It’s an easy excuse to give:  “I don’t have time to eat a healthy diet.”

I get it. I understand. There is a lot going on in life. People are super busy, running from here to there. Many of us are raising children, working full time jobs, and spending a good deal of time going to and from various activities. Cooking and creating healthy meals can take significantly longer than throwing a frozen pizza into the oven or making some ramen noodles. All of this is true.

However…

I really, really, really believe that we can all eat a healthy diet, no matter what our situation in life may be. No excuses.

I didn’t say that we all have to eat a perfect diet. I’m not even sure how that would actually look. But how about we all do the best we can with what we have so that we can be as healthy as possible? Yes?

The way you eat and the way I eat may not look the same. As a matter of fact, the way I eat and feed my family during busier seasons in my life may look different than the way I eat when life is a little more settled. During soccer season, I buy a few extra “compromise” foods just to keep my sanity. And on days when I can’t even tell which end is up? I buy a couple of Wal-mart take and bake pizzas. Those times are rare, because we have made healthy eating a priority in our house. But when all is said and done, I figure that God would prefer me to continue smiling at my children while putting store-bought pizza on their plates, than to be grumbly and stressed while I slap down nutrition-packed asparagus souffle onto their plates. (No, I don’t have a recipe for asparagus souffle, but it does sound like such a healthy choice, doesn’t it?)

Give yourself a break from the guilt of not feeding your family perfectly.

But don’t let the “I’m busy and don’t have time” excuse pull you away from making healthier choices. Most days, I feel like I wrote the book on “busy”. But I’ve decided to make healthy eating happen anyway because it is important to me.

Overall, I have found that healthy eating doesn’t take much more time than eating junk food. It doesn’t take any extra time out to make the choice to use real butter instead of margarine. Or how about the time it takes to grab an apple instead of a cookie? Buying real cheese instead of processed cheese? Eating a salad instead of french fries? Putting a roast and veggies into the crock pot in the morning instead of waiting in line at a fast food drive through at night?

You may not have lots of extra time at home to make all of your meals from scratch, grind your own flour to make bread, raise food in a garden and preserve the produce by canning and freezing – but that doesn’t mean you have to eat junk. All of us, no matter what season in life, no matter what situation – can make healthy choices to improve our diets! Even if you’re just taking baby steps, at least take some steps. (Here are some ideas to get you started.)

Oh, and P.S. Grinding flour is the easiest thing in the world. What? You think I’m grinding it by hand or something?? :)

What are some simple ways you have found to improve your diet that have not taken much (if any) extra time?! What have you found to be the biggest challenges in regard to taking the time for healthy eating?

Guess what? I’ve got loads of healthy eating, time saving ideas to share with you.
Watch for this new feature in upcoming posts!