5 Kitchen Systems That Make Healthy Eating Easier

5 Kitchen Systems That Make Healthy Eating Easier

Graced Health Podcast

Host: Amy Connell

I have this group of friends who live kind of all over the country, and one of them lives in LA. She and her husband moved there about 18 months ago, and they live in this one-bedroom condo because LA, as everybody knows, is ridiculously expensive. So they clearly have a tight space and it's big enough for them. In fact, their son actually lived with them for a little bit and they still made it work, but it's tight—it's a tight space.

Because of that, she has had to develop a lot of different systems of where she has her stuff and being organized and, you know, just all of that kind of stuff. We're very active on Marco Polo and she went through and showed us many of her systems, everything from her makeup and her products and where she keeps that to her coffee system. She's really particular about how she has her coffee and what she does, and so she just has these systems which prompted several of us—or several of the group—to share their own systems. One of the friends shared about the system that she has with all of her workout clothes. One friend has this amazing pantry system and I'm sitting here looking at all of these thinking, wow, this is super cool.

And I don't know that I really have any systems, and I don't know why, because I feel like I'm a fairly organized person in most things—not with electronic management. Like I have serious electronic clutter, you all—but you know, I just don't have a whole lot of systems. It wasn't until over the holiday break when my boys were home and I was making pigs in a blanket for my boys. Now, if you're not familiar with pigs in a blanket, I know we have some Canadians who listen and some people internationally, but basically this is where you take little Smokies and you take crescent rolls and you wrap the crescent rolls around the Smokies. So the crescent roll is the blanket, the Smokie is the pig, I guess, because it's made from pork and probably a lot of stuff that I don't want to know. But anyway, it's a fun breakfast that we have and I have figured out a system where I can take a bag of the Hillshire Farm little Smokies and one can of the crescent rolls, and I can fully utilize both of those. So the amount of pigs—or the amount of Smokies—is the same as the amount of triangles I can make in the crescent rolls. I don't know why I'm so proud of this. I don't know why it probably took me 25 years to figure out, but I have a system on that. And then I realized, oh, I actually do have a lot of systems, but just most of them are in the kitchen.

As we are starting this new year, I thought I would come on and just share systems I use on a regular, if not a daily basis, in the hopes that it can just make your kitchen time easier. I know that a lot of us are probably trying to make some changes in our food world, in our nutrition, in our health and the kitchen aspect can feel very overwhelming.

Full disclosure, just like my workouts change with the seasons—and that season can be anywhere from six weeks to six months—my systems do too. So if you run into me or if we meet three years from now and you're like, "Amy, what about this system?" I'm like, "I don't know." I mean, will I still be doing it? I don't know, but it's something that's working for me right now, which is something that I want you to listen to this thinking, does this work for me? It might, it might not, and that's okay. You don't have to do all of these, but I just thought maybe it would spark something in you. So don't hold me to all of these forever. They're working really well for me right now, and maybe they will assist you in whatever you are trying to do from a health perspective right now.

Number one: At night before I go to bed, I will take a glass of water. I will go over to my refrigerator, which has the water dispenser from it because it's filtered. I will fill that glass up with water and I will set it on the counter next to my AirPods. That way, when I get up in the morning, the very first thing I do is I drink—very quickly, you can call it chug if you want—that glass of water. Because we do get dehydrated throughout the night, which is normal. But if you kind of think about your body and getting dehydrated, you know, the visual I read recently—and I thought, oh, that's so good, I'm gonna borrow that, I'm sorry I can't give credit to whoever said it—but it's like you're just a little wilted in the morning.

And so just having a glass of water—and my glass holds about 10 ounces, I mean, it's not a ton, but it's enough—and I will just drink that really quickly and then I'll put my AirPods in and I listen to my Bible Recap because I'm going through the Bible again this year in a year, which is not really part of the story, but that's just my system.

So there's really a lot of benefits to just having water first thing in the morning. And I know because I'm talking with people that a lot of people still feel like they're having a hard time getting their water in. So that's a great way to get a glass of water in your body before you put anything else in, before you have your coffee, before you take your meds—or take the meds with your water if you want to. That's when I do. But it's just a great start to the day. One of my kids will do this intermittently and he'll say, "I just feel like my insides are waking up." And that's kind of how I feel too. Like I just feel refreshed and brightened inside. So that's my first system: set out your glass of water the night before. Can you do it in the morning? Of course. But that's just one more thing. And if you're like me, you're half awake, you're kind of stumbling around, not quite thinking, and I'll forget. If it's not there, I'll forget. But if I see a glass of water sitting on my counter, then I remember. So that's just—I mean, again, this is simple. Simple systems.

