Remembering to Eat

Posted by Liana at 11:47 PM

I have this problem.

- First of all, I'm NOT a morning person, nor do I like breakfast foods.
- Second, I work from a home office most of the time when I'm not traveling all over the place.
- Third, I have roommates and friends that offer to pick me up some food when they're driving to Wendy's or Chic Fil A or the yummy taco place down the street.
- Also, I'm engaged to a wonderful guy that much prefers eating out because he too works from home (his own home).

All of these excuses pale though in comparison to the fact that SOMETIMES (okay, most of the time) I just get too wrapped up in work and whatever task is at hand to remember to eat. This has been going on for years now. My old assistant Audrey would remind me daily and tell me to go take a break. I think I need her back!

What happens is I forget to eat then someone will offer to pick something up for me which is usually not on my list of "must-eat-healthy-foods." OR I get so busy that I ignore my hunger pains until my stomach starts screaming it's profanities at me and threatening to make me feel weak. It's usually around 3PM when I remember and I'm running out the door and grabbing fast food or something else equally unhealthy on the run. I HAVE plenty of food at hand, it's just not convenient.

None of this bodes well when you're trying to "get healthy" and on "Operation: Wedding Dress." Somehow not eating until 3PM is worse than eating a huge breakfast or snacking all day. I could buy the pre-packaged Lean Cuisines or other TV frozen-dinner variety, but they're darn expensive, most taste like rubber, and they leave you feeling hungry still afterwards. Yuck.

My solution?? Go back to my college-habits. In college, I would pick a day every few weeks and have a cooking-marathon. I'd get the kitchen all dirty making four to five different meals at a time, then packaging them to go into the freezer in individual pre-packaged portions. Each week, I'd pull out a few meals of different varieties and move them to the fridge and that is what I ate for lunch or dinner and supplemented with fresh fruits, veggies, and other meals throughout the week. I didn't forget to eat when I had those.

So yesterday I picked up the groceries, hauled an ungodly amount of food into the house, and cooked up a storm from 9PM to 2AM. I have enough meals to last me a month now and there are still more to package!



So far I have:
Two oriental dishes
One sweet/sour Caribbean-inspired dish
One chicken-mushroom savory dish
One Mexican dish, and
One Italian dish

I still have a few more to whip up in the next few days plus all that left-over turkey to make into meals so we'll actually eat it. Each "dish" makes 4-6 individual meals and Mikey is going to be a lucky-recipient of some of these because I just don't have enough room (plus he needs to remember to eat too!)




So there it is... homemade Lean Cuisines!! Much tastier and more affordable though! Convenience and home-cooking all wrapped into one.

We will see how this helps out my pocketbook, waistline, and health overall...