Favorite Kitchen Gadgets

To continue with this little series of favorites gadgets, I thought I'd go into the kitchen. After all I am a nutrition coach and it all starts in the kitchen...well actually it's starts in your head, but the practice and action is in the kitchen. If you've been following me for a while, you will have seen or heard me talk of some of these products before. Having a good kitchen set up with the right tools is essential for healthy eating and sticking to it long term. If we have the right tools and appliances on hand it makes food prep easier, more convenient, tastier, and overall more doable so you are more likely to follow through with the good habit changes you are making to your nutrition.

1. Super shakes are a convenient and quick way to get a lot of nutrition in, but you need a good blender. Here are a couple options depending on your needs.

A.) Full size blender- better for making multiple servings at once

B.) Individual cup blender- easier clean up, blend and run.

2. A good set of pots and pans. I personally use one pan every night and don't typically cook elaborate recipes, but having good cookware is essential for successful food prep.

Stainless steel is always a good option. Durable and healthy.

Or this a non-stick alternative I like without the unhealthy non-stick coating coming off into your food.

3. Silicone muffin tins are a great way to cook eggs, mini quiches or protein muffins in bulk for a few days during food prep.

4. A veggie chopper can come in handy when preparing a lot vegetables for recipes, needing nice and even size pieces or just to take some of the knife work out.

5. I eat a lot of jasmine rice. Mostly because it is a super easy carb source that digests easily, goes with a lot of other foods, and barley takes any effort to cook perfectly every time thanks to my trusty rice cooker. Best thing ever. They come in different sizes and you can even steam vegetables simultaneously with some.

6. Pyrex containers are essential to store the delicious food you've worked hard to prep for the week. A variety of different sizes are available and glass containers will last long, are safe to put hot food into or reheat food in with plastics leaching toxic chemicals into your food in the process.

7. This was a new discovery for me last year. When cooking with garlic, the worst part is peeling every clove before crushing into the garlic press. This helps cut down peeling time, making it much easier and therefor more likely you'll include this extremely healthy food into your diet.

In my online coaching program, one of the things we focus on is shaping your environment for success by doing a kitchen makeover. This involves first, identifying what foods are red light, yellow light, and green light foods (more on that in my kitchen makeover post or you can watch a Facebook live I did).

Second, going through your kitchen and pantry, throwing away expired food and red light (trigger foods) and possibly some yellow light foods, and then restocking with more green light foods you enjoy and making sure you have the necessary tools to implement and practice the healthy habits that will get and keep you lean and healthy.

As always, reach out if you have any questions. I hope this helps inspire you in some way!

~Coach Lia