Food is not just calories. Most people learn this the hard way including me and there are even more people who don’t realize it at all.

Recently I was reading the book Designing Your Life and from that, I learned the concepts of health, work, play, and love gauge. They are the main aspects of our life. Evaluating how we are doing in all four areas once in a while is very useful. Good health is the foundation of all other areas.

“A healthy man wants a thousand things, a sick man only wants one.”

– Confucius

No matter how busy I am, I can’t compromise on healthy eating. Good health is the foundation of everything. Our energy level, hormones, mood, and even genetic expressions are controlled by what we eat daily.

In this article, I want to share some tips that help me to make sure I eat healthy meals along with managing my 9-6 job and creative hobbies.

For me, cooking is very therapeutic and relaxing. It’s my routine through which I transition from work mode to relax mode. I do end up cooking pretty complicated recipes occasionally, mostly when I try to recreate my Mom’s recipes in my way.

But it’s not realistic to cook big elaborate meals every day. Let me share some of my secrets with you.

📑Plan your meals

Believe me, this takes a lot of pressure off of you. We only have a fixed amount of energy for a day. We are like batteries. So spending a lot of energy on various things along with a job that requires a lot of brain power can leave you drained and anxious by the end of the day.

Planning our tasks can help us save some energy and reduce decision fatigue. It might look like a bit of work at first, but it’s worth it once you get the hang of it.

Meal planning has many benefits.

• It can save some money by providing a list thus we won’t be buying random things from the supermarket.
• It can reduce decision fatigue since you know what to cook.
• Helps us to consciously include more varieties of fruits and veggies.

If we don’t have anything planned it is so easy to choose the default. That might be that super sweet cereal for breakfast or fast food for dinner. Spending a little bit of time on the weekend might save you from that vicious cycle.

In my opinion, you don’t have to plan every meal if it feels like a task to you. Plan some of the main dishes for the week and make bigger portions. Use a meal planner to organize everything if you enjoy doing that. I used to do that but I figured out that a flexible plan is more practical for me. For example, my list looks like,

• Any 2 kinds of fruits
• Vegetables for stir fry
• Rice, noodles or pasta (gluten-free)
• Spices
• Protein
• Beans
• oil
• Nuts and seeds

And I make sure to switch everything each time I shop. An example of my meal plan would be like,

Breakfast	Lunch	Dinner	Snacks
Oatmeal with fruit, nuts and seeds	Chicken fried rice with lots of vegetables	Rice, fish curry, vegetable stir fry	Fruits, soaked and peeled almonds

The only time I get time to cook is at dinner. So mostly my lunches are leftover dinners. You can switch up the fruits, nuts and seeds, protein, etc.

🥙Meal prep

Meal prep comes after thoughtful meal planning. Once you have an idea about what to cook for the week, you can get your groceries and start meal prepping. Check out my blog post on how to eat healthy on a budget to get some ideas for shopping.

There are many ways to meal prep.

• You can prepare the ingredients and store them in containers so that you can put together the meal before eating.
• You can prep the entire meal so that you just have to heat them up before eating.
• You can adopt a hybrid approach where you have some meals meal prepped and some not.

The first approach would be something like the one in this video from Downshiftology where a lot of ingredients are prepped and the meals are put together when needed. This approach gives you some flexibility to choose what to eat. But on the other hand, it requires some energy to make the decision.

The second approach is something like the ultimate minimalist meal prep by Matt D’Avella where the entire meal is prepped in containers. This approach saves you a lot of time and energy. It’s the same thought that wearing the same outfit every day will save the energy spent on that decision and let you focus on more important things. This is not for everyone especially if you enjoy cooking like me.

Also, another thing I feel is that if you work in tech or a similar industry where every day looks the same staring at a screen, you could use a small break and a change of scene. Personally, I need that. If you don’t like cooking at all the second approach is the best approach.

The best way to meal prep

I think the best way is to combine first and second approaches.

• Completely prep your lunch since you don’t have to rush during the lunch break (if you are working from home like me)
• Prep the ingredients for dinner and breakfast

For example,

For example, prep the toppings for your overnight oatmeal in a container (fruits and nuts separately), roasted veggies roasted chicken, etc.

My favorite things to meal prep on a weekly basis are,

• Cooked basmati rice for one pot of stir fries and fried rice
• Hard-boiled eggs
• Homemade oat milk or almond milk for my daily coffee
• Boiled chickpeas for salads
• Some non-veg curry
• Homemade gluten-free bread
• Homemade chia jam, etc.

Then I put together breakfast and dinner and mostly kept the dinner for the next day’s lunch.

📝Adopt minimalism

This is life-changing for mental health. You don’t have to be creative enough to use one bowl for everything. That’s not what I’m saying. But, I find it easy to cook consistently when,

• There is no clutter in the kitchen
• When I make simple balanced meals with good quality ingredients

Believe me, decision fatigue is a thing. I ask myself “Is it really necessary?” before getting anything new in the kitchen. Do you need that complicated utensil to make that weird viral dish on TikTok? Probably not.

🥗Master some one-pot meals

One-pot meals are my savior when it comes to dinners. After a busy workday, I want something quick and easy but healthy and nourishing. I meal prep some kind of protein source like chickpeas, beans, chicken, etc. I also keep cooked rice in the fridge. If you have cut vegetables too, it’s so easy to put together.

🥣Learn a few meals you love and easy to make

You don’t have to struggle to eat what you cook. Also, you don’t have to spend a lot of energy on what to cook. Master some of your favorite meals so that you can whip up something so quickly.

If your favorite meal is flexible like my one-pot chicken rice, you literally can make unlimited versions of the same dish and you won’t get bored.

🥞Make bigger portions

Always…always make extra. Even if I’m unable to meal prep. I make extra dinner so that I can use it for the next day’s lunch. Making an elaborate lunch in the middle of a working day is not just practical.

🧾The bottom line

The key to productive cooking is planning. That doesn’t mean spending a full day just planning 😄. Everybody has their own priorities when it comes to life. Once in a while taking some time to think and reflecting on our own life might make a huge difference.

If you are someone who prioritizes health and balance like me, check out my blog posts below.