episode 264: how to cook when you hate to cook
Three months ago, I decided to start cooking once a week.
Not because I decided I love cooking (I didn’t and still don’t).
Or because I suddenly felt inspired.
Or because I needed a new hobby.
I started because it felt aligned with how I wanted to be showing up for my family (aka, my values).
And what this little “once-a-week dinner” experiment has reinforced about behavior change is huge.
In this episode, I’m breaking down:
Why most people fail at new habits (it’s not because they’re lacking willpower)
The real reason “falling off the wagon” happens
How to build a system that works even when you skip a week
Why making it smaller than you think you should is the secret to success
This isn’t about how to meal prep or find the highest protein recipes.
It’s about how to follow through on something you don’t always feel like doing… without every second of it.
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264
[00:00:00] Good morning friends. I don't know when it is that you'll be listening to this. Um, it's morning-ish when I'm recording it on Tuesday, February 17th, and this episode will get published on Monday, whatever next Monday. Is that February 23rd, I think. Oh my gosh. We've had no school here in Westfield yesterday and today, and so I'm just totally off my routine.
Um, it's just bizarre, like how not having school. Impacts me. Um, I see coaching clients Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, but just weird, I didn't have anyone booked in today on a Tuesday, so Ben didn't have school, which already totally changed the day in terms of structure. And then not having anything like set on my schedule totally changed the day in terms of not having structure.
And so I am doing everything in a really weird order today and I'm like, oh my God, it's 1123 now and I'm. Just like sitting down to do something that I had planned to do [00:01:00] like two hours ago and I haven't worked out yet, but I did prep dinner ironically. And that is actually the thing I wanted to talk about today.
Um, if you are on my email list for sure, you probably write about this and if you follow along on Instagram, you may or may not have heard me talk about this a little bit. I have not been talking about it a ton lately. But sometime towards the end of last year, I don't remember exactly when it was. I think it was sometime in November, I made the decision that I was going to start cooking once a week.
You might like roll your eyes and be like, wow, Jordana, welcome to being an adult. Um, because for you that might be like a very normal thing that has happened for your entire adult life. And you may in fact cook many times a week, but I do not cook. Danny does the cooking, um, which is something he, he likes doing it.
He enjoys doing it. Um, but what's been interesting as, as Ben has gotten older, Ben is now closer to 14 than he is to [00:02:00] 13. Um, food is, the role of food is kind of shifting, um, in our family and what he needs to eat and what he wants to eat is shifting. Um, and Ben is generally like a good eater. Um, certainly has certain things that he's picky about, but for the most part I think he's pretty easy.
Um, he's not like super adventurous or like experimental or things like that, but he eats a good variety of stuff and he's usually pretty. You know, it was pretty easy. Um, but he. Is eating more and needs more of certain things and definitely like needs more protein and wants to be eating more protein.
And um, some of the things that used to work for us kind of no longer were in the same way. And we definitely do takeout. We definitely do like some fast food. We definitely do frozen stuff and that is all still in the mix. But I was kind of having this feeling like [00:03:00] I. As a mom and as the parent of an almost 14-year-old boy felt like this was a responsibility that I had.
Um, and very much in like a values kind of way, not in like a obligation way, which sometimes we do have obligations and that's fine. There's nothing bad about that, but much more from a like, I want to do this. I am feeling called to do this, for lack of a better term. Um. And it was something that I felt like our family needed and that I needed to start doing, um, in order to be taking care of him and truthfully, taking care of myself, taking care of Danny, and giving us what we needed.
So if you, but if you know me at all, and if you don't, welcome. Um, I don't like to cook. Um, I used to like to bake and I don't really bake at all anymore. I just don't really enjoy cooking. Um, to me the thought of like researching recipes, finding recipes, doing all [00:04:00] that, just not interesting. I just don't enjoy it.
I don't find it relaxing. Um, cooking to me is a chore and I will eat, um, cottage cheese for dinner any day of the week. Over having to like figure out to shop and prep and cook and prepare a meal. Um, and also we are adults and we have responsibilities, people other than ourselves, right? And so I had to start kind of looking beyond that.
