When I decided at the beginning of January to lose 10lbs, and committed to doing it by taking a look at my habits and making real changes, I honestly thought it would be an easy journey.

Heck, when the first week I lost almost half of the weight I planned to! Not to mention, I am the FOUNDER of a healthy meal service- I have access to healthy balanced meals!

But, it wasn't about the healthy meals I was eating, it was about the times I was eating and wasn't actually hungry and the "why" behind that. When you start digging into that, you start discovering yourself (which is crazy because I thought I already had).

It's different for everyone, but for me I am facing up to the uncomfortable moments of life without a snack to keep me company. It felt impossible before, but now it feels liberating!

Ask the nutritionist!

Each week, we are doing #askthenutritionist, where we will answer your question of the week, and also take your questions for future editions!

This week's question: “My iron levels are low, should I be taking an iron supplement?”

The answer is not necessarily. There are a few reasons why your iron might be low and you may be able to make tweaks that allow you to bypass iron supplementation. If you have a heavy menstrual flow, you may consider an iron supplement around your time of the month (but no more! Heavy iron supplementation can reduce your absorption of iron from food).

It is also possible you have an issue with absorption in your gut. You may try a few things for this: cutting out gluten (super easy if you use a gluten-free meal service), drinking aloe vera juice, and taking a probiotic. A few dietary tweaks you can make to up your dietary iron include: steamed dark leafy greens (broccoli, spinach, sprouts), red meat, organ meats, and...

An actual photo of the biggest heads of garlic I have ever seen!

Italian food rule #1: quality of quantity. If it is not up to par, it is not eaten. You look at the tomatoes there set to ripen; some are so red they are almost worthy of Rudolph’s nose, but the Italian will tell you “no, not ready!”. The food attitude is a little bit of the highest quality product possible because there is no point in a lot of merda (-->Italian curse word).

This is exactly the properties upon which our meal service is based!! Quality balanced meals. Proportioned for your convenience. Local, seasonal, flavored to perfection. That is how you should be eating at every meal!!

If you are in St Louis, give us a try by visiting Basicallyitmeals.com!

If you're not cooking at home, how much time are you spending running around trying to figure out what your next meal will be?

In my first job as a nutrition educator, I realized that while most of us don't find the time to cook, we don't realize how much time we are wasting trying to figure out what we are going to eat next. Whether we are sitting at our desk toiling, spending our lunch hour in the car looking, strolling up and down the grocery aisles searching for something to have for dinner. It's a problem! We just tend to think this is much more efficient way of doing things than setting aside a few hours to meal prep for the week, or going online to order some healthy delivery meals! 

Today, I challenge you to take a look at how much time is spent sourcing your next meal.

This doesn't have to take a long time, just take note of it as it happens. At the end of the day, or week, tally it up. Was it minutes, hours?

I would be willing to bet it was much more significant than...