The perils of meal prep and eating healthy when fast food is around the corner

One of the biggest struggles when it comes to living an active lifestyle is eating right.  Eating right consists not only of eating the right food, but it also consists of eating at the right time.  On top of that, eating the right food at the right time can pretty much be alleviated by fixing the food at the house.  It makes sense to do that since everything is under one’s control at home, but there’s always a way to complicate something that should be anything but.

Every single week, a trip is made to the grocery store.  On the trip, the usual items are simple enough: a grocery list and a shopping cart to throw groceries in.  The food on the list is consistent enough, which helps make the options known well in advance.  The trips tend to take place the day before the work week starts up, but some trips are made during the work week as well.  On these trips, there are plenty of food establishments along the way which would easily free up the time spent on prepping food to do something else.  It’s almost as if these establishments are in place to make people who are trying to be disciplined fall off the wagon: $5 boxes, Dollar Value Menus, and other gimmicks all in place to get people in and out and all in the name of fast food.

Crazy Joe mentioned one of the traits that contributes to sticking with working out is accountability.  Whether it’s accountability to oneself or accountability to others, the feeling and the embrace of responsibility and accountability is enough to keep him going to the gym every day.  It’s a similar mindset adopted on this end as well.  Summer is coming, and it’s unrealistic to look good with no clothes on when little to no work is being put in at the gym.  It’s ass-backwards, actually.  Unfortunately, the trait of accountability doesn’t always stretch to food, and there’s really no excuse.  Just as people tend to rationalize not going to the gym because they don’t have time, it’s hard to rationalize not eating right because there’s no time to prep food.  It’s simply not true.  Admittedly, it’s a task to eat right when there’s a damn KFC, Chick-fil-A, Whataburger, Popeye’s, Raising Cane’s and more food spots within 5-6 miles of each other.  The point of fixing food is to feed the body properly and consistently, not going to fast food spots and treating the body like a damn garbage disposal.  Recently, the latter is winning and that’s a problem.   

It’s easy to get lost in the daily shuffle and forget, or simply not want, to eat prepared food and rationalize it by eating something quick and fresh instead.  This has happened at least once a week for the past two months, but part of any process is finding ways to deal with the curveballs that life throws each and every day while not taking shortcuts.  For some people, the curveballs they are dealt in life are much more serious and may even be the difference between life and death.  On this end, it’s making sure not to succumb to the fast food monster and stick to prepping those meals.