Um, so for me, this is a big deal to commit to cooking once a week, felt doable, challenging, and also doable. Um. And kind of the way that I set it up with Danny and Ben was that I was gonna tell them, this is what I'm cooking and this is when I'm cooking. And the what is was really based on Ben. Those whole thing was about what is Ben going to like?
So these are all everything I'm gonna talk about. I'm not gonna like go through everything like meal by meal, but everything is gonna be meat-based. So if you're a plant-based person. Um, I think this is still worth listening to more from like the process standpoint, and I'm not getting into like recipes or anything like that, but this was [00:05:00] about what kind of like protein options.
Can we center meals around? And I was like, it needs to be easy. It needs to be quick. And what I wanted to do today is just kind of like provide an update. 'cause now this has been going on for like three-ish months. I don't remember the start date, but I think it's been around three months. So it's like a good amount of time.
And there's been some things that have worked really well and some things that haven't worked well and some things that have surprised me and I wanted to share because whether or not cooking is something you struggle with, if it is great, this is gonna be super, super relevant. And if cooking isn't something you struggle with, but there are other things in your life that you need or want to be doing that you know you need to be doing for various reasons, this is also gonna be super relevant to you because really this is about behavior change and following through on actions and setting yourself up for success.
And so one of the big things that I did. That I had the flexibility to do was I said to Dan like, this is the night that I wanna cook. And he was like, okay. And I pretty much base it off of what worked for me, because here's the thing, I'm the one who's 90% [00:06:00] responsible for like carpools and driving around and like dealing with whatever Ben has going on after school.
Danny's not doing that, right? He works a full-time corporate job. So we just have different levels of flexibility, which is fine. It's divide and conquer. But if I'm like driving around here and there and whatnot, like. It gets really tricky to figure out dinner, and I know that if you have kids like you know this.
Um, I think this is one of the things that people struggle with a lot. So I was able to kind of take advantage of that and say, okay, if I know Ben has a carpool this night or doesn't have an activity or whatever, I know that's gonna be a better night for me to cook. Um. So that was one thing that I leaned into.
Another thing was I used chat. GPTI had no interest. Like if I came up with an idea for something. One of the meals that I've made a couple times that has actually they have liked, um, have been sloppy Joe's. I did not start googling sloppy Joe recipes because I don't. Just, it just, I have no interest in doing that.
I will sit and shop for like a rug or a sofa or a piece of artwork or something decorative for my house. [00:07:00] Four hours. Like I'm looking for a new rug for our family room, and if I could tell you the number of hours I've spent looking for this rug over the past week, you would. Probably be a little bit disturbed, but for recipes, zero interest, right?
This is what's so interesting about human beings. So I'm like, great, I'm gonna go chat GPT, I'm gonna tell chat, GPT exactly what I'm looking for. And chat GPT gave me a recipe. It was such a huge time saver and it was great. That recipe was really good and it gave me certain things. I'm like, no, like I can you do the measurements like this and can you put it into a PDF and can you make it for X number of people?
And like it was really, really helpful. And I did that a bunch of times. So I highly recommend that to simplify the process. Um, and so I experimented with a couple of different things. And here's the thing. What was interesting is like some of it wasn't great, guys. Like it just, some of the recipes weren't good.
I can follow a recipe, right? I'm not gonna be experimental and whatnot, but I can follow a recipe. So some of these recipes, I, I'm not blaming myself. 'cause you follow a recipe, you follow a recipe. These were really [00:08:00] easy, straightforward, some of the stuff just had no flavor. Um. I'm like, I followed the recipe.
I don't understand. And it's funny 'cause two weeks ago I made, um, this Mexican shredded beef and that recipe I got, um, from a creator that I follow. And she has talked about this recipe so many times and she's like, it's so good. It's amazing. And I'm like, oh, okay, cool. I looked at it and I've looked at it in the past, like a year ago.
She's been talking about. And I'm like, I would click on it like, oh, that does sound good, and I'd never do anything with it. But now that I have made this commitment to cooking once a week, I'm like, oh, let me go back and revisit this. And I showed it to Ben, I'm like, does this sound like something you would eat?
