#ADULTING: Tips To Get Organized and Get Your Life Together! Part 1: FOOD

Am I the type of person who should be writing a post on how to adult? Maybe not. I have some credentials that make me look like my life is perfect, but anyone close to me knows that I do NOT always have my life together. This past semester, to be honest, was one of those times. I did okay in my classes, but by the end of it I was drained mentally and emotionally, I was physically far from my best, and my spiritual life was not exactly doing the greatest either. I started this post mainly to tell myself what to do in the event that I find myself spinning out of my own control again. I share it because I’m pretty sure someone can relate.

As I wrote this, I realized that the topic of "adulting" and of "getting one's life together" has far too many facets to just be put in one post. So I present to you my newest series, starting with part 1: practical tips to get your FOOD together. 

******

On Eating Healthy…And NOT EATING OUT!

Here’s the thing. I know what to eat in order to be healthy: fruits and vegetables, healthy protein, some carbs (not too many carbs), and keep away from fried foods and candy. I was raised by a health nut (AKA my mother) who barely allowed sugar and salt to even exist in our house, let alone be put on things that we ate. And even if I didn’t learn everything from her, I could learn everything I need on the internet. For how obese we tend to be, Americans have so many fad diets and other diets and tips and tricks in order to eat healthy. Vegetarianism, veganism, macros and micros, ketogenic diet…those are just a few of the trends right now. And all of those things are good, but my problem isn’t finding what foods to eat. My problem is preparation.

My favorite method of procuring food is the grab-and-go: find something that is on the shelf and consume it. The problem is, because I don’t always take the time to prepare healthy food for the shelf, I find myself doing the next fastest thing: eating out, or even worse, using Uber Eats, which is like eating out but nearly doubled in price because of delivery fees. The result is a guaranteed drained wallet, and either gaining or losing weight depending on whether I eat too much McDonalds meals or only subsist on one meal a day plus snacks in order to sustain the Uber Eats habit.

What I need to do this year. Also, there is an actual site called stopubereats.com. The magic of the internet!

The solution is meal prep. Meal prep is when one takes an hour or two out of the schedule every week to prepare large amounts of breakfast, lunch and/or dinner. That way, for the rest of the week, when my hand is reaching to the shelf, it grabs the healthy meals that I made myself instead of grabbing my phone. And ideally, I don’t have to meal prep more than twice a week. I like cooking, but not THAT much.

For breakfast, lately, I’ve been buying instant oatmeal from this brand called Better Oats, which has oatmeal with flax seeds. Whenever I eat that for breakfast, I feel very energetic and ready for the day. Since I’m kind of a hungry horse, though, I need more than one packet!

For lunch, I like sandwiches, so ideally I'll prepare four or five sandwiches with cheese, turkey, spinach, red onion and spicy mustard. Delicious, healthy, and (importantly!) very portable for school. I usually supplement this with snacks such as clementines, strawberries, carrots, or (maybe) a fruit snack packet or two, though I’m currently weaning myself off the latter.

Dinner is probably my most creative meal. As I said, I actually do like cooking sometimes, and the amount of food shows I watch (Chef's Table, Worst Cooks In America, The Great British Baking Show...) has sparked an interest in finding new recipes. My favorite recipes have four things in common: they are absolutely PACKED with flavor (not necessarily spicy), they don’t take too long (a med student’s got to study), you can make lots of it in one or two goes, and they have three food groups in one dish: veggies, protein and carbs. My two favorite recipes for dinner so far are coconut chicken curry with rice from Epicurious, and Moroccan chicken stew from Plated. (The recipes are linked—thank me later.) As I get ready to publish this, however, the last dinner I made was even quicker than those two: fried rice with spinach, onion, eggs, soy sauce and sesame oil. 

For hungry horses like me, snacks are very important. I usually try to buy fruit—strawberries, oranges, apples, grapes, and nectarines when they’re in season. Fruit is not the cheapest thing on the planet, but I find it a lot more filling than cheaper, carb-filled snacks such as chips or even Nature Valley bars. For vegetables, I find carrots to be the most accessible, mildly tasty, and cheap (I've never seen a bag of carrots, even organic carrots, above $3). Whenever I bring a pack of carrots around my friends, they always want to take some! As far as carbs, as I said, I have a slight addiction to fruit snacks and sugary cereal that as I publish this, I am in the process of breaking (pray 4 me), and I like popcorn and some type of crackers (Club crackers, Wheat Thins). For proteinaceous snacks, almonds remain my favorite, though they’re also not exactly cheap.

Okay, you say, you’ve given me food suggestions, but WHEN can I find the time? That’s the real question. Again, ideally with meal prep, you should only be preparing food once or twice a week. For me, it’s lunch and dinner, so I have to split that into two days. Five sandwiches takes me much less than an hour. Dinner definitely takes longer; with preparation it can be as short as an hour, without it can be over two. The thing is, in order to study, you need ATP (energy), and most ATP comes from food. So meal prep time is not wasted time!

ADDENDUM: This January, I've been able to mostly follow my own food advice (I wrote most of this post during Winter Break), and where I've really seen a difference is in the way I feel. Last semester, when I was eating out a lot, I felt lethargic a lot of the time. My chest hurt, my stomach felt loaded down, my legs ached, and I would get chest pain whenever I ran a short distance. Now, having been eating pretty healthy for most of the month, most of those symptoms have gone. I still get mildly achy if I haven't exercised in a long time, but compared to last semester, the aches have gone down considerably, and I feel like I can sprint if I need to (for example, to catch a bus). 

For me, eating healthy hasn't really been about getting my "ideal body"--it's about feeling better and having more energy for the day. Part of adulting is dealing with the fact that our bodies aren't getting any younger, and that as we get older, our bodies get less tolerant of crappy fuel (i.e. junk food). I'm not planning to NEVER eat junk food again (doing that nearly guarantees that I WILL eat junk food again), but I hope to keep following my own advice, because I am literally feeling the benefits as I write this.