BY: Dan Marriot

Slim fast,Chicken Kiev, Smash and TV dinners

These are all things that used to come to my head, when I thought of convenience foods. However, things have come a long way since Smash.

Oh, and if you’re thinking what have Smash and space travel got in common? Well, astronauts relied on a diet of smash and other convenience foods due to their shelf life and well …convenience; so if it wasn’t for Smash, we probably wouldn’t have space travel.

OK, maybe a little too far with that last statement, but it’s true that astronauts ate Smash.

If you’re wondering where I’m going with this blog, then stay with me as I’m about to explain.

You see, when a client initially comes to us here at Storm, one of the most common issues we are finding when it comes to nutrition, is not having enough time to either cook healthy meals, or prepare healthy meals for when they’re out and about or at work.

Our jobs are becoming more and more demanding, some or our clients have kids too, so mornings can be hectic. Therefore sitting down and getting a good breakfast in, is a challenge in itself.

It’s the same at work, we are finding that clients are either too busy to eat, or, just can completely forget to eat all together, potentially leaving it far too long between meals, then before you know it, you’re face first into a packet of hobnobs not knowing what happened.

This is where we come in.

Believe it or not, some of our trainers are all about convenience. We are very busy at Storm and sometimes we may only have a 15-minute window to get some food in between appointments, this means we don’t really have the luxury of time to be able to sit down and to eat a square meal.

I’m going to share with you some of our strategies that we use for both ourselves and our clients, to help overcome this issue.

For every barrier we come across, there is always a strategy we can put in place.

First of all, we need to establish how much time someone has. I completely understand that generally we are a lot busier than we used to be, but do we really not have time to prepare a breakfast and lunch?

Or, is it a case of utilising time more wisely? If we usually sit down and watch Netflix for 2 hours, we have time to be able to make something for breakfast and lunch the next day but we are choosing not to.

By making the decision to prepare something to eat, it will actually save us time in the long run, provide more energy and, if we choose wisely, help us get in shape!

What does the day or week look like in terms of a schedule?

If we haven’t got a schedule, then how do we know we haven’t enough time? So the first port of call would be to sit down and see where we can ‘pinch’ pockets of time, to either shop or cook meals.

By the way, Spence has a video on convenience foods on the Storm Facebook page, if you haven’t seen it, click the link; Convenience video

Let’s get breakfast organised

What foods can we have that are super quick that will keep us on track? Everything is a trade off. If you haven’t enough time to get a good nutritious meal in, then you’re going to have to trade off by having something that is quick, perhaps not optimal but will keep you on track.

Breakfast:

• Proats prepared the night before (whey protein/ milk/ oats/ berries)
• Frittata knocked up and sliced into segments for 3/ 4 days breakfast
• Protein shake and a piece of fruit
• Yogurt, whey protein, berries and linseed

These are usually the go to, quick breakfasts that either myself, or clients will have if time is short.

Lunch:

Supermarkets now have some really tasty, healthy (ish) ready made meals. All it takes is to bang them in the microwave for a couple of minutes and Bob’s your aunties sister.

• Sainsburys ’Fit Kitchen’ range are around £3.80, have 2 servings of veg in with around 25g of protein and are roughly 350kcal per meal.
• Asda’s ‘Good and Counted’ range are similar in terms of marcos but are slightly cheaper in price.
• Men’s Health are now doing a range and can be found in some supermarkets.
• Again, things like yogurt and protein/ proats/ taking pieces of fruit in to work with a protein bar.
• Morrisons have an awesome Deli counter that is about £3 for as much salad you fit into the box as possible, then just add some cooked meats in there from the deli counter and you’ve got yourself a super quick meal.

Having things like protein powders, bars, fruit and nuts are really handy to have with you, in case you’re left short and in need of something super quick, to keep you ticking over until you can get something more substantial in.

Making a conscious decision to look ahead to how busy we are going to be will stand us in good stead to put the right strategy in place, to keep us on track.

I hope you’ve found this useful. If you’re struggling to know where to start and would like some help, then get in touch and we can organise a free strategy session to put your plan in place.

Dan