Because that is like my number one filter. Is this something you are going to eat? 'cause if he's like, no, I'm not gonna make it. Like, I would love to make like a frittata for dinner, Danny and I would eat that up. Ben has no interest in that, so I'm not gonna make that. So in certain ways, like yes, we are limited.
Um, and he was like, yes, that sounds awesome. So I made it guys, it was like tasteless. And I'm like, I followed the recipe and so [00:09:00] many of these recipes have just been tasteless. And I'm like, do people, like, do I just have a, do we have like a different flavor profile? Do people like bland food? Like what is the deal here?
I need to like triple the amount of seasoning that is going into these recipes. And so some of the stuff Ben has not liked, and there have been a couple times where he has taken one or two bites of what I made and he has not eaten any more of it. And so that has been a really interesting experience.
Like I started this because of him and I'm making stuff and then he doesn't like it. And I will tell you honestly, like I don't take it personally, I feel disappointed, but more for him. 'cause it's like, well now there's not a meal, so now we've gotta figure out something else because I am not the kind of person, I am not a, this is what I made.
You're going to eat it or eat nothing. That's not my mo. If that's your thing, that's fine. That's not how I operate. Um, if you don't like something, you don't like something, and I'm of the belief that no one should ever be forced to eat something that they don't like. And that actually is something that can develop to disordered eating, um, forcing someone to eat under any circumstances for any reason.
It's just [00:10:00] like it's a no go. Um, obviously unless there's some health condition going on, which is not at all what I'm talking about right now. Um. So then it's like we have to figure out something else. So we would end up making like scrambled eggs and bacon or like a grilled cheese or eating something frozen.
In some cases there was protein. In some cases there wasn't. But it's also frustrating 'cause like I've spent time, I've spent money on this thing and it's like, well now it's just gonna go to waste because if he's not eating it right, um, then there's like a lot left over and it's just not gonna get eaten.
And that has happened a bunch of times. You guys. Then we've tried different versions like that happened. So Ben loves wings. I'm like, great, I'm gonna do wings. So I bought wings and I did them in the air fryer and I followed the seasoning recipe. Danny and I really liked them. He didn't like them because they weren't like as crispy as they are when you go to a restaurant and they're fried, right?
I'm not making them fried. Not 'cause I have an issue per se, with fried, but like I'm not deep frying food at home. That is way outside the realm of, um, what I want to do on a weeknight. So they were, they were crispy in the air fire, but they weren't what he was used [00:11:00] to. And so there's been a lot of that of like a little bit of a mismatch between what his expectation is, what I think he's gonna, like, what he says he's gonna like, and figuring that out.
And it's been, it's been trial and error and some things we've repeated and tried more than once. And some things we've tried once and we're like, yeah, nope, this is a no go. Um. So I think you know what has worked really well is me identifying in advance what night I'm going to cook. We talk about it on the weekend pretty much every weekend now, and if I don't bring it up, Danny will say to me, he'll say, Hey, are you cooking this week?
And I will say yes. Um. I'm gonna circle back to how like the frequency and the consistency of all this, and he'll say, okay, what day? And he might, now that we're a little bit more into this, he might say, well, these are the days. That'd be really helpful for me, depending on what days he's in the office or what days he's traveling.
And usually we're able to make it work so that it overlaps between a day that's helpful for him and a day that works for me. But we are planning in advance and I am [00:12:00] planning what I'm going to make in advance. I am deciding on the weekend. Or at a minimum, no sooner in than 24 hours before, because I am shopping for it.
Only a couple times have I bought what I'm going to make the day of, and I'm never deciding the day of. I don't have that capacity. You guys, I am not able to think about what to make for dinner on the day that I need to eat it. I just don't, my brain just doesn't work that way. Um. In terms of cooking, cooking is such a big undertaking for me that I had to really break it down and I think that's one of the things I wanted to like really hit home with this was, this was a really big deal for me and you might roll your eyes at that, but I think we can all, I'm sure you can find something comparable in your life that someone else might do routinely, but that feels like a big deal for you.
