Hi Beauty,

If you followed my Instagram account last year, you know I’m a big fan of batch cooking to eat healthier.

For those of you who don’t know what batching cooking is, it’s basically where you cook up big batches of a few different healthy foods (especially proteins, roasted veggies, beans and longer-cooking grains) and keep them in the fridge ready to go.

Most of these items can be mixed and matched to create variety both in terms of nutrition and flavor in your diet.

Today, I want to share with you another practice I do to ensure I’m eating healthy.

The night before I go to bed, I open the fridge and take a look at what’s there and make a mental note of what I’m going to eat the following day. It’s different than meal planning because I’m not planning my meals for the week – it’s just a structure for one day.

This gets me to pay attention to what my body needs right now as well as tailor my food choices to my activity level.

So for example, yesterday I took a look in the fridge and came up with the following structure for today:

  • Breakfast ~ Avocado Shake
  • Lunch ~ Homemade Pizza with Vegan Cheese, Fresh Basil & Salad
  • Snack ~ Apple & Almond Butter
  • Dinner ~ Lebanese Chicken Skewers with some Mezze and a Salad or a Green Drink
Your Hunger

Doing this the night before allows me to make intuitive choices based on what my body wants and needs versus being overpowered by my appetite and hunger.

The key here though is to start with batch cooking and grocery shopping to make sure you have an array of fresh vegetables, dark leafy greens for salads, delicious proteins like chicken and fish cooked up and ready to eat, as well as any other food options you may want like herbs, sprouted tortillas, nut butters, pizza sauce etc.

If you don’t stock up and do some pre-cooking and prep work, it’s a lot harder to stick to your structure for the day.

This idea of taking a moment to think about your meals for the next day works well even if you’re ordering lunch to eat at your desk or going out to dinner.

If I have plans to eat out or I know I’m going to have to order out, I still make a mental note of what I feel my body wants and decide what I’m going to eat beforehand. I usually look up the menu and decide exactly what I’ll order.

This keeps me from ordering things like cheesy Mexican or Italian food… or bready sandwiches… or a burger with fries because I’m not starving when I made the decision of what to eat.

One more tip if you’re new to this, make sure you write down your meal structure for the day the night before. It’ll help you stick to your choices the next day as you’re developing this new habit.

Until next time!

Much love,

Aarti