5 Ways to Simplify Your Healthy Routine + Daily Harvest Review

Everyone that knows me knows that I’m passionate about healthy living. But just like everyone else, sometimes my life gets hectic, so to help me stick with my healthy habits, I implement some go-to timesaving techniques.

Today I’m sharing some of the ways that I make my healthy routine more efficient – particularly when life gets a little cray cray! These tips make healthy eating and working out a bit easier, and help to set me up for success when I’ve got a lot going on elsewhere.

1.) Make a big portion of grains + snacks for the week. I’ll be honest, I don’t do meal prepping in the convention way that most people think of for a couple of reasons: a.) Pre-planning entire days of meals isn’t my thing and I kind of dread the thought of it, b.) I eat depending on what I’m in the mood for and I enjoy doing so, and c.) I’m either working from my home office or traveling, so either way, meal prepping an entire day’s worth of meals isn’t necessary or just doesn’t work for me.

However, I know that planning ahead is key to success, so to make meal prepping work for me, one thing I’ll do is make a big batch of grains. One of my go-to preps is making a bunch of brown rice, and then throughout the week, I use it in different ways. For instance, one night I’ll heat up cooked brown rice with black beans, throw avocado on top, and voila, dinner in 5 minutes! Another night I’ll put brown rice in a tortilla and sauté up some veggies, like bell pepper, zucchini, and onion, then throw some salsa and shredded cheese on top and wrap it up in a burrito.

Another thing I like prepping for the week is some sort of healthy snack. Often I’ll make a batch of healthy muffins or energy bites, and then I have them around for a quick bite during the week. It’s perfect to have on hand post-workout when I’m getting hangry, or to eat in the car on the way to whatever it is I have on my agenda.

A few snack recipe ideas: 

• banana almond butter muffins
• peanut butter oatmeal date bites
• blueberry almond flax granola
• chunky monkey protein balls
• pb & j banana muffins 

2.) Buy ready-to-go produce and beans. Continuing on the topic of meal prep, another thing I’ll do when I’m time-crunched is buy produce that’s already sliced/cooked/prepped and ready for me to eat. Whipping up a big salad for dinner is a lot quicker when I have my veggies already chopped up, so lettuce mixes are a go-to ready-to-go item that I buy.

It takes awhile to make beans from scratch, so I also always have cans of beans on hand to use for easy dinners. Additionally, one of my favorite pre-made items is Trader Joe’s precooked lentils. They’re great to use for lentil tacos, pair with my already pre-made grains, or to whip up a 30-minute meal, like my above pictured lentil, spinach and tomato soup.

3.) Get Daily Harvest superfood eats delivered. Lately I’ve been trying out some of Daily Harvest’s healthy, pre-portioned, ready-made meals. Daily Harvest is a healthy meal delivery service that focuses on superfood organic ingredients.

I’ve been using Daily Harvest as an easy way to spice up my breakfast or lunch routine without having to think about it much. That have a variety of smoothie options, along with overnight oats and chia parfaits. They also offer soups and harvest bowls.

You can choose from a few different flexible subscription options, select the items that you want, and then Daily Harvest delivers their cups of goodness right to your door. Talk about simplifying your healthy eating routine! Learn more about how Daily Harvest’s meal delivery subscription works here.

They have some interesting items that I wouldn’t think to create on my own, like the above pictured blackberry, banana and blue majik spirulina chia parfait. I’ve tried a variety of Daily Harvest’s items, from lentil soup and a chocolate hazelnut ‘sundae’ to a cacao + avocado power smoothie – Daily Harvest’s nut-free take on a chocolate milkshake that’s made from a mix of avocado, cacao powder and nibs, zucchini and pumpkin seeds.

But my favorite smoothie that I’ve had from Daily Harvest? Their mint + cacao smoothie, which has organic banana, spinach, cacao, cashew butter, chlorella and mint oil:

Chocolate mint creations are a favorite combo of mine, and this smoothie tastes fresh, flavorful and light. Daily Harvest’s items have awesome ingredient lists and include tons of superfoods. I love that they’re making healthy eating easier for the masses!

The only downside I’ve noticed with my Daily Harvest meals are that some of them are pretty high in calories and have 2 servings, while really only making enough for 1 portion in my eyes. For instance, their chocolate hazelnut superfood sundae has 2 servings in one cup at 270 calories each. Shown above is two servings in a ramekin cup.

Everyone’s caloric needs are different, but I personally like my smoothies to be pretty low-cal, and then I save more calories for bigger, heavier meals. I think in the future, I’d just make sure to order Daily Harvest items that are lighter. For instance, my favorite mint + cacao smoothie cup contains 200 calories, and I could happily eat that up for breakfast every other morning!

4.) Exercise at home. I love switching up my workouts with classes at various studios. But when my schedule gets hectic, studio workouts go out the window for me, and I resort to at-home workouts. It cuts out the driving time, and I’m able to fit in exercise whenever I wind up having a gap in my day. I have a bike trainer and a good amount of gym equipment at home, but sometimes I’ll even just do a bodyweight workout that requires nothing but a bit of space.

A few of my favorite at-home/do-anywhere workouts:

• cycling + strength training circuit routine
• the quickie do-it-anywhere low impact workout
• 3 at-home kickboxing workouts to try 

5.) HIIT it. There’s been a lot of research lately that suggests that high intensity interval training workouts are more effective than your run-of-the-mill cardio or strength workout, and I absolutely love HIIT routines! HIIT workouts include bursts of high-intensity, heart pounding exercise followed by low-intensity periods. It really gives you an awesome bang for your buck, so when I’m trying to get the most out of my workout in a shorter period of time, I often do HIIT. Check out one of my favorite HIIT workouts.

Tell me… How do you simplify your healthy living routine? Have you heard of or tried Daily Harvest yet? 

---

Disclaimer: This post is sponsored by Daily Harvest. As always, all opinions expressed are genuinely my own. Thanks for supporting the brands that support me!