. The elephant in the room is of course the seed oils. If you’re not on board yet with the deleterious fact of these highly inflammatory industrial oils, check out Chris Kresser here and Dr. Cate Shanahan here, Tucker Goodrich here, Fire in a Bottle here, as well as Nina Teicholz here plus so many more.
5 Reasons to Cook Your Food
- Seed oils and the deleterious/inflammatory effect on the body!
- Economical if shopping within your given budget, especially if only one time a week
- Have peace of mind that your food is positively contributing to your health
- Portion control, be it too little or too much, especially when it comes to protein
- Quality and taste oversight to your specific household demands
On Travel
If going by car or public transport, the cooler is your friend. Pack your own stuff and enjoy the pleasure of looking forward to tasty choices. I work with a physician who is often on call, and she packs a cooler every day to ensure if she gets a late emergency call, she has good options with her.
If traveling by air, many individuals experiment with intermittent fasting. Just enjoying black coffee and water for ease and simplicity. Doing the best you can in restaurants by focusing on protein and forgoing the fried and highly processed options. Some airports now offer cheese and meat plate options to go.
Taking items with you can be a boon, there are some great meat sticks available such as Epic, Chomps and Styrve (biltong). Any effort put into controlling more of your food choices is a step forward. If having a long day of traveling, I’ll take some boiled eggs along with meat sticks and or any leftovers from the day before.
Cooking your own food equals controlling your health BUT it requires planning. At the end of the day, you’ll have to decide who you want in charge of your nutrition. Life isn’t perfect but investing in your health does offer a high rate of return.
“From a money-making point of view…health is an investment that pays better than any other.”
~~Walt Whitman
