Nutritional Convenience: The Good and The Bad

In the fast moving world today, time is limited. We stretch our time over many different things. This makes it hard to accomplish other things, especially when trying to lose weight.

Because of this, the convenience factor usually creeps in. When pressed for time we eat things like fast food, microwavable processed meals, and pre-packaged items. Why? Well its easy and saves time.

It is human nature to like things that are convenient, like buying those wrinkle-free clothes that supposedly never need ironing (all though they usually do). Ironing is boring and consumes time that we could be using to do other things.

It’s kind of similar to preparing and cooking our own meals, right?. It’s something that we don’t want to devote time to. Instead of cooking our vegetables we would rather eat them right out of the bag.

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This is where nutritional convenience can hinder your goals very quickly. Pre-packaged foods are usually heavily processed and loaded with ingredients that you have never heard of before. Unfortunately, if your goal is weight loss you will have to put in a little bit of effort to see progress.

It doesn’t have to be hard though. Here are four easy things that you can do to turn convenience into a positive thing.

1) Spend a little extra time on the weekend preparing meals

This is a great one, if you know you will be busy. Setting aside a extra time to plan, cook, and package your meals can save you time and pounds on the scale. You will not even have to think about your meals during the week because you have already cooked them. This one takes a little longer than the other three, but it pays off because you have one less thing to do during your busy week.

2) When you buy or cook things like fruits, vegetables, nuts, etc. separate them into smaller containers.

By doing this, food is more readily available when you need it to be. This should make it a little bit easier to eat something good instead of reaching for chips or cookies. Another benefit to this is that you get to choose the portions that go into the container. Once you finish the food it is finished, you won’t continue to eat more. This could be great if you struggle with portion control.

3) Cook more than you will eat at dinner.

This allows you to have leftovers that you can package up for lunch the next day. Lunch is usually the meal where people want something quick, since most are working. This usually involves fast food. By doing this you already have a meal ready to go the next morning, and you save money from not eating out. That’s a win-win in my book.

4) Use a Crockpot.

This is one of the easiest things you can do that most people never think about. All you have to do is place your food in the Crockpot and let it cook while you are at work. When you get home, you will have dinner waiting on you. Doesn’t get much easier than that!

So there you have it! Four easy things that you can implement immediately. These can help tremendously because you do not devote a ton of time to any of them. Convenient right? 😉

Remember, we will always have to work for things we want. But it does not have to be overly hard. Keep it simple! Find ways that prevent you from giving in to bad habits. You will certainly see progress by doing this.

Also, if you struggle with food variety I highly recommend the cook book Gourmet Nutrition. The author of this book, owns one of the leading nutritional companies in the world. He does a wonderful job of providing the reader with many different meals that are easy to make and good for you.

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