Shift Worker Meal Prep Process

Speaker 1 0:00

Meal prepping is , without doubt , the most overwhelming and most daunting task for any shift worker . It's the most difficult thing and we just don't have time , or do we ? On today's A Quick Chat With , i've actually brought my friend and colleague , angela Borges , from a healthy diary onto the podcast to actually answer the question and explain to us her three step meal prep process . Shift work can be brutal , but it doesn't have to be . Welcome to a healthy shift . My name is Roger Sutherland , certified Nutritionist , veteran Law Enforcement Officer and 24-7 Shift Worker for almost four decades . Through this podcast , i aim to educate shift workers , using evidence-based methods , to not only survive the rigors of shift work but thrive . My goal is to empower shift workers to improve their health and wellbeing so they have more energy to do the things they love . Enjoy today's show And , ladies and gentlemen , today I would warmly welcome you to the Healthy Shift podcast And today , as usual on a Wednesday , what I do is I actually have my A Quick Chat With And today with , our biggest problem that we have as a shift worker quite apart from sleep , obviously is around our meal prepping .

Speaker 1 1:31

So what I've actually done today is I've asked my good friend , angela Borges from the Healthy Diary to come onto the podcast and answer a question as to how we can simply go about our meal prepping without it totally overwhelming us . So , without much further ado , i'm going to welcome Angela Borges . How are you , ang ?

Speaker 2 1:53

Hello , hello , i'm very good . I'm so happy to be here again . I can't believe it's been nearly a year .

Speaker 1 2:00

I know it is absolutely crazy . Now , for those that listen to the podcast regularly , they will realise that I've actually had Angela on episode four . She was way back at the beginning And it was a long episode where we talked all about meal prepping and how to go about meal prepping to help you shift workers . So I would highly recommend that you go back and have a listen to that episode Today . I just want to drill in on one thing , and this is something that I've been talking about in my seminars , ang , and it's been a game changer . I'm getting fantastic feedback And as much as I'm the guru in shift working and the Well , maybe I'm not a guru in shift working , but I've done a lot of it in the last , you know , nearly four decades , and now , as my study buddy which you are because we did study our nutrition together but you are the meal prep queen And you're known as the meal prep queen everywhere .

Speaker 1 2:55

So I wanted to get you on and talk to you about a simple little strategy that I'm using in the seminar , which is your three-step meal prep , and I find this . I use this with clients now . I also use it during the seminars and I'm getting great feedback . So could you tell us ? I'm a shift worker and I've been working a run of about five shifts and I've only got one day off . Now the thought of me actually happened to think about what to cook . I'm already tired Having to think about what to cook , having to then go out and shop for it , wander around the shops in the middle of the day with all the other barrels , and then having to come back home and prep it up . My whole rest day's gone . And help us , for God's sake , because we need all the help we can , and I know I've come to the right place . What can we do ?

Speaker 2 3:44

Awesome , awesome . Thank you so much . I'm so glad that you're using this strategy in your seminars . I'm so honored to hear that it's helping other people , getting to other people , amazing , awesome And 100% . I hear you and I can't think of anything worse than having to work those that many days and then having to spend your whole day meal prepping . And we always need to look at the sustainability of the approach and whatever you're doing , you need to make sure that you can do that long term and that you can create a habit . So imagine spending like four or five hours meal prepping on your day off . You probably do it one week , two weeks , when you're very motivated , when you've got the momentum , but then that is not going to become a regular thing because it sounds like something very , very tedious and overwhelming , and on the day that you want to rest up , right . So this is where I would 100% recommend the three-phase meal prep for everyone . That is listening . if you're a shift worker , this is going to be a game changer for you . I've seen it with my clients . Roaches using it with his clients in his seminars and people are loving it . So give it a crack , and the way that this works is on that day off that you That you want to meal prep . The only thing that you should be doing then is Meal prepping , and this process should take you no more than 30 minutes like , honestly , no more than 30 minutes . But in order to get to that point , we need two phases before that .

