Struggling With Food/Meal Prep For Dinnertime

I’ve been struggling this week with food/meals. 

 

I always seem to have the hardest time coming up with dinner ideas.  It feels twice as hard when I have to account for Kenyon, which is why I tend to lose better when I’m working the mid-day or night shifts.  I can pack all my food for work and I don’t have to worry about another person to cook for.  Also, I can have the same boring meal everyday if I want to since it is just me I have to please. 

It feel so complicated meal planning sometimes.

 

Maybe I’m just being a big baby.  I’m not sure. 

Friday was a crazy day at work.  We had a semi-truck roll and spill it’s load of sand blocking two lanes eastbound and one lane westbound.  That quickly spiraled into several other crashes, 10 total.  Ugh.  After my shift ended, I wanted to eat out/stress eat so badly.  I had no desire to go home and cook my planned dinner that I had all the stuff ready for.  I also had no desire to exercise that I desperately needed steps/miles for.  It was a big internal battle with myself but I was just too exhausted to eat out and I knew stress eating wouldn’t help.  I was so proud of myself for going home, starting up the Instant Pot, and did a WATP video. 

Saturday was another crazy day at work.  I’m thinking this will be the theme of the weekends as we start into summertime.  Ugh.  I wanted to eat out again so bad and leftovers was all that was waiting at home.  I had worked a 12-hour shift and was exhausted.  On a positive note, I was able to walk on the work treadmill for 1 hour and 15 minutes total throughout the day.  Yeah!  Instead of eating out, Kenyon suggested brining home Panda Express.  Okay, that fit into the WW points budget and was delicious.  And, that was 10x better than what I would have consumed had we actually gone out to eat.

The struggle is real.

Some strategies that will help me avoid this back-and-forth on eating planned meals at home when exhausted:

• Start using the Instant Pot/Slow Cooker so meals are ready to go when I walk in the door.
• Prep some casseroles ahead of time that are ready to go into the oven.  This would also allow me to get in my exercise while it bakes.
• Squash the thoughts right away on eating out.  It will save money and calories.
• Instead of eating out so much and using so many WSPA on Tuesday-Thursday, which has been difficult because I’ve been meeting Phoenix to try out new restaurants, plan some high point days/meals out on Fridays and Saturdays when I’ll be exhausted after work.  This are my preferred days to eat most of my WSPA anyway.
• Just say “screw it” and eat out…okay…not the best idea for weight loss but tempting!