The next one is: I will make an extra cup of coffee—and however that is, and I'll tell you how it is for me, but I know some of you probably have different coffee systems, different ways that you have your coffee—but I will brew an extra cup of coffee either at the end of my morning when I'm done having coffee and put it into—I call them mason jars, people around here call them Ball jars, I don't know—a glass jar with a lid. And I will put it in there, put it in the refrigerator, and let it chill for the night. So you can do that however you want. Like I use a Keurig—please don't hate me because of the plastics, I know—but you know, you can use your Keurig, you can make an extra cup of coffee in your... if you're doing like a regular traditional, however you do your coffee, you gotta figure out that part of the system. But regardless, you've got a mason jar with coffee in it, in the refrigerator waiting for you in the morning.

What I do with this is I take a scoop of protein powder—and if you're wondering what I use, I like to use the Garden of Life brand. The label says "Fit" for fat loss or weight loss, or something like that, and the marketing of that drives me crazy, but it's third-party tested, which is really important to me as you know. Protein powder—and it's plant-based and it has a lot of different plants in there, so the leucine content is pretty high. And I can get it at my local grocery store. So that's the protein powder. I have a whole series—I'll tell you about in protein, on protein and protein powders here in a second. But basically I will take that coffee, I will dump a scoop of protein powder in it, I will add a little bit of almond milk or something like that, shake it up, and drink it after I have my coffee. So bam, right there, that's about 30 grams of protein. And I have found when I do that, it stabilizes my blood sugar. I am able to be fed and tell my body that it is fed and ready for the workout, ready for me to think, whatever I am doing next. And it just kind of stabilizes me. So I think it definitely stabilizes my blood sugar, but it also just gives me what I need and I don't have to think about it because eating a lot of protein is a full-time job right now and you can go hear all my thoughts on protein and what we need. There's actually a season that I did that came out in September 2024. It's Season 22, Episodes 1 through 4. So if you want to hear all the things that Amy has to say about protein, go back and listen to those episodes. But it's a great way to get some protein in if you struggle with your protein.

The third system, along the same lines in breakfast—I promise I'll get out of breakfast here in the morning, but I love breakfast food—is I will make some sort of energy balls or protein bites, something that's not very big. It is like a third of a size of a golf ball. That's the best example I can give. Like these are small and I'll just grab a couple and I'll have them with my coffee because I have found that getting something in my body will help also stabilize that blood sugar, and it also helps my morning hot flashes. So I will get those hot flashes oftentimes first thing in the morning, and I don't get them as much when, number one, I'm taking my estrogen and I've already got the progesterone. So definitely hormones help, but also getting something in my system is really helpful for that. So that's my third one. And honestly, you can find energy bites anywhere. I mean, we all have our own preference. I actually have a recipe that I will include on my next Nourishing Notes newsletter. So if you are like, "I want some, you know, I need a recipe, I don't know," I'll include that. And if you do not get that newsletter, you can go to gracedhealth.com/nourishing-notes. I will send you two emails a month, occasionally a few more if there's something that I think is gonna be valuable to you. But I will include the breakfast bite recipe that I have been using. Again, it changes. I've shared one in the past, and this is a different one I've been using because I changed things up some.

Number four is: make some proteins ahead of time and make a double batch, maybe even a triple batch if you know that you like the thing, and freeze them individually to take out and use for your meals. For me, I will oftentimes use these for my lunches because I do work from home. But I will also use them when it's just my husband and I, when the kids are off at school and doing their thing. I can easily pull things out and make a very quick dinner for us. I will do everything from make meatballs with various forms of meat—sometimes it's chicken, sometimes it is like a standard meatball, and of course I load things up with different kinds of veggies. I'll make turkey burgers. Sometimes I will grill like five pounds of chicken breasts and I cut the breasts in half because I don't really understand why breasts are so big right now. But I cut them in half, so they're more right-size portion for me and for my husband, and I freeze those individually. So anything that you can freeze individually that will easily thaw out in the course of an hour or something like that, that's really helpful.