Speaker 2 5:13

So the three phase meal prep goes like this the first phase is Planning , which basically means deciding what you're going to eat , going and organizing what your week is going to look like , picking some really really simple and quick recipes that you can use for your meal prep . Now , with the planning stage , keep it simple . Your nutrition doesn't have to be complicated . You can honestly make a super healthy , delicious , high-volume meal with three to five ingredients . That's what I do every single week . You need to keep it simple .

Speaker 2 5:49

So the first phase is just deciding what you're going to eat . Make sure that you prepare a grocery shopping list . You might have saved some recipes from from you , from social media . You might have done some research on Google . You speak the recipes that you want to try , create a grocery shopping list and that's it . That should take you about , i'll say , 15 to 20 minutes , and you can do that after one of your shifts Within the week , when you're watching TV , or if you're just having taking a mental break from work and And and do it then . So 20 minutes , that's it . That's all you have to do . That's the first phase of the meal prep .

Speaker 2 6:25

Then we have the second phase , which is the the grocery shopping . So basically going and grabbing your ingredients , and this is something that you have to do Regardless , because you have to eat , right , you need to go and get your food . So , with this stage of meal prep , what I recommend is that , now that you have your grocery shopping list because you plan the day before or a couple of days ago This shouldn't take you too long . If you go and do it in person , i'll say it shouldn't take . It should take you about an hour . So just go grab what you need and leave . And if you're doing online shopping , then even better .

Speaker 1 7:02

You can just just The apps yeah , you can use an app or the . the the internet Yeah , the internet , That's what we want .

Speaker 2 7:13

You can go online and order what you need perfect . And that's even a good thing , because sometimes we tend to order the same ingredients week after week , so you might just if I need to change one or two ingredients every week , but we kind of have , like , our base ingredients , so you can do that . So that's the second phase and , as I said , if you're doing it in person , it shouldn't take you more than an hour . Now , come back home with your groceries , put them away . That's it . Forget about it . Just put it away and you don't have to do anything else .

Speaker 2 7:43

And again , this is something that you can do after one of your shifts or before one of your shifts . Just make sure that you do it before your day off . All right , so that's the second phase . And then we have the third phase , which is the meal prepping . And Now that you know what you're gonna eat , because you plan , and you've got your ingredients , because you're shopped Then this is the time that you spend to meal prep and , as I said , this should take you no more than 30 minutes . If you are using those simple and quick recipes , that can become , that can become your , your goth tools . So that's how the three phase meal prep works and , as I said before , it is life-changing when you practice it , because it really simplifies the whole process and It can become a habit . If you do it regularly , it's quite amazing .

Speaker 1 8:35

Angela , i can't begin to tell you the difference that this makes . Now , let's just break that down , because I'm going to add another step with what I actually are coaching my shift workers with as well And I must admit , i've stolen this from you as well And because we have decision fatigue as shift workers and I've spoken about decision fatigue at length . So I have suggested that my shift workers have notes in their phone and they write down six meals from each meal . So they have six breakfasts that they love , they have six lunches that they love , they have six dinners that they love and six snacks that they love .

Speaker 1 9:14

Because when you get to the end of a shift or you're in a run of shifts and you're trying to think what to eat , you cannot possibly think You can find yourself standing in an aisle in the supermarket totally overwhelmed . So what I suggest is get your six meals , open your phone . It's on your phone , everyone's got their phone with them , don't they Ang Like we've all got our phones with us all the time . So you can open your phone and you can look and you go oh , butter chicken , i haven't had that for a while , or I haven't had my chicken and salad , or I haven't cooked that or I haven't done this , and then you know because it's a repeat recipe that you do you know exactly what you need and you can just go grab , grab , grab in the supermarket . So when you've got that six of each and I call it my six when you've got that list and you're sitting there at work and you're on a break at work or you're watching TV in the evening or you , as you've said right , open your list , have a look , write it down and work out oh yes , i'll have this , i know what I need . You can find your recipe , you can write your recipe out and that's it for that day . Mental break , no more . The next day you actually

Shift Worker Meal Prep Strategies

Speaker 1 10:27

shop for it .

