Maintaining a healthy lifestyle is the key to living a healthy lifestyle. As a Health Coach, I have come to learn that people tend to underestimate how important organization is to being fit and healthy. Incorporating organisation into your fitness is as easy as two steps: Prep and Plan.
Step One: Plan!
1. Find Time To Plan
Setting a fitness schedule for yourself will help you to not only to get organized, but it will help you be committed to yourself. Sit down at the end or beginning of each week and plan out when you have time to get some fitness in.
2. Organize your mind
Planning for your health extends to other areas of your life. If you are stressed or disorganized in one area, it will mostly likely affect everything else. Something as simple as a to-do list for your day or week can keep you in order and help manage stress. Visually seeing your accomplishments being crossed off one after another is great for morale and motivation.
3. Meal Plan for the Week
Meal planning is such an integral part of maintaining a lifestyle of health. It’s so easy to give in to what’s quick and easy if your meals are not planned out. Planning can seriously take 5 to 10 minutes, and if you’re like me and you tend to have a mental block, take a browse through websites and apps like Pinterest for inspiration.
4. Get Tech Savvy
Sticking with the app theme, I highly recommend downloading a free shopping list app. Just like how you should never visit the grocery store hungry, you should always go to the grocery store with a planned shopping list. This will help to prevent you from getting distracted and buying items you really shouldn’t. And since most apps allow you to save your lists, you don’t have to worry about forgetting the essentials the next time you go shopping again.
5. Don’t be afraid of leftovers
I highly suggest making a meal big enough for leftovers as part of your meal planning. Once you get the prepping and cooking out of the way, you will enjoy the feeling of simply reheating something delicious to enjoy again.
Step Two: Prep!
1. Cut, Chop, Slice
36% of those who have set a fitness goal for themselves give up because of lack of time¹, and I can tell you first hand that prepping meals, snacks, and smoothies in advance will make this less of a problem. For example, I have a smoothie every day for breakfast, but I never cut and blend my ingredients on the same day. I spend 5 minutes one day prepping my ingredients (chopping, freezing, etc) and 5 minutes the next day blending them. This can be done for soups, large meals, and any dish that you can have for leftovers.
2. Freeze Ingredients
When it comes to prepping your meals in general, it’s important to remember to freeze perishable items like bananas and avocados. Even buying frozen fruits like strawberries and blueberries will be beneficial.
3. Save Time
Want to know a major rule of prepping? Do not spend extra time doing something that could have been taken care of in advanced.
Prepping and planning as a part of your healthy lifestyle will save you much time and frustration. Best of all, these skills can be applied to several areas of your life. The sooner you get started, the sooner you reap the immediate and long-term benefits. So what are you waiting for?
Ariffa Bevin