Like I work out, I go to the gym all the time. For me, it's not a big deal for you. Going to the gym once a week might be a huge deal. Same idea. I think that's like a really good parallel. You might cook all the time. I go to the gym all the time, right? It's all, we all have [00:13:00] things that we do and things that we don't do and things that are hard and things that are easy.
And this is about the behavior change behind it, right? So I had to break this down and make it really, really simple for myself, right? So that's why I said once a week, that's why I picked the day. That's why I was using chat GPT. That's why I was keeping things as simple, as simple as possible. Um, and running things by Ben saying, does this sound good for you?
Not like, oh, guess what I made for dinner? Here it is. Surprise. Like, no, I'm not playing that game. Um, so I, I, of course I just like lost, went off on a tangent and lost my train of thought. Um, but so. I would decide in advance what I was making and I would get to the store like 24 hours before to buy the stuff.
Whether I had to buy the meat or I had to buy some other ingredients. At this point I have a lot of like the spices and we had spices, but there's been a couple extra things that I've bought. Um, but everything was happening in advance and that's 'cause I know, like I knew I had to do that. I've done a lot of crockpot stuff because [00:14:00] that's easy.
Like also for me, having to plan out like time things. What time are we going to eat and what time is Ben getting home and what time does he have to get picked up? And managing all of that gets tricky for me. I'm not gonna lie. It just does. And so crockpot stuff is super helpful because it's just in there, it's kind of done early, and then you can decide when you wanna do something with it.
Um, like tonight, today there's no school. And Ben had something tonight, but it just got canceled 'cause the schools are closed and there was a miscommunication, whatever. Um, tonight I marinated chicken this morning and I'm gonna cook it in the air fry tonight. And we're doing bowls. I'm gonna make rice.
And I bought yesterday at the store. Everything was already bought in advance. I bought the pico, I bought guacamole, I bought cheese, I bought all the toppings. Basically we're making like Chipotle bowls. Ben found the recipe. Jen, Ben was obsessed with Chipotle as most teen boys are. He found the recipe for Chipotle's chicken on Instagram and he said, can you make this?
And I was like, yes. Like at this point, because he has not really enjoyed so much of what I've made, I really want him to [00:15:00] be as involved in the process as possible. So the fact that he found this and he's into like food and cooking and recipes and like when he's on social media, that's a lot of like what he's watching, which I think is cool and great and actually kind of helpful for me.
Um. So he sent me this and it was super easy, right? Like I can make a marinade and marinate and I'm going to use, we have this ninja crispy air fryer that we got at the end of last year and it's great. I think it's way better than a regular air fryer. I've used that to make the wings. They have come out like juicy and really good.
It's super easy. You can put this thing in a dishwasher like it's great. And I definitely think it has helped me. Um. In terms of simplifying and making cooking easier. So that's already done right and had shopped for that the day before. Um, but. Breaking down this process into very specific steps, looking at the timing and being very specific about when I needed to do certain parts of the process by has been essential, right?
If I had just said back in November, I'm gonna [00:16:00] start cooking once a week, and I had not broken that down into its component parts, three months later, it would not still be happening, right? I knew right away that I needed to. Break this down, and I've kind of already started to, I don't wanna repeat myself 64 times.
You know, the 15 times I've already repeated is probably enough into its component parts and breaking it up into, you know, small pieces. If I hadn't done that, forget it. Right? So we often think. We always, you know, it's the expression bite off more than we can chew. Um, and there's a reason that that is such, like a cliched saying because it's just like what we do as humans.
You need to do less, you need to make things smaller. You need to make things simpler. You need to make things easier for yourself, easier than you think they need to be. And that is how you are gonna find success. And if you notice that you're judging yourself or you're saying to yourself, this is ridiculous.
I should be able to do more than this. My friend doesn't have a problem doing this, or whatever the, whatever the, the negative self-talk, that dialogue is in your head. You need to notice it and say, [00:17:00] okay, it's fine. Let that be there. This is what I know I need to do. What am I doing to set myself up for success?
What am I doing to help myself? What am I doing to make this as easy as possible when it is something new and challenging, that's what you want to do. Um, and that has been a huge part of why I'll talk about this now. It's three months in and I have been consistent with this. And here's what I mean by consistency.
