Dedicating a few hours one day per week for food prepping is hands down the optimal way to set yourself up for success in terms of healthy eating. But what happens when you just don’t have time to do that. Maybe you’ve been traveling, have a a particularly heavy load at work, kids’ schedules are hectic or maybe even you just aren’t at a point in your journey where you can make food prepping happen.

Just because you don’t have time to prep meals for an entire week doesn’t mean you should chalk up the week to eating out or heating up frozen dinners. There is a happy medium.

The answer is simple! Prep these 3 things in about 30 minutes so you can set yourself up for success even when short on time…

 1. Boil boneless skinless chicken breasts and shred the meat. This entire process takes about 30 minutes and will provide you a healthy, lean protein for the entire week. Do not season it, other than with salt and pepper. This way you can change it up each time you eat it throughout the week. Eat it with an avocado for breakfast, add it to greens for a salad, mix it with salsa for tacos, stuff it in a baked potato, toss it with veggies for a 5 minute stir-fry…the options are endless!

2. Steam 2 different vegetables. Again, keep the seasonings minimal so you can add variety with each meal. Snack on these during the day, add to scrambled eggs for breakfast, reheat and drizzle with evoo and lemon juice…again, a lot of options here.

3. Choose 2 recipes from EAT (like the meatballs, crockpot lemon chicken or a hash). EAT is designed to give you ideas, not to be used as a strict meal plan. Use it as a guide to learn what ingredients and real food items should comprise your diet. 

Breaking the mindset that eating healthy is difficult or time consuming is the first step in learning how to EAT for life! Keep it simple, meet yourself where you are and take about 30 minutes one day per week to set yourself up for success!