How I Eat Healthy

I’m going to start this one off with a few confessions. We’re about to get real here.

I don’t like salad.

Yup, it’s true. I’ll talk about healthy eating all day long, but I really am not a fan of salad. At least, not in the traditional sense. Seaweed salad? On it. Sunomono salad? Yes. (Look it up if you haven’t heard of it). Caprese? Any time of the day. But the regular lettuce with a bunch of different toppings salad? Not my jam. Sweetgreen, of course, doesn’t count because their salads are magic and of course I love them. But otherwise, I don’t want to eat it. I’ll think it’s a good idea the night before, pack it for lunch, and the next day I’m like NOPE and ordering sushi.

 

 

I don’t like cooking.

Cooking for me is like brushing my teeth. I do it because the alternative is awful (not enough nutrients, not knowing how things are made, way too expensive), and I can’t order Seamless every night as much as there’s a part of me who seriously wants to. The alternative to brushing your teeth is pretty gross too, for very obvious reasons. So I do both. I cook and I brush my teeth, even though neither make me particularly happy. I don’t want to spend 45 minutes in the kitchen on a Wednesday night. Which leads me to…

I don’t meal prep.

I am a planner – with everything. My holiday plans are already set, and I can tell you what I’m eating for dinner next Friday. Meal calendars are my jam. However, I do not love actually planning those meals ahead of time. Spending a couple of hours on a Sunday prepping everything to make it easier during the week sounds like a good idea in theory, but it’s never actually happening in my world.

So how do I eat healthy?

I know, I just took away three of the biggest ways Instagram and any blog will tell you to eat healthy. Eat a lot of salad, have complex recipes, but make them easier by prepping ahead of time. I’ve already failed. Except not really.

Eating healthy is still a huge priority for me. Aside from the fact that the first lesson I was taught from birth was that eating well was essential (my mom had me calling McDonald’s “the yuck place” by the time I was two – true story), it’s key to sustaining all of the miles I log on a weekly basis. I learned pretty quickly after I started my running journey that you need the right fuel if you expect to get faster and run stronger.

For a while, I would feel really guilty about not being able to live up to the social media standard of healthy eating. My smoothie bowls aren’t pretty. In fact, I recently stopped making my own in favor of Daily Harvest, because theirs are just better. I don’t make my own oatmeal (Picky Oats, to the rescue!). My dinners aren’t particular creative. I throw some Primal Palate seasoning (it’s the best, I swear) on fish and veggies and put all of the above in the oven. I steal my recipes from sites like NY Times Cooking, Runner’s World, and random blogs I find. When I look for new ones, I look for the fewest ingredients, the easiest prep (I hate chopping vegetables. I know, it’s weird), and the fastest cooking time. Trader Joe’s lunches and Whole Foods frozen waffles save me on an almost daily basis.

But that’s just ridiculous.

Who cares if my meals aren’t Instagrammable? They’re giving me the nutrients I need to get through the day (and the run), and they fit my schedule. I realized it’s a complete waste of brain power and energy to worry about whether or not the food I was making is living up to some random standard. It works for me. I talk with so many people who find the idea of cooking, especially healthy meals, so daunting because they think they need to stock their pantry with tons of ingredients that they have no idea how to use or spend hours in the kitchen. Sure, if you want to be a food blogger, a lot more effort is needed. But if you’re just trying to feed yourself? Don’t worry about it.

Find what works for you.

If you get a thrill from #MealPrepSunday, power to you. But if you don’t, it’s okay. Ask yourself, “What’s the goal here?”. Is it to create meals that other people want to share and re-post? Or is just to put some nutrients in your body? If it’s the latter, do what works for you. If that means eating the same thing everyday or repeating the same five basic recipes that you can conquer in under 20 minutes, great. Do what you can, when you can. Healthy living looks different on everyone. And if you happen to stumble across an easy, not photogenic recipe, post it on social media and let me know about it. I probably need it!