I love having an active lifestyle. Maintaining my health through fitness and good nutrition is a huge passion of mine. Like my shirt says above — strength is beauty and part of strength comes from our nutrition.
In fact, a huge part of our strength comes directly from what we put in our bodies. With full-time jobs, extracurricular activities, kids, hobbies, and responsibilities, getting that nutrition is never easy.
I’d like to cook more of what I love but simply can’t so I have to find a balanced approach to life. Here’s a typical day for me:
5am: Wake up, drink coffee, devotions
5:45 am: Workout
7:00-7:30: shower, breakfast
7:30-8: Work on blog posts, respond to emails
8-8:30: Work for my “real” job before I leave
8:30-9:15: Commute to work
9:15-6:15: Work
6:15-7: Commute home
7-8: Make dinner, eat (some times other activities)
8-10: Family time plus blog work, extra stuff from “real” work
10pm: Reading and bedtime!
And I don’t even have children yet! Basically, not a ton of time to spend on making healthy food all the time. Because I value exercising, I’d rather do that than spend time meal planning. All that being said, there are a few tricks to making it easier. One of those is finding easy, go-to meals to eat for lunch (or dinner).
No guilt, no time and best of all….flavor! The key for me lately has been these
Honestly Good Lean Cuisine meals. Some people look down on microwave meals — not me! I’ve always been a fan of quick, easy, nutritious meals to make my life easier. With a LOT going on right now, these have been a godsend. They are made with 100% all natural, wholesome ingredients and I love that. Another “feel good” plus? They are donating some of the vegetables they grow to local communities.
These are great for me for two circumstances. One, I love them to bring to work for an easy lunch. It’so simple to toss it in my bag an know I have something decent for lunch. Two, weekend lunches at home. Often, I feel overwhelmed by choices for Saturday and Sunday lunch. I hate that — and almost always end up overeating on the weekends.
By having these available, I can easily make a healthy decision without much thought — then get on with my life. Here are few of the flavors I’ve tried recently:
These are just three of the six you can find available at Target — and since Target is literally across the street from my house, this is a very good thing! Here is the full list of Honestly Good meals available:
- Honey Citrus Chicken
- Lemongrass Salmon
- Pineapple Black Pepper Beef
- Plum Ginger Grain-Crusted Fish
- Pomegranate Chicken
- Roasted Red Pepper Chicken
Don’t those sound awesome? I honestly (no pun intended!) like them all but my favorite is the lemongrass salmon — soooo good! Only one I’ve yet to try is the Plum Ginger Grain-Crusted Fish and that is on my grocery list for next week.
They only take 5-6 minutes to warm up and be ready to go. I love that they all include vegetables and are light enough not to feel too full.
As an active person, I require a little more so sustain me throughout the afternoon so I usually have an apple, greek yogurt and/or protein bar depending on the day. Having this as the bulk of my lunch several days a week, though, has been a huge relief.
Wondering what I eat the rest of the week? Well, that’s a post to come! For now, I switch these a few other options and it works out well.
How do you eat easy, healthy lunches?
How many afternoon snacks do you eat?
Have you tried Honestly Good meals yet?
How can I convince you that pre-packaged food isn't as 'healthy' as you think? A trick is to spend a couple hrs prepping all your food for the week based on your target macronutrient ratios.