When I speak with clients about their health goals, there's always one area that is the most challenging: cooking.
I get it.
Some of the biggest reasons why most people don't want to cook include:
- The lack of time and motivation
- The convenience of eating out
- The kitchen is too small
- Cooking for one is too much work
- It's too expensive
The list goes on and on. I've been there. I only started cooking just a few short years ago. All the reasons I listed were the reasons why I didn't cook. Eventually, this all caught up to me. One day, I was sitting down looking at my finances, and 'BAM', it hit me like a ton of bricks. A majority of my money was being spent at restaurants. Secondly, my doctor told me that I needed to make some changes because my triglyceride (a type of fat found in the blood) level was too high. Lastly, I was battling with major acid reflux due to a highly inflammatory diet of high saturated fat and low nutrient foods.
Making excuses wasn't going to help me get anywhere. Because I had been working in marketing for many years, I actually implemented a tactic to help me change my attitude and perspective around food (at least I learned something valuable in my past life!).
This tactic is what I call 'Reframing Your Story'. For those of you who working marketing or PR, this will sound familiar. Because I always associated cooking with negative thoughts and actions, I was never really going to make much progress. I 'reframed' my story around cooking. I stopped looking at cooking as something I had to do (because then it just becomes a chore), but as something I wanted to do. I wanted to cook because it would lead me down a path of better health and saving money, which were my two end goals. I wanted to do good for myself because I respected the one and only body that I will ever have.
I chose one meal of the day that I could work with immediately, which was breakfast. I would bring to work: cooked eggs, an avocado, and sometimes steel-cut oatmeal instead of buying breakfast every morning. That's roughly $7 a day for breakfast, multiplied by five work days, which comes to $35 a week, and $140 a month. I then started focusing on eating two home cooked meals each week and then moved up to three days a week. You get the idea.
Reframing my story and giving myself simple goals was what made me successful. Getting to a point where I can take various ingredients and creating an entire meal for myself is truly rewarding!
Do you have struggles with cooking at home?
Do you have negative thoughts around cooking?
What can you do to reframe your story?
Get inspired in the kitchen with some of these healthy and simple recipes.
Share your thoughts in the comments!