Consistency is not doing the thing every week all the time. I have not cooked every week. I have cooked most of the weeks. Um, I have definitely skipped one week at a time. I think there was one set of weeks where I skipped two weeks and then I kept going. And I think what was really cool is when I skipped, I definitely skipped like two weeks over the holidays.
Um. And then I picked back up with it and because I had put a system in place that felt doable, was I super excited to cook after those two weeks of not cooking? No. Was I like looking forward to it. No, and I did it anyway and I was able to sit [00:18:00] in the discomfort of not really wanting to do it and do it anyway because I had a system in place that was working, right.
The system around picking the day, planning in advance, getting the shopping done, having it be easy running it by Ben, so I was at least maximizing my chances of him liking it, right? All of those things were part of a system that I had created and that is what has helped me. Do this now over three months, pretty regularly.
Um, and knowing that if I do miss a week for whatever reason, I know that it's not gonna be that like, shit, I fell off the wagon and I can't get back on. That happens that fall off the wagon thing happens when you are doing too much because then something happens that gets you off track and. It feels like so much work to quote unquote back, get back on track that you just can't do it.
And that is a sign that you were doing way too much to begin with, right? I know I'm in the sweet spot because I've been able to keep up with this and it's [00:19:00] not feeling overwhelming. It's not feeling stressful. Sometimes it feels annoying. Sometimes I don't wanna do it. That's normal. Again, when you are starting something new, whether it's cooking, whether it's going to the gym, whether it's eating more protein, whether it's reading, reading more often, whether I, I don't know, whatever it is.
You need to accept and get used to the fact that you're not always going to want to do that thing. And if you're waiting to always want to do it or to be excited to do it, you're gonna be waiting a long ass time. It's not gonna happen. And I think this is where the, like you're an adult, right? You're not like five years old.
We, I think sometimes think, oh, I need to love this, or I need to be excited about this. Like, no, sometimes you don't have to be miserable. I think that's the thing like. Hating being miserable, doing something is not helpful, but also expecting that you're going to love doing it is also not realistic. So I know that I'm not always gonna look forward to cooking.
I would, I would, it would feel easier for me not [00:20:00] to cook, but it would not necessarily feel better. And I think that's an important distinction. Right. And this comes back to the values thing, taking action in alignment with your values. Often takes a lot more work and a lot more effort and a lot more discomfort than not doing that.
And I know that may seem kind of weird 'cause you're like, well if it's in align with my values, I should wanna do it. It should feel good. Right? If this is me taking action in a way that is, you know, really representative of who I am and what matters to me and how I wanna show up, shouldn't that just automatically feel good?
Shouldn't that just automatically be easy? No, it's actually the opposite. It is always gonna be easier. To do the thing that takes less effort to do the thing that you have already been doing. It is always gonna be easier to keep doing that, even if that is at a detriment to you. Right? So it's easier for me not to cook, but it is not better.
Um, and better. I don't mean like, you know, I think you understand what I'm saying. I think that's maybe [00:21:00] like kind of like an interesting juxtaposition and. Nuanced, but very, very important. Um, so like today when Ben had asked me to make this Chipotle chicken, he had shown it to me last week and I was actually really excited 'cause it meant I didn't have to figure out what to make.
I'm like, oh my God. It felt really good. I'm like, great. I don't have to do that part of it. I don't have to think of something. I don't have to talk to him about it. He has given me something and the thing that he gave me felt really doable. There's another recipe he's given me, which. Is definitely more involved, but because he's really excited about it, I'm like, great that his excitement and his enthusiasm and him wanting to try it helps kind of buffer some of my like, mm, this is gonna be a little bit more work because I'm hopeful that he'll really like it and that will make it so much more worth it.
Right. There's a little bit of like future self thinking there. Like, he's excited about this, he really wants this, he's gonna like it. That is going to help me want to follow through on this. So with his Chipotle chicken, he showed me this recipe last week, so like last [00:22:00] Thursday, I'm like, I already knew what I was making for the following week, and I don't usually do that.
I'm usually figuring it out. We're having a conversation on the weekend. Deciding what day and what am I going to make. And we'll kind of talk about it as a family, which is cool. It's not just on me. And again, I think I've made that clear to them like I do, like want you guys to be involved and need you to be involved.
