Nikki Cheak (00:00.59)
Hey friends, welcome back to Real Food, Real Energy, Real Life. This is the show for midlife moms who are trying to feel better in a body that doesn't respond like it used to while still managing carpool, practice, dinner, and everything else. I'm Nikki Cheek, a certified health coach, a faster way coach, and a mom of three. And today we're talking about one of the most common summer struggles I hear from moms like us. What the heck do I eat for dinner when everyone's eating at different times and I'm always last?
This isn't a meal prep episode. It is just a real life just happened and I still need to eat episode. So if your summer schedule has dinner feeling like a disaster or you've been grabbing scraps off your kid's plate and calling it a night, this one's for you. Listen, I'm not going to pretend that my house is any better than anyone else's house. Okay. Because sometimes one kid has practiced until eight 15. The other was eight.
whatever they could find and, you know, fend for yourself kind of night. And my husband was snacking on chips when he got home and I was wiping down the counter and realized, okay, yeah, I didn't eat tonight. And yeah, that's not good, right? We know that. I had every intention of making something earlier, but you know how that works, right? Like I was talking to clients and I was busy and time just disappears.
And now it was late and I was tired and I did not feel like making a thing. So grabbed some bites of whatever was left and I told myself, okay, you know what? I'll start brush tomorrow. But I didn't realize at this point when this was happening that that pattern was wrecking everything that I was trying to fix. And my ability to stay consistent, you know,
wasn't happening, my cravings weren't there, my energy tanked. And I, you know, I don't know if I'm the only one because I know every mom that I coach says some variation of, didn't mean to skip dinner, it just kind of happened. And if that's been you lately, I wanna talk about why dinner actually matters and how to make it doable when your schedule makes zero sense. And this, look, this can pertain to summer, this could pertain to back to school season, winter, like there's literally,
Nikki Cheak (02:26.482)
no time that this situation couldn't happen. So you might be thinking, you know, it's too late. I'll just eat something random or everyone else already ate. I'll just, you know, grab a few bites of what's left or it's so late. I'm just not even hungry anymore. I'll be fine. It's fine. Right? But the truth is that skipping dinner doesn't save you. It just sets you up for a really crappy day. The next day.
because your body still needs fuel, especially if you're trying to balance your hormones and lose fat and not wake up bloated or irritated. And if dinner doesn't have to be planned or pretty, okay, it just has to have the non-negotiables. And you know that you've heard me talk about this in so many different episodes, but it's the thing that holds everything together, okay? So you've got to have protein to support those hormones and...
help build that muscle that you're trying to build. It's got to have the fat to stabilize your blood sugar and it's got to be something simple that you're actually going to eat. Okay. Listen, that's a non-negotiable. Simple is winning. And I want you to think about this. Okay. I think about your dinner, like you're brushing your teeth. It, it doesn't have to be perfect. You just have to do it imperfectly consistently because I've used this before, but like if you
Don't brush your teeth for one day. All right, fine. But if you skip it multiple times, you're gonna start to notice and then you're gonna start to feel it. Okay, and that's not good. So you wanna make sure you're not skipping or brushing your teeth and it's the same thing with dinner. You don't wanna skip eating dinner, okay? So look, if you're like, okay, yeah, that's me. I'm always the last one to eat. Dinner's chaos.
I want you to grab my mom's protein packed meals guide because inside of it, I've got a ton of not just dinner ideas, but I also have things for lunch and breakfast and snacks. these are things that you can put together very quickly and you're making it doable for yourself. the link is in the show notes or just grab, so grab it there or you can send me DM to Naked Cheek Wellness on Instagram.
Nikki Cheak (04:47.374)
and send me the word dinner and I will send it over to you. So I wanna talk about what actually is going on in your body when dinner is a disaster or you just skip it entirely. Because it's not just an, well, I'll do better tomorrow type of thing. If you're not eating a solid dinner or you just graze or snack on random things, you're missing one of the most important stabilizers in your day, especially when you're a midlife mom. And...
You know, we've talked about blood sugar before, but there's three things I want you to really understand about what's happening if you skip dinner. So it's gonna wreck your blood sugar, right? We've talked about blood sugar in previous episodes, but if you had coffee for breakfast and you maybe rushed a few bites at lunch and then you skipped dinner too, yeah, your blood sugar is just gonna like tank, okay? And so then your cravings are gonna hit and you want those chips and the wine and the chocolate.
whatever gives you that fast energy. And you need to make sure that you're fueling your body in the right way so that when that time comes, you're not just grabbing whatever you're craving. And then the other thing that dinner is gonna do is it's gonna help support and calm your nervous system before bed. So cortisol, which is your stress hormone, is supposed to taper off in the evening and...
If your body is underfed or stressed or your cortisol is high, that means you sleep worse and you're groggy and you're gonna store fat more easily, especially in that midsection where we're trying to get rid of it. So, if you're eating, then you're making sure that your nervous system is calm and it's your body's way of saying, okay, you're good, I can rest now, I can release that fat.
