What to Eat When You’ve Had a Crappy Week.

We’ve all had them—a crappy week!

Those weeks where nothing felt like it went your way.

• Your boss was a jerk. 
• Someone at the office said something rude.
• The kids were driving you nuts.

Life kind of sucks sometimes!

The even worse part about those crappy weeks is that we still have to eat! Blah! Where’s the personal chef when you need it.

I want to help you figure out what to eat when you’ve had a crappy week.

But the kicker is that I’m going to give you some ideas about what to eat that will nourish your body instead of making the week worse by eating food that will make you feel worse.

Ok yes we can get take out and these days there are so many options for healthy-ish take out. But what if we had our pantries and fridges stocked so that all we had to do was make a simple meal that helped us inch forward toward feeling great again?

It’s possible!

Here’s what I eat when I have a crappy week (or just don’t feel like cooking):

Eggs and Toast

My kids love eggs and toast and guess what? It literally takes five minutes to make. Fry an egg (or scramble it!), pop the toast in the toaster and Bob’s your uncle. Eggs are super nourishing—full of healthy brain fats and protein. Opt for a sourdough bread for better digestion and throw in some cut veggies or some avocado for a well-rounded meal.

Look at this eggs and toast meal and it only takes minutes!

Avocado Toast

The sister to eggs and toast is avocado toast! Even quicker than eggs and toast, you can get a super nourishing meal by mashing green stuff on sourdough toast.

Sometimes I’ll sprinkle hemp seeds for added protein or sunflower seeds for crunch. Add a pickle on the side! Delish and easy.

Pasta with 5-Minute Sauce

I see a theme starting… my kids love pasta and this is one of the meals I will make when I don’t feel like cooking or I’m having a crappy week.

I almost always have brown rice or chickpea pasta in the cupboard and I’ll make this 5-Minute sauce from 101 Cookbooks to eat with it.

If you can find a sauce that’s low in sugar, even better for keeping the cook time short (this one is great). Many times I’ll just grab a handful of spinach, sprouts or mixed greens and shove them in the bowl and dinner’s ready in about 10 mins.

‘Snack Dinner’

I make the kids ‘snack lunches’ all the time in the summer. Goat cheddar, crackers, cut veggies, hummus, hard boiled eggs, olives—you can have that for dinner too!

Put it on a cutting board in the middle of the table, grab a glass of organic wine and pretend it’s the most beautiful charcuterie board you’ve ever seen. It might just boost your mood!

Stir Fry

I love making stir frys because they don’t take long and you don’t really need much to make them.

Use up whatever you have in the fridge, throw in some cashews, sunflower seeds (adds a great crunch to your meal!), some chickpeas; throw on a few tablespoons of tamari, some grated garlic and ginger, a squeeze of lime and you have dinner.

Something from the Freezer

If you’ve been meal prepping for sometime you might find that you have some leftover food in the freezer—eat that! Soup? Pasta? Marinated chicken? This is the time to use it.

Take Out…

If I really don’t want to cook I try to find the best possible place for take out.

In my area there’s a health food restaurant called Thrive so we’ll go there often, and Freshii has a tonne of locations where you can get a nourishing meal.

Pick up a burrito bowl from a burrito place. If you want pizza, look for a high-quality pizza joint (850 pizza or Cellar Door in my area are decent options) or a burger joint with healthy options.

The point I want to make is that we don’t have to sacrifice our food choices and eating habits when we’re having a crappy week. We just have to find something simple and nourishing to eat that will help us feel better, not worse.

From my experience, people feel guilty because they’re not able to put a gourmet meal on the table when they’re having a bad week, or they equate having a bad week with eating junky food.

But meals don’t have to be fancy.

I want people to stop putting so much pressure on themselves to do the Pinterest thing. We can make simple and nourishing meals even when life gets hard.

In fact, our bodies are under more stress during those weeks so we need to be kinder to them. The same goes for when we’re sick—cookies and cakes are great ‘comfort foods’, but they won’t help you get better faster, if anything they’ll prolong the sickness.

We can have nourishing foods that takes no time to make. I promise you it will help your crappy, dark week a bit brighter in the long run.

P.S. Follow me on Instagram for more tips and tricks!