The Single Most Important Part of Healthy Eating: Preparation

Last weekend was a food-prep weekend for me. I try to do this when I have three days off, so I can spend most of a day (or two half-days) cooking without spending the entire weekend in the kitchen.

The first day I prepped food just for myself. I made:

• tuna salad
• salmon salad
• both from canned fish, stored in portions in muffin tins
• brussels sprouts
• part of my return to eating vegetables I love that my partner doesn't eat
• sweet potatoes
• ditto!
• chicken broth, using healthy bones from truLocal and my Instant Pot
  

The second day I cooked these dinners, to freeze. Each is a double batch, which should be enough for three or four meals, for two people, times two.

• spaghetti and meat sauce
• made with ground bison in one pot, using the Instant Pot on pressure cook -- super easy and delicious
• turkey meatballs
• also pressure cooked
• chicken burrito bowl, made with brown rice
• Instant Pot on slow-cook
• pork tenderloin with honey-garlic sauce
• my first time making this! very easy

I was so pleased with myself!

I have more truLocal meat waiting for another round of cooking. Right now my entire arsenal of Pyrex containers are in use, along with an assortment of repurposed glass jars. Plus four dinners in one morning was my limit. I'll do another round three or four weeks from now. (I also have really nice frozen seafood from truLocal, specifically for quick dinners on days I'm not working.)

All this food-prep reminded me of something I wrote several years ago on another blog. I'm re-posting it here in slightly edited form. 

* * * *

Healthy eating has one cornerstone, one key concept from which everything flows: advanced planning.

You can't eat healthfully without planning in advance. The more you can plan ahead, the more you can control what you eat. The more last-minute and spontaneous your eating, the less healthy it will be.

This applies to whatever manner of healthy eating you're trying to achieve, whether it's cutting down on sodium, fat, white sugar, or processed food, eating less meat, eating more vegetables, or anything else. It all comes down to planning. There are probably exceptions to this, but it's as close to an infallible rule as you'll find.

Here's one small example from my own life. Healthy breakfasts are [were -- at the time I wrote this] an ongoing challenge for me. One healthy breakfast that I like is scrambled eggs with veggies. If I'm going to eat that once or twice a week, I have to remember to put the vegetables I want on the shopping list and -- this is the key -- prep them and put them in containers in the fridge in advance. Without that, it doesn't happen. 

In the morning -- after I exercise, take the dogs out, have my coffee and check my email --  I'm hungry, but I'm also anxious to start my day. If I have to chop onions, wash and slice mushrooms, and wash and slice bell peppers, this healthy breakfast is not gonna happen. But at another time, if I run an onion through the food processor, slice a load of mushrooms, and dice a whole bell pepper, then put them in separate containers in the refrigerator... in the morning, everything is there when I need it. The actual cooking takes only a few minutes.

Not only does this encourage me to eat the better breakfast, it's also much more efficient, since the onion, shrooms and pepper will stay fresh for around two weeks. In fact, it was while I was throwing some already-chopped onions into the skillet, so pleased with myself for having organized this yummy breakfast, that I thought of writing this post.

[You can create an exception to the Advanced Planning Rule if you can afford to buy salads already prepared, lettuce already washed, or vegetables already washed and cut up. This can be very helpful, but still requires some advance planning, as these won't stay fresh as long as whole vegetables.]

To people who are natural planners, the idea that healthy eating requires advanced planning may seem incredibly obvious. But to people who are not naturally inclined to plan ahead or who are resistant to planning, or both, it can be a major obstacle.

If you're accustomed to a lifestyle where you shop weekly with a list, make dinner at home most nights, bring your lunch to work, then planning ahead is so ingrained in your life, you may barely think about it, even though it's something you do all the time.

If your schedule is erratic, or you're constantly pressed for time, if you generally don't think about food until you're hungry, if you have the means to dine out frequently, or any combination of these, planning ahead may seem impossible or undesirable. But you may not realize how much that spontaneity is preventing you from having healthier eating habits.

For many of us, the movement from no or minimal planning to a greater degree of planning occurred with age. In general, young adults plan less, eat more convenience food, are less concerned with nutrition or economizing. But learning how to plan ahead doesn't necessarily come naturally with age. I know lots of people my own age who find it very difficult. I'll bet many planners, like me, have partners whose response to "What do you want to do for dinner tonight?" is "I don't know, I can't think that far ahead."

So I've learned not to ask, just to plan. I take responsibility for planning dinners for the week, because I don't like what happens when I don't. I like efficiency. Even though I'm not the one doing the shopping, I hate needing multiple trips to the same store that could have been avoided with better planning, or getting takeout not because we want to, but because there's nothing in the house to eat.