And that has been helpful. So that's another piece of like this system is like. Recruiting support for people who are gonna help you matters. You don't have to do everything on your own, right? Yeah. I'm the one who has to like shop for the stuff and actually make it, but I don't have to necessarily figure out the whole thing on my own.
We can have a conversation or we need to have a conversation about that as a family, and that has been super helpful. So that's another piece, again, that's not just about cooking, that's applicable to whatever it is that you are working on, whatever behavioral thing that you are working on. Getting support from people, whether it's your family or friends or a coach or whatever it is, um, is going to make it a lot more doable.
Yes. Partially in terms of [00:23:00] accountability, but also in helping you figure things out and work through and come up with ideas. So we had figured this out, so then I knew, um, I knew what I needed to get. I had the recipe. It wasn't that much stuff. And I knew I wanted to marinade it in advance. Right. And then we had decided I was gonna make it Tuesday.
Cool. So we had decided that over the weekend we already had the frozen chicken in the house 'cause we get butcher box. So there really wasn't that much to buy. And my plan was gonna be on Monday night. So Danny's, we took the chicken outta the freezer. I think maybe on like Sunday night. 'cause I was anticipating marinating it Monday night and then cooking it Tuesday, which is today in my podcast recording world.
You're hearing this sometime after the fact. Doesn't matter. And then last night rolled around. I'm like, I do not feel like getting out the Vitamix and doing all this right now. I was like, I'll do it in the morning. And so I did. I procrastinated, I put it off. 'cause I knew I had the extra time. I knew I had a buffer time and I did.
I got it done this morning. It ended up delaying a whole bunch of other stuff, [00:24:00] but I knew I had a little bit of wiggle room. Um, and there was like a reason I was bringing this up, but I, a lot of this was planned out in advance, right. And I'm not, again, I'm not figuring it out or doing it all. Like the 20 minutes before we eat.
I know that doesn't work for me. That might work for you. This is not about, there's one way to prep or shop or plan. It's about figuring out the way to prep and shop and plan that works for you, your preferences, your tendencies, your lifestyle, your family, your schedule. This is exactly the same as what I talk about in my one-to-one coaching framework or on creating a way of eating that fits you like a glove, right?
This is very much part of that. And when you are working on behavior change, yes, there are absolutely best practices in certain, um, certain steps you need to take, which I'm outlining here, which is a lot about keeping things really small, planning in advance, really. Um. Figuring out what's the step-by-step [00:25:00] process and then breaking up each of those steps into smaller things.
You know, all of that, but what those actual steps are, and when you do them and how you do them, that's what needs to fit your life. There's no one size fits all, right? So when people are like, oh, meal prep on Sundays. No, like for some people that works and for a lot of people it doesn't. I was just having this conversation with a client last week.
Um, she had a baby last summer and went back to her full-time job about six weeks ago. And so a lot of what we're working through right now is like, how is cooking happening? How is feeding herself and um. You know, now her baby is starting to eat solid food. Like how is that happening? When is that cooking happening?
Um, and we were having this conversation and we were talking about meal prepping and there's a couple of foods that she has identified that are super easy for her to prep that are just like on autopilot that she uses an air fryer. It's a really easy for her. She doesn't have to find recipes. So she's really leaning into that, which has [00:26:00] been great and I acknowledging that has been super helpful.
But the timing has been tricky. And so she kept bringing up the weekend and Sundays, and I said to her, I'm like, does Sunday really work best for you? Or do you feel like we've been so conditioned culturally to think that Sunday is meal prep day, that that's what you think your only option is? And she was like, yeah.
She was like, my weekends are super busy. Sunday's just not a good day. And I'm like, okay, so let's look at the rest of the week and figure out when is a good day. And we did that and we actually picked out, it was like Monday afternoon into evening. 'cause she works from home on Mondays and. Like that might be a terrible time for certain people.
