8 Reasons to Cook and Prep Your Own Meals
November 9, 2016If you are like most people, your weight has been an issue at some point in your life. For me, it has been my whole life. I used to have a love-hate relationship with food. It has changed over the years and a big reason is how I deal with food. Once it had power over me. Food could control my moods. Food was in my head, and thoughts 24/7.
Along the way, getting the unhealthy food thoughts out of my head was difficult, we cannot simply stop thinking about anything we obsess about, but we can swap them with other thoughts. Exchange the thoughts that sabotage your weight loss goals, with thoughts that aid in your efforts to achieve your goals. When we make those changes, we turn an unhealthy food relationship into a reasonable, rational and realistic relationship.
Cooking, prepping and planning your food, helps with putting focus and direction to your thoughts about food. Leaving behind the random decisions and emotions that lead to interference of your goals.
8 Reasons to Cook and Prep Your Own Meals
- Cost: On average, the cost of going out to a chicken dinner per person is $13.00. Based on the Bureau of Labor Studies, if we duplicated the same meal at home, the average price would be $6.41. That is about half. Cha-ching, money savings!
- Quality: Typically, restaurant, fast food, and grocery pre-packaged foods are not the best quality. Sure there are those places that offer organic and locally sourced foods, and I highly recommend going to those places, albeit the cost is usually high, but a great option for those days you are unable to prepare at home. Choosing the quality of your food, allows you to feed your family healthy options and that is simply splendid!
- Control ingredients: Premade or processed foods are typically heavy with salt, fat and possibly preservatives. Most places use restaurant supply companies for food. You may think that your food is being prepared from scratch, but the reality is that they are microwaving, opening cans and bags of meats and sauces and who knows what else. When you control the ingredients and the amounts, you control everything of what goes in your body. That is downright self-loving!
- Personalize flavors: If you have food limitations, dietary needs or allergies, prepping at home allows you to make the food your body uses most effectively. This is great for weight loss, diabetics or foodies who want to control the quality and flavors of what they consume. Taste is all about you personalizing your meals. Listen to your body’s desires, it’s calling out to you, with taste buds and smells. I hear you!
- Focused thoughts about food: When you plan, purchase and prepare your food, you are able to take the constant thought of food off your mind. This is essential for us who preoccupy ourselves with what to eat next. Because it is pre-planned and prepared. Ready to go!
- Save time: By cooking multiple meals at the same time, you save lots of time. I teach a class called Fast Food for Busy Families. The key concept is planning one or two days a week for cooking multiple meals. You are already in the kitchen, you are making pots and pans dirty, but there is only one clean up. No one wants to be cleaning the kitchen after cooking every single night. Scheduling prep days can be planned around days you might have kitchen help. Brilliant!
- Calories: On average, a typical diner will consume 250+ calories more per meal eating at a restaurant than home cooked meals. If you do the math, consuming 250 calories more than your body burns per day will equate to a weight gain of about 100 pounds in as little as four years. Just from those extra calories alone. Frightening, but real!
- Convenience: Prep day can be a fun family event or a personal therapeutic time for yourself. Nothing beats the way it feels on Monday morning when every minute counts, and you open the fridge to find all your meals ready to go, and dinner planned for after work. What a fantastic way to start your week!
Now that I have tantalized you with 8 enticing reasons why it is best to cook and prep your own meals, I will share a few tips on how to make those steps a reality. I call then the 4 P's. You may have heard of 3 of them. PLAN, PURCHASE, and PREPARE. I have added PARTAKE.
Plan: Take the time to plan meals for the week.
Purchase: Shop at the market to get what you need.
Prepare: Prep day is the day you put it all together.
Partake: Because enjoying the meals each day will make you feel empowered and in control of your personal and family food management plan. So go ahead and partake and enjoy your efforts.
 | ABOUT THE AUTHOR Rain Hampton is a board credentialed Health and Wellness coach, certified bariatric support leader and motivational speaker. Rain has facilitated support for patients of Dr. Charles Callery and other bariatric centers fighting obesity. Rain was featured as the cover story of OH magazine, Winter 2012 issue and was a panelist at the 2016 ObesityHelp National Conference in California.Read more articles from Rain! |
