13 Nov Guest Blog: Stay on top of your Nutrition this Christmas
It’s no secret the Christmas lead up is the busiest time of year for tradies. The elusive Christmas deadline, everyone wants to be in by that date. Early starts, long days, late nights. It’s so easy when you’re feeling overwhelmed and stressed to choose quick and easy meal options.
Well I’m here to help. You can stay on top of your nutrition during this busy period. So here are my tips:
Food Prep Tips
- Hydration, hydration, hydration. Water is the most important part of nutrition. A lot of tradies, my husband included, are useless at drinking water throughout the day. Your aim is to have light yellow urine by mid-morning. If you don’t, you need to drink more water. Keep a water bottle on your desk, aim to drink 2L per day.
- Cook once, eat twice. Cooking a dinner, then prepping a different lunch in the morning; too hard right now. Instead, cook a bulk dinner and portion out into dinner and lunch. Bulk it out with vegetables, eg; you cook spag bowl, use zucchini noodles instead pasta, grate carrot into the dish, add chopped mushrooms, pour in a tin of brown lentils as well, these are all cheap and nutritious fillers.
- Investigate and use a food delivery service. So this option will depend on your location, but there are some super helpful food delivery boxes eg; Hello Fresh, Marley Spoon. You are still cooking the meal, the meal contains fresh, real ingredients, it just takes the stress of “what are we going to have for dinner” conversation off the table. Using a service like this is not cheating or failing, I’m a nutritionist and I have used these services during really busy and stressful times.
- Food prep on a Sunday. Take thirty minutes to write out a “menu” for your main meals for the week. Then once you’ve got your plan, in my opinion, these are the three ways to food prep to save time (and money!).
- Cook all the meals and portion out for the week ready to grab and go / re-heat and eat.
- Cut up and portion out the ingredients into what you need for each meal into airtight containers or other form of storage depending on produce. This way you still cook each night, but your prep time is zero on the day.
- Buy all the ingredients according to your weeks meal plan / menu and store appropriately so you don’t have to visit the shops all the time. This means you’re ready to go, with every ingredient on hand ready to prep and cook.
General Nutrition Tips
- Keep snacks on hand. Simple, bite sized snacks in your fridge or cupboard will keep you on track. You can never over eat real food – all the fibre, water and nutrients fill you up. You won’t fit in other treats…I’m looking at you chocolate! Some really simple, affordable snack ideas include:
- an apple, cut into slices
- handful of mixed nuts and fruit
- veggies sticks and dip
- banana and nut butter
- greek yoghurt and berries
- premade (see point 3 above) chia puddings
- bliss balls
- Get your shopping delivered. Who has time to walk the aisles of your supermarket right now? No one. The answer is no one. All the supermarkets offer a delivery service or click and collect. You can also investigate a local fruit and vegetable delivery box, often delivered to your door or you pick up from one location each week. The fruit and veg delivery boxes are great as they come with seasonal produce every week and usually from a local farmer. A total time saver!
- Don’t rely on coffee to wake up and booze to get to sleep. I can hear you scoff, but I’m serious. I totally get that a glass of wine/beer at the end of the day totally calms you, but it actually impacts your sleep. You get to sleep easy, but you don’t stay asleep and it’s not a restful sleep. So you need coffee in the morning to get going. It can be a vicious cycle. Go for some alcohol free days at the start of the week. Aim for booze free days from Monday-Wednesday as a minimum. Your husband may be like mine, so could be harder to convince, but you can lead by example.
The most important tip for this time of year? Be kind to yourself and just aim to do your best. The reality is, at the end of this no one will be knocking on your door with a prize or you-did-good-kid award. So if you have a day or even a week that is just too much and you can’t work with the tips above. That is OK too. Just start again the next day or week. Chastising yourself or feeling guilty is not healthy either.
The end is in sight, we’re nearly there and that Christmas break is always the sweetest time of year. A time to relax, spend time together as a family and see family. I hope you have a wonderful Christmas and New Year!
Until next time… Jess
Written by Jessica Worth, Nutritionist and Tradies Wife.
facey and insta: @jessicaworthnutrition
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