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Hey,

I am by no means a nutritionist. But I do know the difficulty that comes with balancing adulting and trying to eat well, so you’re able to fight in the trenches. We as the adults are responsible for what we eat. And it’s not easy, especially when food shopping is so expensive that you feel like you need a £500 loan, to buy your groceries for the week.

So here are a few things I apply to myself, to ensure I eat as well as I can manage, without breaking the bank and wasting food. The last one might be interesting.

Navigating Adulting and food

• I don’t like fruit, so I don’t buy it - When I am pressured to buy something, but my tastebuds are repulsed by it, I will not eat it. And thus waste money and food. So fruit rarely makes it into my shopping list (I have raspberries for drink garnishes occasionally and lemons for lemon-ginger tea)

• I hide veggies where I can - I might just be bad with storing my food, but I find veg goes off pretty quickly. But if I prepare a meal and hide the veg inside, like boil rice with peppers, spinach and peas or blend all my veg to add to tomato soup, I eat so much more veg. (which I tell myself counteracts my lack of fruit intake)

• I have a spreadsheet of meals I like to cook* - I have been told it’s weird to have this, but I hate thinking of what to cook. This spreadsheet has meals that I don’t mind cooking and love to eat, so I don’t have to think on what meals to prepare. There is a menu to choose from, which prevents me from doing girl dinner on days I am too tired to think.

• I meal prep* - This defo has a bad vibe thanks to the fitness world, but I meal prep because I hate having to come home from work, to think and prepare a nutritionally decent dinner and lunch for the next day. Don’t even get me about breakfast. So, if my lunch and dinners are prepared for the week, I’m set.

• Stick to my priority by using Chat GPT - I am a gym girly, so I naturally have a good intake of carbs and protein, but 2 years ago I was very poor on my fibre intake. Fibre deficient related illnesses are on the rise, and honestly I want to make my internal organs happy. So I use Chat GPT (infrequently) to give me inspiration for fibre abundant meals. This saves me experimenting too much (save money and food waste), and I still manage to increase my fibre intake. I do not have a goal amount of fibre ingested, but just to be eating more than a used to. (I measure with my heart)

  *I find these work amazingly because I am happy to eat the same meal for a week. But you can still do these, and have varied meals, by only preparing components and mix and matching them, during the week.

Some of these tips might be great for you, or they might suck. Hopefully, they at least get you thinking about how you can navigate the food and adulting dilemma we have to live everyday. I have attached my actual spreadsheet with my meals below⬇️. It’s incredibly simple, which is the point for me.

Hopefully you’re doing well and I’ll hopefully chat to you next week.

Speak soon,

Rue

Adulting For Life