Hi Nicole, great speaking to you again and I'm thrilled to hear that you're taking steps to both stay on track with your health and launch your business.
Over the next two weeks continue to avoid gluten as often as possible. Explore the eateries near your workplace that offer gluten free options, read labels carefully, and don't hesitate to state your preference when dining with others. Also, go ahead and finish setting up that new blog! The most important thing there is to get started, so don't get bogged down with the name or design at this point.
Your new recommendations until our next call on January 6th are:
1. Begin meal planning and get more proactive with making your lunches at work.
2. Drink more water.
3. Write at least 1, preferably 2, posts on your new blog and share them.
Here are the details for each:
1. To help you integrate cooking and healthy meal prep into your schedule, I recommend that you make time for weekly meal planning. Here's a post on my blog with the quick process I use for this, and you'll develop your own preferences as time goes on.
This may take a little getting used to, but simply taking about 30 minutes to plan out the majority of your meals for the week will go a long way in helping you be prepared with healthy foods no matter what your schedule. I recommend doing the planning on Saturdays and the first batch of cooking and prep on Sundays. Plan it so that the first batch of cooking gets you through the middle of the week and then you'll do one more batch of cooking/prep on Tuesday, Wednesday, or Thursday evening depending on which of those is your earlier day to get home. Some things might require a little additional prep in the morning or later but if you have the meals all laid out you'll find that this bit of additional prep takes very little time because you already have all the ingredients and know exactly what you need without the guesswork.
Here are a few food blogs you can explore to help with finding recipes, and if you'd like me to find you specific recipes after the next time we speak I can do that as well.
Against all grain
Of course there are thousands of other amazing recipe sites out there so I recommend that, if you don't already have some way of organizing your favorites, you create a folder on your computer where you bookmark the ones you like best. To find options, you can always try typing something into Google like "healthy lentil soup" and see what comes up! When I find a recipe that I really like, I also print it and put it into a physical binder so it's always right there in my kitchen as an easy go-to favorite.
For even more in helping you get organized, here are some ideas for simple meals.
To keep this post from being too long (and also as a way to encourage you to explore on your own) I won't include actual recipes for these but let me know if you want to know my personal preference for how to prepare these things and I'm happy to share!
Breakfasts
- Hearty smoothie with some yogurt or kefir (if you're ok with dairy), nut butter, avocado, chia seeds and/or spirulina along with some fresh/frozen fruit to give you lasting energy.
- Gluten-free oatmeal (I like Bob's Red Mill brand) with coconut oil and favorite toppings.
- Eggs in different ways (if you usually do scrambled, switch it up from time to time with sunny side up, poached, or hard boiled) and play around with having a different veggie on the side every time.
- Quinoa porridge, use quinoa flakes and prepare similar to oatmeal.
- Leftovers from dinner.
- Chia pudding with berries or some other healthy topping.
- Nuts, seeds, and fresh fruit.
Lunches
- Dinner leftovers, a good reason to make enough to have leftovers.
- Big salad with some sort of satisfying protein, can be any combination of greens and other veggies, with chickpeas or beans, meat (preferably grass-fed when possible), a gluten free grain like quinoa or buckwheat, some fish such as anchovies, or cheese. Different combinations of this can get you through a whole week!
- Gluten free wrap or sandwich, with hummus and veggies and a little something on the side, like olives or extra avocado.
- Quinoa salad with a mix of cooked and raw veggies.
Dinners
- The lunch options above could work for dinner as well.
- Broiled chicken drumsticks with cooked or raw veggies (I love it with blanched kale or sauteed spinach with garlic). This could really be a category called "any meat or fish with any cooked and/or raw veggies", the idea is to avoid grains in this combo.
- Kitchari or other curry dish (an indian dish, I actually have a recipe for this)
- Veggie stir-fry with rice noodles.
- Hearty soup or stew, if you can heat things up at work or get a soup thermos to heat it at home and have it stay warm until it's time to eat.
- Buckwheat with cilantro and some other green veggies, like cooked broccoli.
