06: Availability
It is not uncommon for me to run out of healthy food to prepare at home.
If you have run out of food you are probably not going to run out for a bag of apples, you are going to go get some McDonalds or Chipotle to get you to your next trip to the grocery store. Running out of things to eat happens to a lot of people. Maybe you still have food in the pantry but none of it seems all that appetizing. Really honing in on better meal planning can help you solve this availability problem. Here are some tools you can use to improve your meal planning so that you always have healthy food available:
Meal Planning: take some time during your week to decide what you want to eat for the week. Schedule a time to meal plan into your planner or calendar, whether you do this in the morning before work, at work, at night or on the weekend, you need to get this done. If you need more tips on meal planning (we have a lot), please look at Obstacle 05: Meal Planning, to access this solution. In the interest of redundancy, we did not include all 16 of the considerations we feel are important to meal planning.
Buy in Bulk: it is always a good idea to have a food storage established in the case of an emergency and larger packages are usually cheaper. When you do run out of something, make a note of it on your next grocery list for next week. Try to keep some snacks around that are good for a long period of time.
Back-up Meals: some people prefer to make large batches when they cook to minimize the number of times they have to cook. Save some for leftovers the next day, but also store some in the freezer that can be used for backup meals. These can get you through the end of the week when you are starting to run low on supplies.
Meal Support: if you do find yourself short of ingredients and do not have time to do a whole shopping trip, meal kits are great tools that can be built into your diet. Kits from the grocery store or online include all the ingredients you need for one meal, all packaged together. Usually, the recipes are simple and much of the prep work has been done for you.
Grocery Pickup: many grocery stores do grocery delivery or rapid pickup. If you remember an ingredient you need before heading home from work, put in your order online and have it ready to grab on your way.
Healthy Snacks: not only do we sometimes run out of healthy food to make but we are out of healthy snacks as well.
TRY KEEPING SOME OF THE FOLLOWING HEALTHY SNACKS ON HAND:
This is not to say that you cannot have other less healthy snacks around, but you also must know yourself and whether you can resist eating the entire bag of Doritos in one sitting or if you are okay with splitting up the bag amongst multiple sittings.