Workweek Prep

Working full time can really make for a busy and hectic week when you are a wife and mom.  I look for ways to streamline my mornings and my week as much as possible - this is the only way to stay on track, (eating-wise), not be so rushed in the mornings and really think about what I'll be eating throughout the week.

Sticking to my morning smoothies, drinking citrus & mint water throughout the day and eating a balanced lunch and dinner is allowing me to give my body what it needs without the desire to eat out.  

Here is what I do to prep for the week.

I usually do two types of smoothies throughout the week.  One is my new favorite: Cherry & Banana.  The second is Strawberry Banana.  Now ... there are multiple ways to get in the ingredients you want in these smoothies.  Each morning all I have to do is grab a bag of the fruit I want and then add in the secondary ingredients to make it the smoothie I want that day.

Each bag in my freezer holds a portion for one smoothie.  Here are a couple different smoothies that are currently on my favorites list:

Dark Cherry & Banana  Sunrise Smoothie

1/2 banana

1 cup dark cherries

2 cups orange juice

ice

Strawberry Banana Oatmeal Smoothie

1/2 banana 

1 cup strawberries

1 cup oatmeal (steel oats)

3 tablespoons Greek yogurt

1 cup Almond Milk (or skim)

Blueberry Delight Smoothie

2 cups blueberries

3 tablespoons Greek yogurt

1 cup Almond Milk (or skim)

2 mint leaves

Green Banana Smoothie

 1 banana

1 cup spinach leaves

3 tablespoons Greek yogurt

1 cup Almond Milk (or skim)

ice 

So you can see ... if you buy certain ingredients you can mix up the combinations of smoothie each day.  I will say for a moment that bananas are amazing for you in the mornings.  Bananas contain high potassium and are a great source of dietary fiber.  Since bananas also contain tryptophan and serotonin, they can give you a sustained boost of energy in the mornings that is better than caffeine.  The serotonin can help encourage feelings of relaxation and then of course we have vitamin B6 that helps against sleeplessness, mood swings and irritability.  Not too bad to help start off your day, huh?

Now let's talk citrus.

I am a huge lover of lemon.  I could squeeze it over almost any food, put it in almost any drink and love the scent of it.  You've probably heard that citrus helps to boost metabolism.  That's true!  Citrus and mint are natural immune boosters as they contain 88% of your recommended daily intake of Vitamin C.  High in dietary fiber as well as citrus acid, lemons can aide in digestion and help dissolve kidney stones.  

Infused water.  My favorite kind of water.  Water to me is boring.  There.  I said it.  It's boring to me to drink and I end up grabbing a pop in the day just to have some flavor.  So in order for me to boost my water intake I needed to find a way for water to hold my interest all day long.  I tried using the mixing packets, even the drops to flavor.  All they did was make my sodium levels rise which in turn left me jittery and totally threw off my sugar levels.  I needed something else.  

Bring on the water infuser bottle.  If you don't have one - get one.  You can find these almost anywhere now.  Basically, they are a water bottle with an inside tube that you can fill with ice or fruit.  Here's what I do:

Part of my weekday prep, I slice up a lemon for the week and place 2 slices in the inner tube of my water infuser.  I do this each night before bed.  Then, place the tube in the freezer overnight.

Now my lemons are going to get nice and cold all night long.  In the morning as I'm grabbing my lunch and blending my smoothie I just grab the tube from the freezer and place into my water bottle.  Cold, crisp, citrus water all day long.

Another variation on this is to incorporate mint.  I will add fresh mint leaves to my water before leaving for the day, but what I found is that throughout the course of my work day the leaves became very wilted and quickly lost their flavor.  I still wanted the mint flavor though.

I am a huge tea drinker and embarrassingly have a wide variety of teas in my house at all times.  One evening as I was prepping my lunch for the next workday I thought I would place one of my Mint Medley tea bags in my water bottle overnight in the fridge to brew.  I grabbed it the next morning, discarded the tea bag and placed my frozen lemon in the water bottle and left for work.  Once I tried it at work I was hooked!  The fresh taste of the mint combined with the citrus lemon was fantastic.  

I promise you ... if you start prepping what you can each week you will be amazed at the good food choices you will start to make.  (and I bet you will start to stay away from the allure of the fast food)

Comment/share below what works for you during the week to help stay on track and make it easier to get out the door in the mornings.

Cheers!

~Jacqui