Flexibility is important. Sometimes when you have a bad or crazy day, the best thing you can do for yourself is to say, "Let's make this chicken tomorrow night, let's get Chinese food tonight." But on a regular basis, if you "can't think that far ahead" to dinner, chances are good that you'll spend more money, eat more, and eat less healthfully than you would have if you had planned. 

If this is an issue for you, like any new habits, you might try starting small: make one change, live with it a while, let it take root as a habit, before adding in another change. If bringing your lunch to work is a stumbling block that you'd like to get past, maybe aim for bringing lunch one day a week. See how that works, then add a second day. Make one dinner in advance, and see if you like the trade-off. 

Eating and Enjoying Real Food; Sustainable Self-Discipline

One of the things that concerned me most about weight-loss surgery was the idea of losing the enjoyment of eating and food. I heard and read that this would not happen, but there's a difference between knowing something in your mind and seeing it in practice in your life. 

Now I am eating. And enjoying. And this is a great relief! For the last 10 days, my partner and I have eaten the same food for dinner almost every night. If we didn't, it was because we got takeout and ordered different things.

"Eat protein first"... not really

Some of this concern was about cooking. All the info on bariatric diets advise you to eat protein first, then vegetables, then if you are able to eat more, a small portion of whole grain or complex carbohydrates. I cook mainly one-pot dishes. Whether soup, stew, stir-fry, sheet-pan, or casserole, the protein, vegetables, and grains are all cooked together. The one exception to this is grilling in the summer. Other than that, I'm combining simple ingredients in various ways. How was that going to work with "eat your protein first"? 

WRD explained that this "rule" really means to make protein the focus of your meal. You want to make sure you are meeting your protein requirements, and if you fill up on carbs, you won't be able to do that. Then why don't they say so?

For a one-pot cook, this means adjusting the ratio -- bumping up the protein, reducing the carbs. That's easily done. I might change the ratio when I'm cooking, or I might do it only when I serve myself. Either way, it's not difficult.

Sustainable self-discipline

Despite the tiny stomach, the bariatric diet still requires discipline and self-control. Although I can't eat a lot at once, I could eat small amounts that would add up to too much. If we're binge-watching something on Netflix, I could easily have a small snack every half-hour, and/or I could snack on the wrong food, filling up on empty calories. It's possible to do.

The difference is that the tiny stomach makes the discipline sustainable, because I'm not hungry all the time, or if I am hungry, a small amount of food is all I need.

When I was doing the pre-op fast, someone mentioned that I was proving that I could modify my eating behaviour. But behaviour modification was never my issue; my long history of dieting demonstrates that! I was overweight because I had consciously given up on dieting, and I was always hungry. Now, because of the surgery, I can eat a very calorie-restricted diet, without being hungry. Sustainable self-discipline.

85% thinking

Using an app to track diet and exercise can really run counter to 85% thinking. Calories eaten, calories burned, calories left to eat for the day... it has the potential to cultivate some very unhealthy thinking. But tracking my intake is really important right now. So I have to do it, and stick to it, but at the same time I have to give myself leeway and not give in to all-or-nothing thinking. It's a challenge!

Week 9: Arriving at a New Almost-Normal

I seem to be naturally segueing into a bariatric diet, meaning a new way of eating that I'll continue for the rest of my life. The frequency of stomach discomfort is way down, at most once or twice per week. I'm finding more things that I can eat. And I'm gradually figuring out how to prepare food for our home -- some for me alone, some for my partner alone, and some for both of us. 

New stuff I'm eating (or not eating)

- I had sushi and sashimi this week. Sushi is one of my favourite foods -- actually it might be my very favourite food at this point -- and it was wonderful to eat it again. Portion size will be a challenge, but on the other hand, I can eat it regularly.

- I also had soup from our local Chinese restaurant, a "house special" wonton soup that they make with bits of roast pork, shrimp, chicken and vegetables. I separate the broth, which keeps the vegetables crunchy and hugely reduces the salt content, as I eat a very minimal amount of broth. 

- After the liquid and pureed phases, I was really missing eating something with crunch. In the past I would get that from raw vegetables -- and yes, the occasional chips -- but both those categories are off-limits right now. This week I started eating the whole-grain (brown) rice cakes that we always have on hand, with a small amount of peanut butter spread on. Healthy crunch!

- I've given up my decades-long habit of having strong black tea in the afternoon. I'm trying to limit my caffeine intake, so I've switched to herbal tea. Previously I've only occasionally gone for herbal tea, but now it's daily. I'm not sure if I can keep this up long-term. I've never liked decaf black tea, but if I could find a good brand, I'd try that. 

- I'm going to try different later-stage foods a little at a time, randomly, as I feel like it. I think as long as I eat slowly, it will be OK.

Things I've learned

Calculating the grams of protein I eat every day has led to some interesting insights. I've always paid attention to nutrition, but as most dieters know, it's also easy to fool yourself.

