6 Habits to keep your household well stocked with more real food and less food products

Part of Sleekgeek’s vision for a better future is for households to be well stocked with more real food and less food products. Below are some of the healthy habits that can help with that.

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When most people think about eating more healthily, they often think about strict regimented diets and entire lifestyle overhauls.

If you’ve ever tried to do this with other family members in the house who aren’t on board, you know how this goes. Not so well, right?

Plus, no matter how motivated you are, it never seems to last…

In the Sleekgeek Coaching Program we’ve found that the key to making long-term change that sticks around for years to come is small healthy habits like these listed below. They make healthy eating and staying on track so much easier, more enjoyable, and sustainable.

1) Focus on eating more healthy food that you actually like and are willing to eat.

• Making healthy choices is not “all-or-nothing”. If you eat even just slightly more healthier food and slightly less unhealthy food than before, even if it’s not perfect, then you’re winning.

• There is a wide enough range of healthy food out there that you can focus on healthy foods that you actually like and are willing to eat. If need be, expand your definition of what’s “healthy” until it’s more sustainable and then improve/optimise over time.

• Involve your whole family whenever possible and let them each choose a handful of healthy foods/meals that they want to eat or try eating more of.

Take a look at the Sleekgeek Food List for some ideas of which foods you might want to work on eating more of or less of.

2) Bring less unhealthy food home from the shops.

• Quite simply, you are more likely to eat whatever food you keep in the house, for better or for worse.

• If you keep lots of healthy food at home, you’re more likely to eat it.

• Similarly, if you keep lots of unhealthy food at home, you’re more likely to eat it.

• Use 5-10 minutes of willpower while shopping to save yourself hours and days of willpower trying to resist temptations at home.

• Don’t shop while hungry!

Take a look at the Sleekgeek Shopping Guide for some ideas on how to make healthier choices while shopping.

3) Design your kitchen environment to make eating healthier food the easier default option.

• You don’t need to have a super duper “Clean House” since that isn’t always sustainable or realistic for all family members involved… But it can help to keep things a little bit cleaner.

• Healthier foods should be more visible, more accessible, and more convenient.

• Similarly, less healthy foods should be less visible, less accessible, and less convenient.

• Think about what foods are at eye level when you open the fridge or cupboards? What do you keep in the convenient and easy-to-reach draws and what to do you keep in the less convenient and hard-to-reach draws? Do you see a jar of rusks on the table when you walk into the kitchen or a bowl of fruit? Etc.

Take a look at the Sleekgeek Kitchen Makeover Guide for tips on how to better design your kitchen and household environment to make healthy eating easier and more sustainable.

4) Know what your healthy “go-to” meals are.

• Don’t try and constantly re-invent the wheel, trying to come up with new healthy meals every week.

• Rather, try build up a list of healthy meals that you actually like, find quick/easy to make, and usually have the ingredients on hand for.

• Deciding what to make for the week ahead should be like sitting down at a restaurant and choosing from their menu rather.

• If need be, start with the meals you already regularly make – even if they’re not healthy – and find ways to make small tweaks and improvements over time.

Take a look at the Sleekgeek Meal Menu for guidance on how to create a list of healthy go-to meals.

5) Try to always have healthy long-lasting staple ingredients stocked up and ready to use.

• Fresh food is great, but tinned/preserved/frozen/dried/uncooked/etc food is not too bad either and a lot better than junk food.

• Keep tins of chickpeas, beans, tuna, veg, soups, etc, as well as rice, quinoa, oats, etc in the cupboard.

• Keep frozen fish, meat, chicken, veggies, leftovers, and even whole grain bread or wraps in the freezer.

• Keep nuts, biltong, rice cakes, protein bars, protein shakes, etc on hand.

• Keep potatoes, sweet potatoes, butternut, gem squash, onion, etc.

Take a look at the Sleekgeek Food List for some inspiration on which foods to stock up on and eat more of.

6) When you find a healthy meal that you really like, make more of it so that you have left-overs.

• You don’t need to follow a meal plan 24/7 (in fact you probably shouldn’t as it’s not sustainable or enjoyable), but you should have SOME kind of plan in place to help you stay on track when you need it.

• For most people, this means having access to more quick, easy, and convenient meals (like left-overs or bulk-cooked meals).

• The Carry-Over Method: Make a meal for dinner, and then eat leftovers from it for lunch the next day. Or make a meal for lunch, and then eat leftovers from it for dinner the next day.

• The Batch Cook Method: Make a meal for dinner and then make a double or triple batch to eat for the next 2-3 dinners. Now you only have to make lunch from scratch. Or make a meal for lunch and then you make a double or triple batch to eat for the next 2-3 lunches. Now you only have to make dinner from scratch.