Feed Yourself

What if I told you that you could eat restaurant grade food in your home every day and only cook two nights per week. This is no gimmick. There are no tricks. I’m not about to sell you on some environmental nightmare of a mail order meal service. This is about making small adjustments to your eating habits and meal planning with intention.

When I dove into the full time work force the most jarring reality check was how much time and effort went into preparing 3 daily meals. I felt like all I ever had time to do was eat, work, and sleep. I struggled to enjoy cooking. Especially since I would eat my leftovers for lunch which meant I had to cook almost every night. I didn’t have a strong repertoire of foods to make, so I’d grow weary of eating the same thing repeatedly. I fell back on take out as a supplement to my cooking which was expensive and wasteful. I was frequently exhausted. Which I rightly blamed on my job, but I was also undernourished and overfed.

There were a few myths I had to debunk first.

Myth One: Three Square Meals

If you are underweight or have a history of eating disorders, intermittent fasting may not be appropriate for you. For most everyone else, however, there is growing evidence of the benefits of intermittent fasting on both your physical and mental health. It’s very simple to achieve: stop eating breakfast. You can still have your morning beverage, and I promise this is easier to adjust to than you think. I’ve found that since starting intermittent fasting I’m less beholden to the demands of my stomach. In other words; I don’t get hangry as easily.

Cutting out solid foods in the morning leaves you with only 2 more meals to think about. Which leads me to…

Myth Two: Leftovers are Gross

I begrudgingly ate last night’s microwaved leftovers at my desk for years before I realized what was killing the food for me. It was staring me in the face with its warm glow and unrelenting humming and beeping. I’m talking about the microwave. That’s right; the microwave was destroying the flavor of my food. It was easier than I thought to give up the microwave; making my leftovers something I looked forward to.

Of course that complicates lunch if you only subsist on leftovers. Which is why I advocate for saving that precious food for dinner and finding a simple, predictable way to manage lunch. I personally like to make smoothies for lunch during the summer and oats during the winter. These are simple to prepare, easy to change up, and don’t bog down my digestion midday. With this system my lunch hour takes about ten minutes to feed myself allowing more time to rest or get a walk in.

Now we only have dinner to contend with. Which brings me to…

Myth Three: Cooking is Hard

I often say that cooking is the one thing you have to do. So you might as well make it fun. Put on some music, make yourself a cocktail, and seek out recipes that you are excited to try. Look for recipes in books, not online or your own imagination. I thought I was a good cook until I started using cookbooks more regularly. I’m a big fan of recipe books written by restaurateurs because they often teach you how to batch your meals. That’s the secret to cooking twice a week: make your meals in quantity or batch certain parts of it. If you’re making a simple meal one night, you might have the bandwidth to make a sauce for another recipe and freeze it for later. You want your freezer to be stocked with sauces and ready made meals so that the majority of the week is spent enjoying your leftovers.

Summary

• Start intermittent fasting and eliminate breakfast.
• Eat a light, simple, predictable lunch.
• Unplug the microwave; it destroys leftovers.
• Treat your leftovers with respect. That is a dinner you don’t have to cook.
• Find a way to enjoy cooking. It’s the one thing you have to do.
• Build a library of cookbooks. Avoid internet recipes.