Prep and plans

Let's face it- eating healthy or eating clean is work ! Most places that set up shop where humans are know to gather offer food options that can be mass produced with fairly long shelf life, at a low cost for supply ( it's the basic formula for any successful business). While you may be able to purchase pre cut salads, vegetables, fruits and such, they are of dubious quality. Only way to insure quality is to buy it and make it yourself. However, most people struggle with the time constraints of such a lifestyle.When you have to leave the house for work at 6 am , the last thing you want to do is get up at 4 am to make healthy food( let alone exercise, shower , dress and then face the commute before you "work"). There is a compromise, and that lies in spending time over the weekend to do prep work. I do it every week, for survival. While I may be a stay at home homeschooling mom. life gets crazy and time gets crunched for me, like any working person. This weekend I cut up carrots and celery for sides, lettuce for salads, kale for convenience, made fruit salad for the weekend and then made the following salads for the week for lunch. It is one step that will insure that I pack healthy options for my husband during the week as well ( we are changing his diet this week to see if it helps his weight loss)

Southwest crab salad
(back beans, red pepper, yellow pepper, green pepper, zucchini, corn, cilantro and salsa)

Quinoa Bean Salad
(Quinoa, garbanzos, carrots, red yellow and green pepper, onion,tomatoes, garlic and a little soy sauce)

Healthy Slaw
(cabbage, carrots, apples, beets with a tofu/vinegar dressing)

All happily nestled in Tupperware containers in my fridge, and we are ready to rock and roll ! With the addition of several soups in the freezer and cans of sardines ( for my hubby), it will be a good week.

I am going to try adding something new to my exercise routine this week. While many parts of the country are experiencing warmer , sunny weather, we are still trapped in a world of cold and gray that makes my joints lock up as soon as I set foot outside. However, walking is one thing that not only keeps my joints very limber, but helps for weight loss. I have no treadmill, but I have a hallway, and this week I am challenging myself to make 100 trips in my hall, in addition to our Wii sports work, stability ball work and weights. The 100 trips will be taken through small clusters of minutes through the day ( some days it gets hard to find time to go to the bathroom, let alone something more complicated), so this is do-able. If Dr Oz challenges his weight loss clients to take 10,000 steps every day for weight loss, this should be a move in teh right direction. If nothing else it will greatly help my arthritis !