Speaker 1 10:27

Now , shift workers Angela said it should take you an hour . I'm actually going to tell you , as a shift worker , we can go at really weird times in a shop so we can get in and out of a shop knowing what we want within half an hour . Done , that's half an hour . So our first steps take in 15 minutes , our second steps take in 30 minutes and then when you say you get to your meal prep , it should take you . Let's just say we're not as experienced as Angela Borges , but we are quite . You know . We can still probably , even if it takes an hour , that's an hour less scrolling and an hour of prepping some delicious and nutritious food that we can do .

Speaker 1 11:02

Now , don't think it's got to be chicken , rice and broccoli people either . It doesn't . What we want is we want delicious and nutritious , because it's better than whizzing by some fast food outlet and picking up something that's highly processed and highly sugared , foods that are actually going to cause us all sorts of grief and make us feel even worse . So don't overthink it . We don't have to track it , we don't have to do anything . All we're doing is we're just making ourselves something that's delicious and nutritious , and I think that's a key . So , yeah , i've also stolen your six meals . I think that was yours as well . It wasn't at Ang .

Speaker 2 11:41

Yeah , yeah . So yes , having kind of like your base database of recipes .

Speaker 1 11:46

Yeah 100% .

Speaker 2 11:47

I think that's amazing . I'm so glad that you brought that up , because it just makes your life so easy . There will be some recipes that you already love and that you know that you really enjoy , so why ? why trying to look for new recipes , new ideas , if you already have , like , as you said , six dinners , six lunches , six breakfast , six snacks that you can go to and have on repeat . And this is something that I do with my clients as well . I said to them look , you don't have to be meal planning every single week for the rest of your life , because it does take a little bit of mental power to do that And , as you said , decision fatigue , right .

Speaker 1 12:24

Yeah .

Speaker 2 12:25

But if you have the plans , the weeks that you really enjoyed , you can just have those on rotation and just have them every , every every third week or fourth week , you can have those plans on rotation . So that I think that's a fantastic tip . And one thing that I will I will recommend as well is that with that three phase meal prep again coming back to creating habits and making sure that you can do this long term try to pick a date , a day and time on life for those three phases that you can stick to consistently , week after week , so that way you know that all right . Thursdays at this time , this is when I do my meal planning . Saturdays at this time , this is when I do my grocery shopping . And then Sundays or Mondays at this time , this is when I do my meal prep .

Speaker 2 13:12

I know your shifts might change , so this might not be possible for some people , but at least it gives you a little bit of a structure . Structure is really important And we like as human beings , we like routine , we like structure and our body likes that as well . So that's another tip there . but I love the six . how do you call it , your six ?

Speaker 1 13:32

Yeah , my super six . I call it , But Angela , you know you say for your regular nine to fives to pick , Thursday is the day that you need to plan , Friday is the day you shop for it , Sunday is your meal prep day . But what I do now is I've actually put another strategy in place for my shift workers which I have found works really well , And that's to structure and routine . Now you talk about structure because we do respond really really well to structure and routine . It can cause people upset as well if they can't stick to it . But what I do is I actually get my shift workers to buy a whiteboard And if you've got a whiteboard at home , you can literally write down Sunday , Monday , Tuesday , Wednesday , Thursday , Friday , Saturday , And then what you can do is you write your shifts actually next to it And whatever day is your day off , you actually write meal prep . That's my meal prep day , right , That's the day that I'm going to actually cook . So the simple step from there is you go back one day and that's the day you shop . And then you go back one more day and that's the day that you actually think about what you're gonna have and write out your shopping list . And it works really , really well . So it doesn't really matter if you've got one day off or two or three days off in a row , or six . You can still strategize over those three days and get into the habit of doing that . Jesus , it takes a lot of mental drain off a person .

