From Lisa Bullock

I’m not happy with my nutrition at the moment.  It’s time to pull up my socks, drag myself up by the bootlaces, develop a stiff upper lip, and suck it up princess!  I haven’t been planning my meals at all and so my energy and training performance has slipped.  Lunches in particular have been my downfall.  My bad!

I’ve been super busy this last two weeks and I needed to take the time to sit down and do some meal planning – if I don’t plan, then I’m planning to fail!  it’s not just a cliche – it’s the truth! I flicked through some recipes, wrote a list of what I wanted to eat and set my food prep in train.  It took ten minutes to plan and I was done. Planning is the number one secret weapon for losing weight and keeping it off!

I get really bored with food and cooking.  Though I’m a bit of a “foodie” and love to eat good flavours – I get bored by the thought of having to prepare those same meals.  In my next life I plan to come back with a personal chef – oh hang on, my husband does the cooking – I HAVE a personal chef lol!  My daughter Joy also loves to cook and is a “foodie” and inveterate traveller.  By the age of 20 she had travelled to more than 15 countries, all on the smell of an oily rag (that’s Oz speak for “a tiny budget”).  She loves to explore different cultures, roadside food stalls, and then comes home to Australia and plays with flavours.

We’ll pass each other in the kitchen, me on the run with a plain green salad with protein choice “insert chicken, ham, eggs” – she’ll have “Created” a diverse mix of flavours and textures (please read that in your most sexy, celebrity chef voice) and I’ll just stare, thought bubble forming above my head “hmmm, would she notice if I just swapped our plates and made a run for it?”

Now forgive me, if I make this sound like a bald faced sales pitch but I LOVE this series of Paleo Hacks recipe books.  They’re easy, do-able for the ordinary woman in the kitchen, and fit with my style of eating.  Sure I could Google paleo diet recipes and then I’d spend the next 3 hours being distracted by pretty pictures that make me hungry.  It’s easier for me to go straight to this meal planning tool and get inspired for the next week.

We have a tried and tested formula for meal planning in our house:

Monday – BBQ chicken with steamed veggies

Tuesday – Bolognese sauce with zucchini noodles

Wednesday – Mexican tacos or enchiladas – I don’t eat the taco shells or wraps just the chicken mix and salad

Thursday – Steak with sautéed mushrooms and wilted spinach

Friday – home made, healthy pizzas

Saturday – cheat meal

Sunday – pumpkin soup

We’re not very sophisticated with rotating recipes – keeping it simple keeps us sane. We’ve eaten like this for a few years now which in retrospect is really boring, but works for us.  Please tell me there are other people on the planet who stick to this sort of meal planning?  Please?  Am I alone?

So then I bumped into the Paleo Hacks 28 day Meal Planner.  What is NOT to love?  This is SO cool and all cross referenced so you can go straight to the page and recipe.

 I’m going grocery shopping this afternoon for these lunches for the upcoming week.

Beetroot, pumpkin and walnut salad

Salmon and zucchini fritters

Pumpkin and dill soup or maybe Tomato and Basil soup – not sure yet

Fish and pine nut patties

And I’m going to “invent” a cool grated veggie frittata, maybe a little chopped lean bacon too – I’m not letting Joy get away with all the gourmet invention kudos!

Now while I work from home, all of these meals could easily be pre-prepared and packed ready to take with me on the road, or to the office.

I’m not really taking notice of any of the desserts, I just find it easier to stay away from sweet stuff of any description unless I’m having a cheat meal.  But if you love desserts and love healthy desserts you can check this blog post I did about sweet snacks under 100 calories.

I figure that we’re all busy women together, doing the best we can – but any help is appreciated!  Check out the Paleo Hacks recipe books if you’re feeling like you need to re-jig your healthy meal planning.  And then tell me it’s not a FANTASTIC tool!

Working week – sorted!

Lisa Bullock is a Personal Trainer based in Melbourne, Australia.  She’s run her successful fitness business for over 15 years and has trained over a 1000 clients helping them reach their health, fitness and wellness goals.  Married for 27 years and mother to a daughter (22) and son (19), she is a proud proponent of the philosophy “keep on keeping on”. She believes that consistency is key to achieving goals.  Lisa loves weight training with a passion; she’s boxed for over 12 years and sees no reason to stop soon!  She’s faced her own health and weight issues and come out fighting.  “I believe in training for the long haul” she claims, “I fully expect to be doing handstand push ups when I’m 60!.”

This entry was posted on April 13, 2014 at 2:00 am. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

Posted in Healthy Eating by Shawna 2 Comments