Healthy Food Takes Time

One of my biggest downfalls in eating healthy over the years has been that I often don't have time--or perceive that I don't have time--to prepare healthy foods. Ordering a pizza only takes a minute, and microwave enchiladas don't make dishes. Washing and chopping lettuce and other ingredients for salad, on the other hand, takes time, space, and dishes. Really...who wants to wash a strainer every day? Who has time?

When I got motivated to get healthy last year, I made some discoveries about the time-and-effort obstacles that had been getting in my way for years. Or rather, I made one discovery that impacted everything else: most of the obstacles are surmountable if you're motivated. The workarounds might not be perfect, but they're a far cry from throwing up your hands and ordering Chinese.

Plan and Prepare Ahead to Eat Healthy

When it's time for lunch and you're taking a quick break from work, chopping, dicing and washing might not be very appealing--or even be the best use of your time. But a lot of that legwork can be done in advance. Some fruits and vegetables hold up better than others, so think about what you can prepare in advance. My mother eats salad with every dinner, and so she chops enough lettuce for several days, spins it and then stores it in the refrigerator in her salad spinner. It stays crisp for nearly a week that way. Shredded carrots, diced or sliced radishes, and a variety of other salad ingredients keep even longer, and cherry or grape tomatoes eliminate the need to cut tomatoes for a salad. Wash them when you get home from the produce stand and then just grab a handful and toss them in your bowl.

The best part is that having things ready makes it hard to rationalize. It's easy to say, "I'm in a hurry, so I'll just grab..." It's much more difficult to sell that line of reasoning to yourself when it's just as easy to grab something healthy.

Let Someone Else Prepare the Healthy Food

I'm no fan of paying someone else to do what I can do myself, but sometimes it's worth it. For instance, when even though I'm perfectly capable of doing it myself, I don't have time. Or I'm just not going to do it. Or I know I'm likely to use the time involved as a lame excuse to eat pizza rolls instead.

Here are just a few cheats I've found that not only make it easy to eat healthy in a hurry, but also make it hard to convince myself that I have a good excuse not to:

-Pre-mixed salad: It's not quite as good as the fresh stuff, but it's still made out of vegetables, and all you have to do is dump it in a bowl and rinse it. It's faster than heating up a can of soup or microwaving some mozzarella sticks (which aren't really all that good microwaved, anyway).

-Grated cheese: I like to sprinkle some cheese on my salad instead of dressing. Dairy has many benefits, and most dressings are outrageously high in sodium. But (although I'm embarrassed to admit it), I'm too lazy to get the cheese grater dirty for an ounce of cheese at lunchtime every day. Resealable bags of pre-grated cheese solve the problem. Or, if you're just slightly more ambitious, so does grating the whole block of cheese at once and making your own bag.

-Gorton's frozen fish filets: I've written before about the magical properties of fish, but preparing it can be a hassle. Sometimes it's worth the investment to broil salmon with your own herbs or bake cod with lemon and fresh ground pepper...but sometimes that's not an option. And sometimes you just don't feel like it. Those pre-seasoned frozen fish fillets that bake for 15-20 minutes just might be the answer. They're fast, easy, taste okay and have all of the nutritional information you need printed on the box with no need for guessing at serving sizes or portions.

-Pre-packaged meals: Lean Cuisine makes some very nice fish-and-a-side frozen meals with the fat and calories right on the label and five-minute microwave instructions. I'm sure many of their other meals are just as good, but I stick with the fish because of the omega3 fatty acids and those magical properties I mentioned earlier. An even greater discovery for me, though, was the Healthy Choice microwavable lunches that don't require refrigeration. That means I can throw one in my purse and have it on hand for a quick lunch at work with no fuss, or even leave one in my desk drawer. Yes, the whole "no refrigeration" thing probably says something scary about the preservatives, but again, everything is relative. If I can't get out of the office or I'm on the run, it's a much healthier option than my usual fallbacks. And, as an added bonus, the ones I've had all taste pretty good and are quite filling.

Do Fast Food the Healthy (ish) Way

Sometimes you really do have no choice but to grab lunch on the run. The key for me is to throw out all-or-nothing thinking. It's so easy to say "I can't eat broiled fish and fresh vegetables today, so I might as well just grab some fried chicken and french fries." There's a lot of ground between broiled fish and fried chicken, and some of that ground is covered even in a fast-food restaurant. Salads are an obvious choice, but beyond that there's still a broad spectrum. A grilled chicken sandwich might not be ideal, for instance, but it's a far cry from a Whopper. Subway has all of those sandwiches with fewer than six grams of fat, and even Taco Bell has recently introduced an "al fresco" menu for healthier eating. Don't let the fact that you can't eat perfectly become an excuse to eat badly.

What tips have you discovered to make healthy eating quicker and easier (and do away with the excuses to fall off the wagon)?