Healthy eating habits are the number one factor in making your healthy eating goals last. If you’re a super busy woman, you know what I mean. With work and appointments and errands and social hour on the schedule, creating healthy eating habits is the best way to make healthy eating stick without adding another line to your to-do list.

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Hey, busy lady, let’s start here: healthy eating feels hard, and that’s not your fault. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. You live in a world where fast food restaurants easily out number healthy food markets. You don’t have the time to spend hours in the kitchen with a cookbook. Maybe you live in the city and your kitchen is small, or you have a couple of kids and time is non-existent. Normal, all normal.

Starting to eat a bit healthier may seem daunting to you right now. But let me assure you of three things:

• Starting to eat healthier now is worth it. Gain the habits and skills it takes to eat healthier and smarter now and it will only get easier in the future.
• With the right tools, you can do anything.
• You don’t have to flip your world, or your kitchen or your eating routine upside down to see and feel transformative results.

Healthy Eating Truths for the Busy Woman

Before you get into the healthy eating habits and the tools that will help you make them last, I want to give you a couple of healthy eating truths. They sound simple but are truly life-changing when you accept them.

#1: Healthy eating isn’t perfection.

Healthy eating is not about eating clean, fresh, healthy foods 100% of the time. You can’t fall off the healthy eating wagon. As soon as you realize that healthy eating is about making better choices most of the time, you realize that life happens (it does), you make what you can of it, and you move on.

#2: Healthy eating isn’t about weight loss.

It can help you lose weight, but healthy eating does not automatically assume weight loss. In fact, there are plenty of people of eat healthy in order to gain weight! In fact, healthy eating is more about gain than it is about loss – gaining energy, gaining freedom from food anxiety, gaining knowledge, gaining the ability to make your own decisions.

#3: Healthy eating is about being more YOU.

Scientists have proven the link between certain processed foods, the ingredients added to them and the processes it takes to make them, and your mood*. I don’t mean processed foods make you hangry. I mean processed foods are linked to depression, unstable energy levels and a general sense of unwellness (if you’re interested in the science behind those findings, click on the link below). If processed foods make you feel like a less energetic, unhappier, more anxious you, imagine the changes in your life that can come from eating just a bit better every day. Harvard Medical School*

Healthy Eating Habits for Busy Woman

Your brain wants to be efficient. That’s why it forms habits. Problem is, it doesn’t always form the habits that are best for you. Luckily, with the right tools and some conscious, repetitive decision-making, you can form healthy habits that make eating well and getting fit and healthy easier and more natural. *Eventually, the decision-making part of your brain is taken over by the habit part of your brain.

Shop Once, Eat Numerous Times

Whether you live 15 minutes away from the closest grocery store or you live down the block, the amount of time that you spend wandering the aisles of your market place add up. Take it from someone who shops nearly everyday (I’m working on it), it’s not conducive to a busy lifestyle.

Some people love to shop every day. Maybe you like to decide what to eat when you see what’s on sale. Or maybe you live next to your county’s best outdoor market. If shopping daily is part of a routine that you enjoy, skip this section. But if the amount of time it takes to go to the store is stressful for you, it’s time to adopt a healthier way of getting food into your house.

If you could shop say, one or two times a week and eat for the whole 7 days, would that make your life easier? Would it make eating healthier easier? Yes, and yes. The key to shopping once or twice a week is meal planning.

When you have a healthy eating plan in place, you take the guess work and the brain-power out of the dinner equation. Meal planning works. Often, meal planning also saves you money, time and food waste.

Make it a habit by spending 30 minutes every Sunday morning planning out the week ahead. Plan to shop Sunday afternoon for 3-4 days-worth of meals, and again on Wednesday afternoon for the rest of the week.

Make a list of all of the meals that you need to buy for. Maybe you just need snacks and dinner for the week because you get lunch at a local deli near work that makes great salads. Maybe you have a couple of favorite recipes that you can double or triple batch and eat for dinner. Either way, the ingredients are in your house when you need them.

