If you’re wondering how to make healthy meals but don’t know where to start, you’re not alone. While it may feel overwhelming to consider completely changing your food choices and time spent cooking and prepping, it doesn’t have to be. You don’t have to completely overhaul your life to improve your health and reach your wellness goals. You can make a big difference in your nutrition by making small adjustments to your current diet and routines.
As a registered dietitian, I’ve found three common blockers (that you can overcome) when it comes to elevating meals from a nutritional standpoint: time, accessibility, and the influence of others.
Healthy Meal Blocker #1: Time
Busy schedules, work commitments, social calendars—it can be hard to find the time to plan out nutrient-dense meals and muster up the energy it takes to shop, prep, and cook. More often than not, my role as a dietitian is not only to provide nutrient recommendations but to break the meal planning process down into easily digestible chunks that can seamlessly integrate into your unique lifestyle, so the time spent making healthy meals is minimal and realistic for the everyday, busy person.
Healthy Meal Blocker #2: Accessibility
Accessibility is often overlooked. Setting nutrient expectations for your meals that align with your budget and the foods you can access daily or weekly is important. For example, suppose fresh wild-caught salmon is only available at a specialty store outside your neighborhood shopping center, and the price is outside your weekly grocery store budget. In that case, a frozen or canned option is a great way to adjust expectations without skimping out on nutrient density. If you’re a dietitian or nutrition coach, you can apply this to the suggestions you make for your clients. Ensure that your recommendations are realistic based on your clients’ access to healthy foods—both locationally and monetarily.
Healthy Meal Blocker #3: The Influence of Others
When it comes to the influence of other people, I’m talking about friends, family, partners, and people outside of your inner circle. Influence from social media feeds, and the marketing and branding of diets and food products also come into play here. All of this influence—both on a micro and a macro scale—can create confusion and chaos when identifying what is “healthy” and what may work best for you. Learn more about your food and what works for your body. Then, commit to sticking to those things—no matter what other people say is “best”—and you’ll be on your way to living your most Nutritious Life. That is exactly what we’re here to help you do.
An “ELEVATE”d Approach to Cooking Healthy Meals
The Nutritious Life team is so excited to share a course that addresses all of these main concerns. Whether you are looking to easily boost the nutritional value of your go-to meals in a quick, budget-friendly, and educational way or gain tools and tips for how to tackle time, accessibility, and the influence of others with your own clients—ELEVATE is for you.
ELEVATE is a four-part video series taught by Andrea Rogers, founder of XTEND Barre, and Keri Glassman, Registered Dietitian Nutritionist and founder of Nutritious Life and the Nutritious Life Studio.
As two single mamas running busy businesses, they recognize that many people don’t have time to cook elaborate lunches and dinners. And no one—especially those with tighter financial circumstances—should have to spend top dollar at specialty organic markets just to get “healthy” ingredients. ELEVATE will show you how to build meals and start enjoying the energy that comes from empowered eating.
The ELEVATE Course
Keri and Andrea conducted a nationwide survey and collected hundreds of go-to meals and snacks—think traditional smoothies, salads, and weekday dinners.
Using this data, they took each of the top three go-to breakfasts, lunches, dinners, and snacks and gave them a healthy (elevated!) makeover. As they explain the easy changes, you’ll learn the key tips on elevating the nutrient density in your meals and why certain ingredients are better than others.
Each meal will contain an ingredient call-out. Keri will explain exactly which ingredients to look out for on a nutrition label or in a “healthy” product so you can cut through the clutter and confusion of nutrition in the media and make empowered decisions at the grocery store.
Keri and Andrea will also de-bunk some of the most common nutrition myths so you can further your understanding of healthy meal planning. Each meal will contain a tangible takeaway—a quick tip to help you easily boost your meals’ nutritional value without causing stress on your schedule or your wallet.
You’ll also get the ELEVATE guide, an in-depth product PDF with all of the ingredients used in the workshop along with Keri and Andrea’s top picks from major retailers all over the US and from all price points.
This course is a game changer for anyone who wants to learn the how AND the why behind healthy nutrition decisions – from grocery store to fork. Join today to start elevating your meals, your health, and your Nutritious Life.
