Most of our readers are women. And most of our readers are women who are responsible for caring for someone else. Perhaps you’re responsible for caring for many people.

Because so many people depend on us, taking care of ourselves should actually be one of our top priorities, but all too often, it’s the last item on our agenda. Caring for You is a new series aimed at helping you make caring for yourself a priority. After all, if you collapse because you didn’t take care of yourself, who’s going to take your place and care for the precious ones in your charge?

Click here to view all the Caring for You articles.

 Food – It Does a Body Good (If It’s the Right Kind of Food)

Think of food. What comes to mind?

For me, it’s Mexican food (I grew up in McAllen, TX on the border of Mexico) and sweets! Those are my comfort foods.

Side note: Have you noticed that comfort foods typically aren’t good for you?

You know that your body cannot live without the fuel you get from food. But you also know it can be challenging, even overwhelming, to provide your body with the best kind of fuel. Sometimes it’s a struggle to find time or energy to provide it with fuel at all! What’s a girl to do?

Change Your Habits

It’s obvious that you need to make changes. You probably even know what changes you need to make. But changing a habit is HARD. After all, it is a habit!

Once you’ve committed to making changes, don’t try to change all of your bad eating habits at one time. Making too many changes at once sets you up for failure. Instead, pick one bad habit and work on changing just that one habit. Once you’ve successfully replaced that bad habit with a good habit, start working on another bad habit. Meal planning is a good place to begin.

Failure to Plan Is Planning to Fail.

That old adage is true in every area of life, including our eating habits. Speaking from experience, if you do not have a meal plan, you will be more likely to eat at odd times, skip meals, and eat fewer healthy meals.

All of those actions (irregular meal times, skipped meals, and eating junk food) are destructive to your health. That’s not how you would care for someone else, and it’s not how you should care for yourself. Remember, our goal is to make caring for you a priority so that you can continue to care for others.

Meal Planning Doesn’t Have to Be a Complicated Chore

Although it can seem like a lot of work to plan your meals, it doesn’t have to be. Here are some ways I simplify the meal planning process.

1. Make breakfast and lunch easy.
   We have the same breakfast (sausage, scrambled eggs, and toast with jelly) Monday through Friday. Saturday is the day for special breakfasts – home made pancakes/waffles/French toast are favorites. Sunday is the day for fast breakfasts like frozen waffles or cold cereal. Weekday lunch usually consists of a sandwich or the occasional leftovers. Saturday lunch varies, and Sunday lunch is a nice meal – typically a meat and two or three vegetables.Because breakfast and lunch are purposely predictable, I don’t have to think about what we’re having.
2. Create a list of the meals your family enjoys.
   This is going to be the foundation for planning your meals. You can create this list over time. It will probably change with time, too, so plan to update it every so often.
3. Plan out your suppers for (a week, two weeks … you fill in the blank).
   My husband gets paid every two weeks so I plan suppers for two weeks at a time. I plan easy meals for Wednesday and Sunday nights because I know that preparing to go to church leaves me crunched for time to prepare supper. My husband likes “fun” foods on Friday and Saturday nights so I plan to make tacos, home made pizza, home made chicken tenders, and similar meals then. The big meal on Sunday is at lunch time.Make your meal plan flexible. Meals don’t have to be assigned to specific days. Just having planned meals helps eliminate the “What’s for dinner?” dilemma. And being able to pick and choose the meal you want to serve each day means that you can pick the best meal for the day’s stress level. Hard day? Pick an easy meal.

Still Sound Too Complicated? You’re Not Out of Options.

I know how you can have someone else plan your meals and corresponding grocery list for you for just $5 per month.

Ah! That got your attention, didn’t it?

A couple of months ago, my sister told me about e-mealz.com (aff. link), a business that provides you with a menu and shopping list for 7 meals per week, all for a cost of $5 per month.

Seriously?! $5 per month to have someone plan my meals and the grocery list for those meals? I waste more than $5 per month when I don’t plan my meals.

So I decided to give it a try, and I’ve been very pleased with the service. It saves me both time and money. The only cons I’ve found in the two months that I’ve been using the service are that some weeks use convenience foods more often than I’d like (usually for the side dishes) and there are a few (very few) dishes that we’ve tried and haven’t liked. But I’m completely willing to substitute my own sides for the ones I feel are too unhealthy, and I’m also willing to substitute a meal for one we find we don’t like.

If you’re interested in learning more, you can click the banner below. It is an affiliate link so if you’d rather not use it, just go directly to http://e-mealz.com.

Just Take Action

It doesn’t matter if you decide to plan your meals yourself or if you choose to have someone else do the planning for you. The important thing is that you have a plan to properly care for yourself by providing your body with good food at regular times.

What’s Your Plan?

We’d love to hear how you care for yourself by creating good eating habits. Leave a comment below to share your ideas and practices.

~Revka Stearns

P.S. Although new posts in this series normally appear monthly, a new post will appear next Friday talking about foods that help you de-stress. You won’t want to miss it!

The opinions expressed in this post are my own. I was not compensated for this post in any way. I’m just sharing with my readers something I found helpful myself.

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Category: Caring for You