And I think this is really important because there's not a one size fits all to meal prep, to cooking, to eating, to exercising, to any of it. Figuring out, creating a system that works for your life. And when I say your life, that gets broken down into component parts. It means your preferences, your lifestyle, your schedule, your family.[00:27:00]
That all has to play into it depending on what the thing is that you're working on. And so that's why I really wanted to talk about this whole cooking thing because it has very much been that type of a process. I'm the one who's cooking and who made a choice to do this, but my family plays a huge role in that in many different ways.
In the logistics and the preferences and the timing and the schedules, all of that. And if I'm not taking that into consideration or I'm following. You know, a plan that I saw on TikTok, some creator do, or I'm trying to do what my best friend is doing, or I'm even going into chat GPT and saying, chat GPT.
Can you gimme a meal prep strategy? It's not incorporating any of that data, any of that information, and I'm going to fail. And I'm going to fail and I'm gonna be like, I'm not will. I'm not motivated enough. I don't have enough willpower. I'm lazy. I didn't follow through. I'm gonna beat myself up. I'm gonna make myself a problem.
When really it was that plan was the problem. 'cause it didn't fit my life because I didn't have the support and the strategy and the skills in place to know how to do that. So this [00:28:00] is very much me like. Walking the talk of like, what I coach in behavior change and I'm really proud of myself, um, is it hasn't gone perfectly.
It hasn't gone perfect smoothly, right? I'm learning as I go. I'm seeing what worked and what hasn't worked and I'm adapting. Um. And that iterative process, like what has worked right, talking on the weekend, picking the day, shopping in advance has worked great. What hasn't worked? Um, some of these recipes have not worked.
Making things that don't have a lot of seasoning or that I am following straight from the recipe. When I, when I'm clearly learning that a lot of these recipes don't have enough seasoning, hasn't worked. I need to like up that, um, you know. So there's really been a lot more that has worked than hasn't worked.
Um, and again, what has worked was having this system in place because the fact that I was able to. Skip two weeks over the holidays and then keep going. Tells me that the system is working. Knowing that like again, I didn't necessarily feel like doing, I don't always wanna do it, and [00:29:00] I do it anyway because it's in alignment with my values.
I'm taking care of my family and that feels good. And sometimes what feels good is not going to be the thing that feels easy. And we cannot, yes, we wanna make the process easy, right? So that may, I don't want that to be confusing. I've talked a lot about make it easy. Yes, you can make the process easy. But you still, overall, I'm always gonna choose, like I'm, it's always gonna be easier for me not to cook, so I have to make the process of cooking as easy as possible, right?
So easy kind of exists on a little bit of a spectrum, I would say. Um, it all kind of becomes relative. So I think this is like pretty much everything I wanted to talk about. Um, I'm scrolling back, um, just at some notes I had made a while ago to see if there's anything else. Um. I think that, I think just maybe a perfect closing thing is that feeding ourselves and feeding a family, I think is maybe one of the most underrated, overlooked adult [00:30:00] responsibilities in terms of the labor that it requires both physical and emotional labor.
And it's so funny, I follow big time adulting on Instagram and she did a funny reel this week about like dinner and about like, what the fuck? Like dinner, like the stress. And she's like, obviously very funny in the way she talked about it. And it is, it's like a thing when you think about like, you eat, obviously this varies for people, but let's, you know, let's go with like the, the stereotypical three meals a day, seven days a week, that's 21 meals a week.
And if you have a partner, if you have kids and you are responsible for feeding them, it like starts to multiply itself like exponentially it feels like. And. I don't think we ever really take that into account. I don't think we ever think about it in that way. And so often food becomes an afterthought and it becomes like a triage situation.
And I get it right. Like it's, it's hard. And so I wanted to just acknowledge that. Um, that's the thing I've actually been thinking about a [00:31:00] lot over the past year is like the labor of food, of eating and feeding ourselves and how much work that actually is and how much. Needs to go into it and how much sometimes does or doesn't go into it and what the implications of that are.
So I hope this is helpful. Um, thank you for listening. It's got longer than I thought it was gonna be. Um, and I think that's it. I think I said everything I wanted to say and you're probably like, yeah, I'm done listening for today anyway, so thanks for being here. Thanks for listening. Please share this episode with anyone, um, that you think could benefit from it, and I'll be back next week.