I will also do this with fish. So when I go to the grocery store and I'll get a filet of steelhead trout, because that's the fish that we eat the most here, I will cut off a portion and we'll have it for dinner with my husband and I. And then of course those filets are often two or two and a half pounds, so I'll cut up the rest and freeze them individually. The way I freeze these portions of meat, like the fish or the chicken, is I will get those old school baggies, the sandwich baggies that fold over that aren't even the Ziploc. But I'll put them in those and then I'll put them in a Ziploc freezer bag. So they're kind of double protected. I have found if I don't do that, then they'll tend to get freezer burn or the little flaky, whatever, frozen... you know what I'm talking about. But that is a huge system that I do because otherwise I'm like wandering around going, "Well, what do I have?" And I can always have eggs and I love eggs, but maybe I've had eggs for breakfast, or I'm tired of them. So using the freezer to have protein very easily accessible is a huge system that I recommend. And by the way, if you want some recipes for some of these things, you can go to gracedhealth.com/protein-playbook, and that has several recipes, like these meatball recipes that I'm talking about that you can use and make and freeze.

And the fifth and final system that I have and recommend is also freezer-based. And that is to precook chicken—and so for me it's chicken, for you it can be pork or beef or whatever you like—and precook that just using really basic seasoning. So for at my house, it's just salt and pepper. There's a brand that I love called Killen's, which is a local barbecue place, I think, but they now have spices and they have a great—it's called S and P, it's like S+P, salt and pepper—and I love their stuff. I'm sure your grocery store has something similar if you don't have that brand. But you can just season it very simply with that salt and pepper, and then freeze that up into maybe a pound or a pound and a half so that you can take it and dump it in a bowl of soup. You can dump it in and heat it up just in the microwave or on the skillet and throw some taco seasoning in, and then bam, you've got some taco meat. So it's just something that is easy to throw in and make a quick meal. I did this recently with my kid who was home and I had a whole bunch of chicken and he just needed one meal. I had some leftover rice, I had some leftover roasted broccoli, and so I took out a portion for him, the portion that he needs of chicken. We thawed that out and then he sautéed that in a pan with the rice and the broccoli just to heat it all up. And then he threw some orange sauce over it and he was like, "Mom, that was great." And I'm like, "I know, but that's only because I had the chicken handy." So you can do things like that as well.

Those are five of the systems that I am currently using right now. I do want to remind you—or if you have not heard this lately—you do not have to do all the things at once. So what I want you to do is think about, is there a system that you can put in place that would help you to feel well, that would help nourish you well for the day ahead? Pick one. Just one, and get it down, and then ripple onto the next. And then you're loading that one. So maybe you start with making sure that you've got that glass of water in the morning, and then from there, maybe you just continue the morning system and you have your protein coffee.

You get to choose what you need and what is most accessible and realistic for you. I do not believe in coming here and telling you all of the things that you should be doing. I do believe in telling you what works for me and letting you choose what works for you. And sometimes we just have to kind of take a pause and think about maybe where the gaps are and where we can fill with one thing.

For those of you who have signed up for our small group cohorts called Moving Forward Together, we will be talking about this. We will be observing what our current systems are and evaluating what needs to change, what needs to stay, and starting to create new habits, new systems. So applications are closed for that right now. However, you can always apply for the next cohort. So we will have this cohort in February. We will have another cohort in September. If I get enough interest, we'll do one sometime between then, but I'm not really sure. But you just go over to gracedhealth.com/small-groups and you can click "Apply Now" and just apply and get on the waiting list for future cohorts. But if you want to kind of explore this type of stuff, this is a great place to do it and this is a great thing that I'm super excited about. It's not just me and my systems, it's the other people in there who are gonna be sharing theirs, and then you guys are all going to get to hold each other accountable for that. So I'm super excited for this. I know I'm talking about it and I'm saying like, well, you know, February is closed, but there will be more, and you can apply now and get on the waiting list for the next group.

So let's do a super quick recap. What are my systems? Number one, glass of water. Number two, protein coffee. Number three, breakfast bites to have first thing in the morning. Number four, freeze individual portions of different proteins. Number five, make a big batch of one protein that you can put in a meal.

I hope that helps you with your systems, and I would love to know if any of these just spark something in you. Did you know you can send me a text? Like you're not even signing up for anything. You just can send me a text, give me feedback, tell me what your system is. I would love to—if you send me your system and tell me it's okay to share—then I will share that on a future episode. You can find that in the episode description, just where it says, like, "Click to leave feedback or ask a question," or I can't even remember, I'm sorry, whatever it is, but at the very top, click to that one. Send that to me and I want to know your system. Okay -  That is all for today. Go out there and have a graced day.