I can’t approach Five Tips Tuesday these days without taking into account the current situation of the entire world and the impact of COVID19 on absolutely every aspect of our lives right now. Chaos creates extra stress, which means your brain power is pretty much tapped out. That makes it difficult to keep up with healthy habits unless you do a little planning and preparation. Two weeks ago I shared things you can do to offload stress (read that here). Last week I focused on spiritual practices that correlated to immune boosting physical habits (read that here). This week I’m focusing on tips that help streamline your healthy living habits when life is cray.

1️⃣ Have backup meals. Stock the freezer with meals (Dashing Dish has a full plan featuring 20 recipes, grocery lists, step-by-step instructions, and videos which you can find here) and the freezer, fridge, and cabinet with convenience items (see this post for a list of #MinimalistMealPrep items). If your planned meals aren’t available due to grocery shortages, you’ll have a stockpile until you can come up with a game plan and pivot.

2️⃣ Have go-to meal templates. These are basic “skeleton recipes” which can easily be modified to make them into completely different flavor profiles. The benefit is you don’t have to use extra brainpower, just decide on a new flavor and build from there. Examples include: Soups/stews/chili, hot+cold salads/aka the #MacroMocroBowl, scrambles/omelettes, protein fluff/shakes/bowls, yogurt/skyr bowls, overnight/growing oats (SO good cold!), oat bakes, protein muffins/bread, protein waffles/pancakes, etc.

3️⃣ Have a “no brainer” backup workout. Don’t spend mental energy trying to build your own workouts during times like this. Have convenient, efficient workouts that can be done anywhere. Walking is always a fantastic option! I also have a 4 week dumbbell only plan (#TheCompletePACkage) you can get here.

4️⃣ Do a daily brain dump. Get everything out of your head and onto paper. Once you do that, you can decide which things are non-negotiables in the order in which to attack. Even if you can’t get to everything, you will feel like you got the necessary things done.

5️⃣ Manufacture a schedule. This might be more difficult right now, but where you can, try to make plans and set a routine schedule. Especially if your life got flip-flopped and everything is fly-by-the-seat-of-your pants, creating a routine where there is none can bring a little bit more piece to the chaos. Do the same things at the same time each day as much as possible so you feel like you have some control over what’s going on.

Reader Questions:
1/ What are you doing right now in order to mitigate stress and chaos?
2/ Which of these tips sounds the most helpful?

Struggling during this time? Please feel free to reach out to me directly here if you prefer to discuss things privately! Or, if you just want to schedule a call or jump into 1:1 coaching, you can do that too!

Are you ready? Let’s get growing!

|Kaci