Making Healthy Eating Work -
Food Preparation Strategies
Strategy #3 — Have Others Cook For You
If you love the idea of having 5-6 ready made meals
always available yet can’t see yourself using the Sunday
or the Breakfast Rituals above or buying all the
Tupperware, there are a number of options at your
disposal.
First, you can hire commercial food preparation services to do
all the cooking for you. If you’re anywhere near a metropolitan
area, you’ll be able to find dozens to choose from. The two
biggies nowadays are Atkins At Home (Atkins Diet) and Zone Nation
(The Zone Diet). The Atkins At Home company delivers 3 meals and
1 snack to your door by 6 AM each morning. The cost of this is
between $35 and $40 per day. Alternatively, the Zone Nation
company delivers 3 meals and 2 snacks to your door by 6 AM each
morning for the cost of $35-40 per day, just like the Atkins
company. I hear good things about both services.
Now, if you’re not interested in supporting the Atkins or Zone
programs, there are many smaller companies who can assist you
with your meal preparation needs. For example, when I lived in
Miami Beach I found a local woman who provided this very service
for $5 per meal. Every day for lunch she brought me an 8oz
chicken or turkey breast, a baked potato or serving of rice, and
a large serving of steamed veggies. Other days, I’d have her
bring me 2-3 meals just like this.
Here’s another tip. Pick 4 restaurants in your immediate area
(2 fast food places, 1 medium-priced restaurant, and 1 higher
priced restaurant) that prepare meals in a way that conforms to
your nutritional plan and have them prepare the food for you when
necessary. Of course, you’ll have to do a little research on your
potential eateries by collecting hard copies of their menus or
visiting their web sites (if they’re online).
If you’re looking for a few examples, here ya go. Dave Thomas’
Wendy’s makes a couple of tasty chicken salads and a chili that
you can eat when on the go. Even McDonalds is offering healthier
meal selections — I’m lovin’ it.
Choose healthier fast food meals that conform to your meal plan
when you don’t have much time or much money for a meal and choose
a medium-priced restaurant like TGI Fridays (US) or Kelsey’s
(Canada) for a better quality menu to provide you with a solid
daily lunch. TGI Fridays, for example, has a great list of
Atkins-friendly selections.
Finally, choose higher priced restaurants if it’s time for a
power lunch to impress colleagues. Since most people don’t really
know where they want to go eat anyway, if you get roped into a
business lunch, you can be the one to make the definitive
decision as to where the group is going to eat. Your decisiveness
will win you big points with colleagues and you’ll also be able
to control your eating habits.
Of course, if you don’t have the resources to entertain
strategy #3 and pay others to cook for you, consider the fact
that if you use the first two strategies to effectively build a
lean, muscular body, you might just be able to convince
attractive members of the opposite sex to take over for you.
However, getting them to drop them off at your place by 6 AM
every morning is a trick I’ll teach you in a later article.
In the end, whether you choose to regularly prepare your own
meals by using the Rituals described above or you regularly
choose to have others prepare your meals for you, circumstances
will arise in which you’ll have to "cross over" and use a
different strategy than you usually use. It never ceases to amaze
me how much time those interested in health and fitness spend
seeking out "the perfect plan" and how little time they spend
figuring out what they’ll do when life’s circumstances prevent
them from following it.
Side Note: Food Support Systems
In order to make the Sunday Ritual and the Breakfast Ritual work,
it’s important to pick up a few items — nutritional support
systems, if you will. Here’s what we recommend picking up before
you start using either of the two Rituals:
- A good countertop grill. Since you’ll
most likely need to cook relatively large batches of lean
protein, it’s important to have a quick way of doing this. If
you’ve got a great backyard grill that you can use year-round
that’s great. If not, pick up a Foreman or Hamilton Beach
grill and you’ll be all set.
- A good cooler in which to store and
carry your meals for the day. Coleman makes a few good ones.
Before buying one, however, make sure there’s enough room to
carry a few meals and a few shaker bottles.
- 5 small Tupperware-type containers.
These containers will be for storing and transporting your
daily meals. Make sure they are small enough to fit into your
cooler but large enough to accommodate a full meal. Your
choice of glass or plastic is up to you.
- 5 large Tupperware-type containers.
These containers are for storing larger quantities of food.
For instance, if you chop your veggies for the week or cook
all your chicken breasts for the week, store them in one of
these. Again, your choice of glass or plastic is up to you.
- 3 Rubbermaid Chuggable drink containers
— 1L size. These containers are for your liquid supplements.
Be sure to choose the blue top variety as these are far and
away the best drink containers out there. Most others leak.
Follow the guidelines in this article and you’ll
be able to display the adaptability necessary to move from
nutritional novice to "seasoned" nutritional veteran.
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