Make it even easier for yourself by downloading my free, Healthy Eating Grocery List (click on the image below). Print >> circle >> shop!

*For the truly, don’t-have-time-for-that busy weeks, I 100% suggest Thrive Market. This is by far my favorite online food shopping site and it just so happens that by clicking the link below, you get 25% off your first order. May I recommend the Kodiak muffin cups?

Get an extra 25% OFF your first order + a 30 day free trial membership when you sign up at Thrive Market! (Valid on orders $49+, max $20 discount)

Prep Ahead

If you want to take meal planning one step further, meal prep is a life, and physique changing way to eat healthy, especially if you’re really busy. Picture this: you’ve up since 6 am, at work since 8 am and you last ate at 11:30 pm. It’s now 5 pm. It’s raining so hard that there’s a waterfall spouting from your neighbors roof. You’re exhausted and grumpy and a bit hangry. You get home, turn on your essential oil diffuser and submerge yourself in a steaming bath because dinner is a mere re-heat away.

There are a few different ways to meal prep but I want to share the way that works best for me.

• First, choose two recipes that you know you can make in bulk for lunch and/or dinner. My favorites include chili, BBQ pulled chicken, quinoa casserole and soup.
• Print this Healthy Grocery List and circle two-three fruits and three-four vegetables, plus greens, that you enjoy eating. Try to pick from the colors of the rainbow.
• Circle eggs, your favorite type of nuts, your favorite grain and as many flavor boosters as you want. *This assumes that you have basic pantry staples like olive oil, salt and pepper.
• Go shopping!
• Spend a couple of hours prepping. Make your lunch/dinner recipes, hard-boil eggs for breakfast, wash and chop fruit and vegetables. Don’t forget to pre-pack snacks so you can grab them on the way out the door.

Do Restaurants Right

As a busy lady, it’s really nice to be able to enjoy a meal out every now and again. And if you live in the city restaurants are unavoidable (I’d love to have that problem again). If you’re trying to stay healthy, it can be difficult to navigate restaurant menus. These are the keys to doing restaurants right:

• Check out the menu ahead of time. You probably do this anyways, but if frequenting restaurants is your thing, scout menus for healthy options. I don’t mean side salads and low-fat skillet dinners from Applebees. I mean veggie-heavy entrees from restaurants touting a local-menu and healthier starters that you can share. *Don’t scout menus while hungry.
• Stay hydrated. Enjoy a glass of wine, but drink water in between sips and before your meal.
• Share your meal. Start with a decadent appetizer so no one feels deprived then split a couple of lighter, healthier entrees.
• Don’t feel bad asking for more vegetables, sauce on the side or vegetables instead of mashed potatoes. Restaurants exist to feed you. Unless you’re at a fine dining restaurant (in which case forget these tips and just enjoy), these kinds of substitutions aren’t strenuous on the kitchen.
• If you’re going to brunch, I wrote an entire article (easy read), on Brunching for the Fit Foodie. Grab it here!

Prioritize a Simple Breakfast

Breakfast is an oft-neglected meal, especially when you’re getting ready and racing out the door in the morning. So keep it simple and keep it healthy. Starting off on the healthiest mindset and meal possible is an excellent determinant of how healthy the rest of your day will be.

When I’m on-the-go in the a.m., I have two standard breakfast options:

• A green smoothie packed with spinach or kale, coconut water and fruit. I’m obsessed with Freezer Smoothie Packs (these are from my Pinterest board).
• Hard-boiled eggs and fruit. It truly doesn’t get easier than that.

Pack Healthy Snacks

Snacking is a habit, period. But it doesn’t have to be a bad habit! Pre-pack plenty of snack options to have in your desk, your car, your gym bag and even your purse. On super busy days when there’s no time to stop for lunch, these little snack packs save you from running through the drive through.

My favorite healthy snacks: fresh fruit, almonds, pistachios and walnuts, beef jerky, hummus cups with veggies and roasted chickpeas.