Elisha Danine, Nutritionist for the January 28 Day Weight Loss Challenge has provided her top tips for getting ready for Week 1 of the Challenge Meal Plans:
For some of you, this may be the first 28 Day Challenge you’ve participated in and if that’s the case, my top tip for you is to prepare and organise your meal plans ahead of time as it makes a huge impact to keeping you motivated and sticking to the plans.
Here are some tips on particular ingredients you can prepare ahead of time to ensure your healthy eating is on track during Week 1:
- Eggs – Hard boil half a dozen eggs, peel them and pop them in a zip lock bag in the fridge. Having your eggs cooked and peeled ahead of time, saves you time and energy and provides a healthy snack or protein ingredient for your salads.
- Chicken breast – having healthy proteins available at all times is important when embarking on a healthy eating meal plan. Portion out chicken breast into 120g servings, wrap in glad wrap and freeze. This way frozen chicken will be quick and easy to thaw before cooking.
- Tinned Tuna – check your supermarket catalogues for specials on tinned tuna and stock up. They are often up to 50% off at times, so shopping in advance and keeping a stack of tins in the pantry can save you lots of money.
- Extra virgin olive oil – contrary to popular belief, extra virgin olive oil is perfectly fine to cook with. Buy a big tin at the start of the Challenge to save you buying several smaller bottles, and put the unhealthy canola oil aside or in the bin.
- Avocado – If you buy your avocados firm, leave them out of the fridge – preferably in a sunny spot on the counter. There’s nothing worse than going to make your meal and realising your avo is hard and under ripe.
- Bananas – Week 1 calls for an overripe banana. If you have a browning banana in the fridge, be sure to keep it there for the Easy Banana Cake recipe, as they are much easier to mash than a ripe one!
- Coconut milk – keep a couple of cans/tetra packs of coconut milk in the fridge. When using it to make desserts the consistency is always better when it’s chilled.
- Almond butter – If you have some raw almonds lying around – make a batch of almond butter for the Lentil & Chocolate Ball recipe, rather than buying a pre-made butter. It’s really easy to make yourself just preheat the oven to 180C. Spread 2 cups of almonds on a baking sheet and roast for 15 minutes. Pour 2 cups of roasted almonds in a food processor and let it run for about 5-10 minutes until you reach your desired smoothness. And that’s it, healthy homemade almond butter.
I hope you enjoy the Week 1 Meal Plans.
Elisha Danine, Nutritionist