Speaker 1 15:03

When you've got this structure in place And a whiteboard dime a dozen inch , you can just get a whiteboard and just stick it on your fridge . You know , with a whiteboard marker you can have it on your wall in your office , You can have it on the inside of your wardrobe cupboard door . You know what I mean The wardrobe door . It doesn't matter where you've got it , as long as you can see it . So it takes that decision fatigue out of it , and that's amazing . Now you have , because you are the guru of meal prepping you actually have some really good , simple recipe books for people to go and have a look at as well , don't you ? Where can we find them ?

Speaker 2 15:38

Yeah , so they can find them . If you go to my Instagram , you can find me as the underscore healthy underscore , diary underscore . There's a link that you'll find on my bio So you can just click on that and that will take you to the link to check out my ebooks , and I'm all about like practicality in the kitchen and not spending too much time in the kitchen and simple recipes with simple ingredients . My clients call my food normal foods , meaning that you're going to be eating a little bit of everything as well . So that's how you can find them , and I also have some free resources there If you guys want to check them out as well .

Speaker 1 16:14

Amazing . And your website , ang . What's your website ? Have you got resources through your website as well ?

Speaker 2 16:20

Yes , yes , so my website is the healthy diary dot co . And over there you will get access to actually actually I have a meal prep guide . I call it the ultimate meal prep guide . I think I sent your copy , roger , you did , and that that that guide . It talks you through my meal prep methodology , the three phase meal prep , but also gives you some really quick and simple recipes under 15 minutes . So if you want to check them out , you can just get them from my , from my Instagram page , and I also have a free Facebook group that you're more than welcome to join , and over there you can claim that resource as well .

Speaker 1 17:00

That is amazing . Now , that is the ladies group , though , isn't it ? Because I've tried to get in there , but you want to let me to come in and stir all your ladies up , will you ? But anyway , that's okay . But Angela has actually sent me her meal prep book . I've got to tell you . I don't deny that . Well , i actually approached you and asked you if I could steal the template and pay you for the template for it , because it's just so goddamn good . She said no , folks , but that's okay , i'll build my own . No , that's all right . So , but you know what ? it's good because now it's going to force the shift workers to go to your page , and I really do highly encourage people to go across and follow Angela at the underscore healthy underscore diary .

Speaker 1 17:46

Very quirky , very funny . She makes things look so simple for us , and do you know why ? Because they actually are simple . It's just simple about ways to go about collecting . You know the ingredients that you need having your core ingredients , ingredients that you don't have to actually cook , that you can throw together , and we don't know where to start , but Angela's the place to start , without any doubt whatsoever , which is the very reason why I've got her on here for my quick chat with Angel . I am so grateful . I know you're not feeling well today And I do sincerely appreciate you coming on and just sharing that . And what I want to do next is another time I'm going to get you on and talk to you about the no prep meal prep as well , because I think that's another massive game changer , And you can copyright that one as well , because I think that's an absolute gem as well .

Speaker 2 18:38

Thank you so much . It's always a pleasure to be here and connecting with you and your audience as well . Thank you so much for having me and always available to help other people with these simple methodologies And , as you said , it doesn't have to be overwhelming or time consuming . It can actually be very , very simple . So thank you for having me .

Speaker 1 18:58

You're more than welcome . Thank you , ange . So there you go . So it doesn't have to be overwhelming or time-consuming , it can just be very , very simple . All you got to do is just know how to go about it , and simple strategies like what Angela's put in place there , or guided us with , i can tell you , are absolutely fantastic . Break it into small tasks , all right .

Speaker 1 19:20

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Expert Meal Prep Tips

Speaker 1 19:55

And that was Angela . Such great tips . I love talking to her . She's got so much good advice . She truly is the coin of meal prepping . Thank you for listening . If you enjoyed this episode , be sure to subscribe so you get notified whenever a new episode is released . It would also be ever so helpful if you could leave a rating and review on the app you're currently listening on . If you want to know more about me or work with me , you can go to a healthy shiftcom . I'll catch you on the next one .