- We've always eaten a lot of seafood, and I've known that it is very high in protein and sometimes rich in healthy and important fats. Looking at the actual numbers has really reinforced this. Seafood is pure protein, a big bang for your protein buck. We eat tuna and salmon, both fresh and canned, trout, halibut, Pacific cod, scallops, shrimp, and probably a few others. 

 (I often joke that my tuna consumption is turning me into a thermometer. That's the big but of seafood... and why I switched to Skipjack (or "light") tuna, from Albacore (or "white") tuna. Skipjack is also less dangerous to marine mammals that die in driftnets.)

-  I've always thought that hummus is a healthy food and imagined it was rich in protein. Nope! As a spread or dip, it is certainly healthier than mayonnaise or sour cream, but it's not high in protein. Hummus, at least the commercial variety, really doesn't qualify as a protein source at all. 

- Much to my surprise, tofu is not very high in protein either -- nothing like chicken, fish, or meat. You would have to eat a lot of tofu to meet daily protein requirements. I realize that different people have different protein needs, but this partly explains why, when I was a vegetarian, I was so unhealthy.

Cooking for two, or 1.5

My partner and I have never eaten the exact same food, but normally any dinner I would cook would be for both of us. Now this has become a challenge. 

So far, as you may have read, I've been doing advance cooking for him, which we save for the nights he is working. At first these meals were 100% for him. Now I'm including some meals that I can also eat, or eat in a modified way, such as giving myself more meat and less rice. 

I'm also still cooking ahead for myself, and putting portions in muffin tins. This has turned out to be so useful for me, both for portion size and variety, that I want to continue it. 

One positive piece of this is that I'm eating food that my partner doesn't like, foods I had stopped eating at home, because I didn't want to bother making them just for myself. A large sweet potato -- baked until it's completely soft, almost syrupy -- lasts me almost a week. That's just one example of several.

All this has led to a great deal of food prep, and it sometimes feels burdensome, especially when I'm working long hours. This week my partner did a lot of prep for me -- cleaning, chopping, mincing, and leaving everything in tiny pyrex bowls in the fridge. That made a huge difference, but I don't want to make a habit of it. (Well, I'd love to make a habit of it, but I won't.)

This is something I'm going to have to feel my way through and make changes as I go along. In the past, anything I couldn't completely plan out in advance was very challenging for me. I'd feel anxious about having too many unknowns. But these days I'm much better about living with unknowns, and adjusting as needed.

Every day I see evidence of how weight-loss surgery is really a tool for people who already understand nutrition, who have had experience dieting and monitoring their food intake, who are mentally stable enough to deal with a lot of change, and who have support. Without those factors, it would be much more difficult to succeed.

How Will the Surgery Affect Life at Home?

When I was first considering bariatric surgery, one of the obstacles -- in my mind -- was how the major changes post-surgery might affect my home life and my relationship with my partner. I thought it might negatively impact our relationship, and obviously I wouldn't want to do that. 

Eventually I spoke with him about this concern, and he was very clear: don't let this enter into your decision. We've had many, many lifestyle changes over the years -- including many different ways of eating -- and we've always adjusted. Put it out of your mind as a variable. 

This was pretty wonderful to hear!

Now as I prepare for the surgery itself, with the pre- and post-surgical diet, I started thinking of how this would work in the short-term. In our world, I am the food person. I plan our meals, and I cook, and determine when I'm not cooking, and what we're doing instead. I enjoy this role and I have no wish to give it up.

A and I have a great division of labour, where we play to our strengths -- and he does a lot. Especially since we became homeowners after a lifetime of renting. He also does 90% of the food shopping, and whatever cookware doesn't go in the dishwasher. And of course, he works full-time and has plenty of his own interests.

I didn't like the idea of being on the pre-surgical fasting diet, or the post-surgical liquid diet, and just leaving A to fend for himself. He could, of course, but the idea made me uncomfortable,.

So last week, I did what I usually do every few weeks: I cooked a big batch of meals in the Instant Pot, put everything in Pyrex containers, and popped them in the freezer -- but this time, just for A. 

I never thought I'd do this! It's not like A is a helpless sitcom dad who doesn't know how to feed himself. When I go away for work or for conferences -- which I do on a fairly regular basis -- I don't cook for A in advance!

But this feels different. I'm making this huge change, and it requires a lot of support from my partner -- and I'm spending a lot of our money to do it. Making sure when he takes his dinner break that he has something tasty and nutritious to eat, ready to be re-heated and eaten, just feels like something I should do. If I didn't, I would feel selfish and somewhat guilty, and irresponsible.

I thought that cooking while fasting might be very unpleasant! So I cooked in advance, before the fast began. It should be enough for two weeks' worth of dinners (supplemented by takeout when he wants). Then I'll see if I can handle doing another round before I leave for the surgery, or else when I get back.