Be Back-to-School Cool
It’s that time of year. The summer is winding down, kids are getting ready to head back to class, and you’re probably stressing about the upcoming school year. How will you keep your healthy habits going? How will your kids adjust to their new schedules? How will you manage to make time to cook healthy meals? AHHHHHH!!!!! I don’t even have kids and the thought of all that is making MY head spin!!
This week, I gathered a few tips on how you can keep your healthy habits going into the new school-year schedule and a few extra tips for kids going off to college because that’s a whole new challenge!
Experiment now with new recipes. When time is crunched and you have a million things on your to-do list, it is not the time to try new recipes. Getting ready for the school year should include figuring out a weekly meal plan including identifying any gaps, what needs some more tweaking, and how you and your family will prioritize healthy meals. This is a great time to experiment with new recipes. Whether you want to focus on quick, easy, and nutritious breakfasts or maybe dinners that can be prepped on the weekend and thrown together on busy weeknights. Now is that time. Find some recipes, make them a few times, work through any tweaking that needs to happen, and then make them part of your routine.
If you don’t already do so, make a weekly meal schedule. This might mean that you know the kiddos have games on Tuesdays and Thursdays or someone works late on Wednesdays. Those can be dedicated to leftovers or meals on the go. Then dedicate the other days of the week to certain types of meals - think about “Taco Tuesday”, “Stir Fry Saturdays” or “Beans and Rice Fridays”. When you have these dedicated days, you can make variations each week and come back to recipes that are family favorites.
Stock up on foods you frequently run out of or will go through quickly with school lunches or sports practices. This may seem obvious, but it makes preparing lunches and dinners so much easier if you’re not running around trying to gather the things you need. You may also want to stock up on non-perishable foods that can be turned into quick and easy dinners when you don’t have time to or feel like cooking. This would include canned beans, whole grains like quinoa and brown rice, whole grain or bean pasta, frozen vegetables, vegetable broth, and dried spices.
Stock up on healthy, grab-and-go snacks or have a plan to stock up on them each week. When you are strapped for time, it’s easy to just grab the first thing you see in the pantry or fridge. Make a dedicated space for healthy snacks in both those places and then keep it stocked. This will also help with putting together lunches. Ideas for the pantry include single serving peanut butter or almond butter, single servings of mixed nuts and dried fruit, single serving olives, seaweed sheets, and whole grain crackers. Ideas for your fridge include hummus, bean dips, Kiefer, soy or coconut yogurt, berries, cut-up vegetables, grapes, apples, and other cut-up fruit. These could all be portioned out into single serving containers. Investing in some high-quality, small storage containers will make this easy work. When you take the prep work out of it, it saves so much time and encourages everyone to make healthy choices.
Plan, plan, PLAN! I can’t stress this enough. Start early and have each family member get their calendars for the next few months ready. Then come together and make a master calendar to plan out the major events. This will not only help you stay sane (maybe!), but it will help you figure out when sit-down dinners can occur or when you will need to delegate cooking or cleaning to someone else. It may also help if you schedule time for meal prep on your master calendar.
Those are some great starting tips for getting things organized for back to school. Most of those tips will work really well for those going off to college or moving out for the first time. Planning is always key, especially when time is limited. That is usually when our health takes a major hit. But the problem with that is that it will eventually catch up to you. I love this quote,
“If you don’t make time for your health now,
someday you will be forced to make time for your illness.”
Here are a few bonus tips specifically for kids going off to college:
Do your research before you even get to campus. The Internet and Google Maps are great tools! Figure out what restaurants are within walking distance, or maybe right on campus, that serve healthy foods. Check out their menus, bookmark their web pages, and have a plan. Also, check out local grocery stores and co-ops. Get familiar with their ads and sales and as annoying as it may seem, use coupons! We’re talking about saving money the old-fashioned way!!
Learn about the different wellness programs offered through your school, gyms, or the rec department or YMCA. Many will offer student discounts. Most campuses have gyms and other equipment for students to use. Find out the rules, get a membership if needed, and understand how that works with any sports teams that also share the facility. There may be clubs on campus that offer group fitness classes, such as Zumba or a hiking club. This is a great way to meet people but also to stay active. I can tell you from personal experience, that “freshman fifteen” comes on hard and fast and you won’t even realize it’s happening until none of your clothes fit. Have a plan and stick to it!
Learn to cook before moving out of your parent’s house. I cannot stress this enough, it is humiliating to have to call your mom to ask her how to make corn on the cob. It’s also embarrassing to admit you have no idea how to hard boil an egg, use a coffee maker, or make mac and cheese that doesn’t come from a box. Luckily for you, the Internet is incredibly helpful and you can find all that on YouTube to save yourself some embarrassment. Not the case in my day. Knowing how to cook not only will save you a ton of money, but will also allow you to cook healthy food for yourself. If you’re living with a bunch of roommates, you will quickly become the favorite!
Well, this was a fun trip down memory lane! Yes, I really did call my mom about all those things. Yes, I did gain a TON of weight. And yes, I could write a book on my college experience and all the things NOT to do. Hey, it didn’t take me 5 years to graduate because I concentrated on my courses! [Insert massive eye roll here and also a minor heart attack from my parents] So maybe that book will come at a later date. I don’t think I’m quite ready to divulge all my secrets!
To all the students and parents out there, let’s make this a great school year! Cheers to you and all you will accomplish!
Peace, love & kale!
Lindsay