Honouring Your Capacity While Planning Meals
Written by Kalin Huberman, RD
In our client sessions, we often talk about checking in with our capacity - which is how much space you have to hold what is happening in the current moment, or happening in your life, at any given time.
Our team at TNC will be the first to acknowledge that nourishing ourselves isn’t easy. There are an abundance of influences in our lives that impact our ability to nourish ourselves, outside of experiencing disruption in our relationship with food. This can range from things like how your schedule is set up, to whether you have a safe place to eat, or how comfortable you are with preparing food.
While regular and consistent nourishment can happen more easily with planning out meals and snacks, we want to remind you that you are worthy of honouring your capacity and your needs, and this can look different from one human to another.
A way that you can honour your capacity when it comes to nourishment is by having meal options that fall into different levels of capacity. You are not going to have the same space for this from day to day, or week to week, and that’s okay.
Consider these options:
Option A Meals & Snacks: may feel accessible when you are well rested, have capacity to plan, grocery shop and also prepare a meal that requires some cooking. This could be trying that new recipe a friend shared with you.
Option B Meals & Snacks: may feel accessible when you are having to hold some extra challenges, and still feel you have space to cook a simple meal at home. Perhaps you’re preparing a meal you’ve made many times, that you likely always have the ingredients for.
Option C Meals & Snacks: may be most helpful when you have very limited capacity, and no space for preparation or cooking. These options are ready made, or no cook options that can be assembled at home.
It’s important to note that you may have differing levels of capacity from others, for example, perhaps your B is someone else’s A.
Here are a few considerations when finding meal options that work for you:
Your options are meant to be a guideline. You may find that in order to honour yourself and your capacity, you need meals that fall under Option B and C, and we are here to support you in doing that. You may not ever find you have capacity for Option A meals, especially if you are holding intersections in your identity that make nourishment more challenging.
Give yourself permission to have the foods that sound most appealing to you - if you don’t like “breakfast” food, plan something else, or if you love breakfast for dinner, honour that!
If you aren’t a fan of recipes, stick with meal ideas or combinations of foods you like.
Convenience foods can be a very helpful way to nourish yourself consistently, and can often feel more accessible. Don’t be afraid to include them, as no one food can make or break our health.
For examples of assembly meals that you can make at home, check out our blog: Quick & Easy Meals.
Stay tuned for our blog next month where we will be sharing low cook meal ideas for those busy September days!
