January 2025

Simple & Sustainable

Your Monthly Wellness Newsletter from Kiss Your Food

Hi friends,

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

With the turn of the calendar, there can be a lot of thoughts/feelings/emotions/opinions about how we want/need to change.

This can be related to any aspect of your life - family, career, personal, health, etc . . .
or any combination of those.

Some call it a resolution, some don't.
Either way is just fine by me.

In the end, it doesn't really matter what category it falls into or what you call it.
What matters is the HOW.

How you approach the change you want to create in your life.

. . . and that's the part I help people with!

The thing is, it doesn't have to be a huge overhaul of your entire existence.
In fact, it really SHOULDN'T be!

Implementing small steps, building small habits, creating new routines . . .
That is what will create the change and make it stick.

One big concept that I have heard more and more about in the recent weeks is creating more habits around cooking at home.

The methods and plans that others are putting into place vary, but in the end the point is to create more meals at home, and then by default, eat out less.

There are LOTS of reasons this could be something that's on your radar in the coming weeks/months.

Maybe you ate out a lot over the holidays and your body is just over all that rich food.

Perhaps you are concentrating on your health, and grabbing take-out doesn't mesh well with that plan.

Could be that you're trying to save money.
Or time.
(Because contrary to how it seems, cooking/eating at home actually saves a LOT of time! Think about it . . . driving across town, waiting in line or in the drive-through, placing the order, waiting for it to be cooked, etc.)

If this is something you're interested in focusing on in your life, here are a few sound ideas to get you started and then a GREAT resource for when you crave restaurant-level food, but don't want to eat out.

Some people are committing (or re-committing) to weekly meal planning, either on their own or with help from a service (like Cook Smarts).

Or maybe with some help from AI!
Turns out, robots can create pretty awesome meal plans. I'm still waiting on the kind of robot that can shop, prep, and clean up afterwards . . . Like Rosie on the Jetsons.
Who's with me? 🙋🏽‍♀️
*sigh* . . . maybe someday.

ANYWAY, my point is that focusing on this one simple step can really help.
Having a plan in place makes it much less likely that we will hit the drive-thru on the way home from work.
One person I spoke with is going back to her pandemic-days habit of ordering her groceries online for pick-up so she doesn't even have to step foot into the store. Genius!
You could purchase a home delivery meal kit for a couple weeks to try it out. That's a great mid-point between the two extremes of shopping for and cooking everything from scratch . . . . and eating out multiple times weekly.
Speaking of not wanting to venture all the way over to scratch-cooking - one of the things I commonly discuss with my clients ( . . . and my friends . . . and random people who will listen 🤣) is the concept of "almost homemade". Finding ways to make food that is quick, easy, full of the healthy stuff, but doesn't take hours to prepare.
(Psst . . . If you like this idea and want to chat more about what it could look like in your life, hit reply and let me know. I love talking about this!!)
And finally, you can "game-ify" the process. There are several ways to do this, but the one I want to share with you here is to create "better than takeout" meals.

aaaand . . . What, exactly, does that mean?
Well, my friends, can actually mean a lot of different things.

Such as:

Cooking from a "copycat recipe" to make one of your favorites.

Using your usual order at a local restaurant as inspiration for dinner tonight.

You can even check out Ethan Chlebowski's series of videos where he creates lower calorie versions of restaurant meals.

Okay, hold on.
Let's talk about this for a sec!

If you've been here in the Kiss Your Food Community for a while, you know enough about me that you probably already know what I am going to say . . . .

Your health is NOT measured by the number on the scale.
Wellness is NOT created by calorie counting alone.
Lower calorie foods are NOT always healthier.

BUT . . .

If you are eating out a lot, you can increase many, many aspects of your health by cutting back on that and cooking more often at home.

In fact, one of the greatest theories/struggles in nutrition education is that if most people cooked at home more often, they wouldn't have to do ALL the other things.
Or rely on "tricks" or "quick fixes" that don't work.

Eating out all the time provides more calories in the forms we don't necessarily want (saturated fats, low quality protein sources, etc.) and less calories in the forms we like to see (vegetables, whole grains, fruits, seeds, nuts, etc.).

Not to mention, when we eat out, we just eat more calories overall.

So why not try one of these ideas?

Lower calorie, in this case, does mean healthier in a lot of ways.
Plus, Ethan's mustache alone is worth checking out AND the education pieces he builds into his videos are pretty darn awesome.

Check out Ethan Chlebowski's YouTube Channel

Your turn.

What is one small way you can incorporate eating at home more often into your life?
Please reply and tell me.
I love hearing from you!

(Hint: you can take one of the 5 ideas above and make it your own!)

Hope this leaves you inspired and excited to get into that kitchen of yours!

Have a great day and thanks for reading,
Kate