Keeping Healthy Food Handy

I've been so pleased with my labs this year and I do try to eat healthy most of the time. I have learned that I can do that best when I have things ready to grab if I get a nasty urge to eat something I shouldn't (potato chips, snack size candy bars, ice cream, etc.). However, I don't always feel like doing the prep needed to keep good food handy. 

It's not like it takes a lot of time. It just takes a few minutes. Yet I have to force myself to spend those few minutes.

When I looked back at some of the things I've grabbed in the past two days, I realized I needed to put in a little time.

So, tonight, around 6, when I was doing my shut-down-the-kitchen routine, I took a deep breath and began. 

I grabbed one of the small cans of salmon (got them at the dollar store), one of my small stashes of mashed avocado (with lemon juice and horseradish), a celery rib, and the jar of relish. I opened and drained the salmon, added the avo mixture, chopped the celery, and tossed in a teaspoon of relish. Now I've got a container with some salmon salad and it will last me 3 days as a quick snack when I put it on a corn tortilla and eat it like a taco.

I keep red grapes in the crisper and rinse enough for a small grab-bowl when I need them. I needed them. Grabbed a bowl, grabbed the grapes, pulled and rinse. Now I've got enough grapes to grab on a whim, or to cut into cereal, or toss in a small bowl with cucumber pieces, black olives, and other goodies when I need something to keep beside me instead of chips.

When I realized I was thinking "cucumber," I grabbed the last one of those, scraped half of it, cut it off, and plopped it up top, ready to dice for lots of snacks.

I do need to take the seeds out of the watermelon cubes in the one container - that I will do tomorrow.

Now I feel ready for tomorrow and the next day and the next - I'm safe for a few more days...feels good. And it didn't even take me 15 minutes total. The thing is - if I don't do it when I think about doing it, I won't do it at all, or at least not for a few more days.