- Turkey, beef or veggie burger on gluten free bun when you're in the mood! Here's Siggy's, the organic place I mentioned with great gluten-free burgers, check it out sometime!)
Snacks
- Nuts and/or seeds. A great source of energy, I recommend buying them raw, soaking for a few hours, and then baking with a little sea salt. You can do this with a big batch on the weekends and keep them in the fridge for freshness. Some of my favorites include pumpkin seeds, sunflower seeds, cashews, and walnuts. Even a little bit of almonds prepared in this way is ok, just eat them individually if you suspect a reaction to something.
- Homemade nut milk or coconut milk.
- Chia pudding.
- Fresh avocado, cut in half and sprinkle some sea salt, pepper, and turmeric on top then eat with a spoon (you can get tiny containers to keep the seasonings in your purse!
- Mixed berries, or other fresh fruits.
- Apples with sunflower seed butter. Too many nuts isn't good for digestion so I like to switch it up by using sunflower seed butter as my nut butter of choice. It's a good quick snack, maybe you can keep a jar at the office like I do?
- Seaweed sheets. Nori sheets are increasingly available at health food stores and are a tasty easy snack that also has iodine which your thyroid likes.
- Carrot and celery sticks with or without hummus. Carrot sticks make the best easy snacks! You can chop up a whole bunch during your Sunday meal prep and bag them up to grab n' go throughout the week. The great thing about these is they can go many hours without refrigeration and still taste fresh.
- Cheese and crackers. Yes, I definitely whip this out at work, and why not? If you don't have a fridge at work you can bring a small amount of cheese in a mini travel snack pack, and make sure your crackers are gluten free. This is a treat kind of snack, I put it at the end of the list because it's not what I would consider the most healthy, but if it's good quality choose and minimally processed crackers, then it's ok once in a while.
2. Drink more water. I added this one because you mentioned you're probably not drinking enough and we both know it's important so it should be included here as a priority. Do you have a bpa-free travel container? (I use these glass ones by Life Factory).
A good way to make sure you have enough, is to always keep your bottle full and in sight. Having your own bottle, as opposed to using water cooler cups or a mug at work, will be a constant reminder to drink up. Aim to refill it at least 3 times during the work day, and do not count other beverages, so that you're drinking at least 3 full bottles of plain water during the day, plus what you drink in the morning, evening, and in other forms throughout the day, such as tea. Don't let this fall by the wayside, I'm going to ask about it next time we speak! :)
3. Start writing your blog! Here are a few writing tips/things to consider.
- Even when you share personal experiences, as a Health Coach it's good to always focus on the reader and how what you're writing is going to help them in some way.
- Write in short, digestible paragraphs, because unfortunately people have short attention spans. No long and blocky chunks of text.
- Play with the text so that it is organized and also visually appealing. You can bold headline text, break up your points into bullet points, use different font sizes and colors, etc.
- Use good images. Personal images that are well-lit and composed are best, but if you don't have that then I recommend purchasing inexpensive stock images rather than simply taking images from online because that is technically illegal. I use 123rf when I don't have a personal image, but you can research countless other stock agencies that are affordable.
- Wellness writing is often about inspiring, motivating, and solving a problem. So when planning what you'll write about before you write it, ask yourself whether it will do those 3 things.
- Proofread proofread proofread. It is highly unprofessional to have typos or grammatical errors in any writing that you publish, so make sure to read it multiple times before publishing and sharing.
- Inject your personality. Be authentic and don't try to do what you think you should do to be successful. If you're funny, be funny in your writing. If you're spiritual, let that shine through. Let people connect with the real you.
Additional blog tip: Make some time to research other Health Coaches, bloggers, writers, wellness entrepreneurs, and anyone out there who you admire who does something similar to what you want to do. Make notes about why you like them and allow that inspiration to guide you in uncovering your own strengths. This doesn't mean that you should copy anyone of course, it's more of a success study to help you take bits and pieces from others as lessons and then weave them together, building upon them, in your own unique way.
Once I see your new blog, I'll definitely give additional suggestions.
Talk to you soon!
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