Healthy eating on a schedule and a budget

As we enter a new year, everyone has goals of eating better and working out more. Sometimes it is hard to know where to start. If you work full time, five days a week, with a commute, cooking a wholesome and healthy meal can feel overwhelming.

As someone who grew up eating well and had a mom who had dietary restrictions from the time I was 12, food preparation was a massive part of my routine. I enjoy the creative aspect of cooking, putting ingredients together to make something that looks good and tastes good, and is suitable to dietary needs. Cooking a meal is therapeutic and relaxing after a long day's work. A self-proclaimed "foodie," I tend to let my creative juices flow when I come up with a meal to cook.

Photo by Ceili Gatley

I have researched many recipes to make healthy meals at home to accommodate a busy 9-to-5 work schedule and a 35-minute commute home. I discovered an Instagrammer, Kalena (handle: @kalenainthekitchen), and subscribed to her recipe blog, which included many 20-minute meals with budget-friendly ingredients. Immediately, I started to add many of her recipes to my weekly meal lineup. It was also important to me to find recipes with budget-friendly ingredients accessible at most grocery stores, and that's her recipe. It's important that ingredients can be found in an easy stop on the way home from work - and are easy on the wallet. Finding a set of recipes or an influencer you enjoy can help inspire and motivate you to make healthier meals while staying on a budget, and even during a time crunch.

Planning meals and preparing ahead of time can also lessen stress during the week and provide a sense of convenience. Having concise recipes at my fingertips allows me to follow through on making the meal. It is so easy to fall into a pattern of blowing off a meal that has to be prepared when you're tired and burnt out from a work day. But then you aren't eating the healthiest meals most likely, as most easy pre-made meals are packed with artificial flavors and stripped of nutrients. Dr. Mark Hyman, an American physician and author, often speaks about the lack of nutrients in America's food industry and what we can do as consumers to eat more nutrient-dense foods. You can listen to his podcast (one that I frequent often). One of his mantras, and something I've tried to incorporate, is to "eat the rainbow." This means eating varied, colorful foods and a variety of meats, vegetables, and grains to get well-rounded meals every time. This can be tough, especially on a budget, as many "superfood" items can be pricey at natural food stores. I've found adding these ingredients to meals is made possible by buying produce as fresh as possible from the grocery store and, during the summer, from local farms in Sisters such as Seed to Table or Mahonia Farms.

There are many ways to adapt a recipe to your dietary needs and/or goals. The options are endless; whether you want less carbs, more protein, or gluten-free, there's something out there for everyone. I begin a recipe by considering my goals and restrictions and figuring out how to adapt it while creating something tasty and pretty.

I invested in a magnetic dry-erase board menu to write out the meals for the week, see them right on the fridge, and know what kind of meal or how much time it might take each evening. There is such a benefit to eating a healthy meal as early in the evening as possible, but it's hard to make that happen if you're not getting home till after 6 p.m. But if you know what you're making ahead of time, you can budget the time to make what you want and how you want it, which benefits your sleep health. According to the National Library of Medicine study: "Limiting and/or avoiding food before nighttime sleep has been proposed as both a weight-loss strategy and approach to improve health and body composition. Indeed, negative outcomes have been demonstrated in response to large mixed meals in populations that consume most of their daily food intake at night."

Eating at a reasonable time is essential to allow your body to properly digest the food and get into a proper circadian rhythm and good rest.

Keeping up with your goals for a new year can be challenging, but planning and inspiration from influencers/authors help me keep up with my goals and unwind after a workday - by being creative in the kitchen.