How Bad Do You Want It....How Bad Do You Need It?

LOVE, Love, love country music! So this song popped into my mind when I was thinking about a few more clean eating tips I could share with everyone. How bad do you want to be healthy and in shape? Maybe how bad does your body need for you to eat healthy? Maybe this isn't what the song is talking about, but just make the right food choices and exercise, and you'll have what the song IS talking about! :)

Here's how BADLY I want those abs/ Need them before baby number 2:

Exercise the past 3 days: Thurs--ZWOW and bodyrock; Fri-Rest day w/ 300 abs; Sat--5.5 mi ruck march/ jog with the hubby!

 A couple of days ago I was just talking about being a busy mom/ person and still finding ways to eat clean. One of my favorite things to do is to have what I call a "prep" day. Typically, this "prep" day falls on the day I go grocery shopping or the day after. I should really call it "prep" hour instead of day because it only takes about an hour to prep for my week! It takes me a day because once I start prepping everything then I start cooking, baking etc.

Here's what I do:

1. On shopping day, I stock my fridge with fresh fruits, veggies, and meat.

2. On prep day, I take everything out and prep it for my next week. This includes: washing, chopping, and bagging any veggies I will be cooking that week, marinating and freezing any meats I will be using, and chopping/ bagging any fruit for freezing that week.

Chopped veggies in mason jars

All you need is your food, mason jars or plastic baggies, cutting board, and knife.


Here are my chopped veggies in mason jars! This week I did green beans, Brussels sprouts, yellow squash, broccoli, eggplant, carrots, cucumbers, red potatoes, zucchini, and butternut squash. 

Funny story behind the mason jars....last week, I only needed one mason jar, but my dad (who was trying to be cost effective), instead of buying me 1 mason jar bought an entire 10 or 12 pack. I had NO idea what I was going to do with all those jars!?! So when I started doing my prep, I remembered the jars and figured I would save a few plastic bags from the landfill. I really like using this quart size because I can easily measure out enough for a meal. BUT like I said...plastic baggies will work just as well so don't let not having mason jars stop you from doing weekly prep.

Chopped carrots! Some for cooking and some for snacking!

 If you're wondering if this is really worth the time and effort to do it, let me tell you: IT IS! If you're busy and you're anything like me, you buy all of these great healthy foods on grocery shopping day. By the time it's dinner and you're supposed to be pulling out all those healthy awesome foods, you're tired. You don't want to chop, dice, wash, rinse, peel anything. I got tired of feeling that way and either not pulling the food out or not having time because I was in a rush. So I started prepping my food. I also wash and bag my lettuce on prep day too. If you're wondering why there are white paper towels in the mason jars, that's to absorb any excess water from washing.

For the ambitious, here are a few other things I make on prep day for my following week: homemade instant oatmeal mix, granola bars, homemade fruit rolls-ups, and sometimes bread. I make all of these things as needed for the week. That way when I'm on the go I can grab a healthy snack; I already know where it came from, the ingredients, and calories!

sliced eggplant! Too big for the mason jar