I can sleep really well. I won't wake up groggy tomorrow. So dinner really just helps calm your nervous system before you go to sleep. And then, we talk about protein a lot, but listen, protein at dinner is critical for your hormone balance because in perimenopause, most of us in midlife are in that perimenopause stage, yay us, your estrogen and your progesterone are already going crazy. They're up and down.
Nikki Cheak (07:06.134)
And protein is that raw material that your body uses to help create the neurotransmitters like serotonin, which turns into melatonin, which helps you sleep. Okay. So when you eat a bagel at nine o'clock and then you pass out watching Netflix, your body didn't get the protein it needed to build and repair overnight. And then that's when that cycle of blood sugar starts all over again. Okay. So if you're, connecting the dots here, you need to make sure that you're eating that protein.
because it's helping your hormones, like your estrogen, like your progesterone, but also your cortisol and your blood sugar from going all over the place. And listen, bottom line, dinner is great for family bonding. It's all good for all of those things, but it also is about giving your body what it needs so that when you wake up tomorrow, you don't feel like crap and you're not falling apart the second you wake up.
But the good news is it does not have to be overcomplicated. It needs to be intentional. So look, even if everyone else has already eaten and you're the last one standing, I want you to do something today that's going to make it easier for you in the future, right? And it's what I called a build your back pocket dinner, okay? So you're gonna build a back pocket dinner strategy and this is not meal prep, okay? So don't.
Don't hear me when I say, or hear me when I say this isn't meal prep. Okay, it's the bare minimum plan that is gonna save you from skipping dinner again. And so I want you to think of it as this is the formula. It's one protein, one fat, and one optional carb, and then that's gonna equal done. And you can put this something together in five minutes or less. So here are some examples that you could use if you are, you know, stuck in this like crap, I didn't eat dinner thing again.
Maybe it's some rotisserie chicken and some guacamole and some raw vegetables. Maybe it's cottage cheese, some chia seeds and some frozen berries. dinner doesn't have to be always whatever you call dinner foods, okay? Maybe it's tuna and avocado and some rice cakes or some crackers, right? It could even be some ground turkey, some shredded cheese and a lettuce wrap. Like think of it like a little mini taco.
Nikki Cheak (09:29.672)
or maybe it's eggs and hummus and baby carrots, right? It doesn't have to be Pinterest pretty, okay? This is like, okay, I'm the last one to eat and I still need to have function tomorrow meal, okay? So it's one of those things like I call the back pocket dinner. So I want you to write down, you three moves or I'm sorry, three dinner combos that you actually like. So whatever that is.
You can use some of my ideas. can grab something from the mom's protein packed meal guide, but whatever that is, I want you to write down three back pocket combinations that you actually like. I want you to keep them on a sticky note and either on your pantry or in your fridge or whatever on your fridge, whatever. That way, if you get to a place where dinner's already happened for pretty much everybody else and you realize you haven't eaten, you don't have to think about, okay, you don't have to Google.
You're just gonna be like, here's my options. I'm just gonna grab it, I'm gonna go. So make sure they're things that you usually keep on hand at your house and you just make them and you're done. And you've eaten the things that you need to eat to set you up for success versus just going in, grabbing a handful of crackers and calling it a night. So if you keep skipping dinner or you're just grabbing whatever's left over from your kid's plates, you're not just being flexible or like.
being good or whatever you wanna say, right? You're creating a cycle that your body has to recover from every single day because you're having the late night cravings, then you're not sleeping well, and then you're waking up feeling awful, and then you're like, okay, I'll just, I'll be better tomorrow, right? But it's not because you're not trying hard enough, it's really because you're just in this place where you're not fueling your body the right way.
But when you fuel it on purpose, even if it's not perfect, you will sleep better, you will crave less, and you will wake up a little bit more, you know, with more brain capacity than you had the next day. And if you stop letting dinner be the thing that takes you down, then you're gonna start feeling better and you're gonna create a new cycle. So I want you to think about creating one anchor point that is gonna tell you like, okay, yeah, I got this. So tonight I want you to not skip dinner.
Nikki Cheak (11:47.596)
I don't want you to settle for scraps. And I want you to build that back pocket dinner combination that you have so that you can just eat it. It just needs to have protein, fat, maybe a carb, but definitely purpose. And if you're thinking, okay, I need more ideas, you can go grab my mom's protein packed meals guide. It's in the show notes. And I will definitely say that these are easy meals that you can just make very quickly.
and you don't have to have a ton of time to cook them, but you do need to eat them, okay? So if this episode has just helped you kind of shift something, maybe you are thinking about dinner a little bit differently, would you do me a favor and leave a quick review? It's the best way to support the show and it helps more moms who feel like that they're failing at dinner realize they're actually just doing too much and they don't have something that is gonna fit their schedule.
So next week, we are going to be talking about something that's quietly been driving you nuts. The brain fog, the forgetfulness, ugh, what did I come in here for again moments? Yeah, we're not gonna blame age, but we are gonna break down what's actually behind the mental cloudiness that so many of us feel in midlife and how your hormones and your stress and your blood sugar are all playing a role. So if you feel scattered or spacey or like your brain just won't keep up with your life anymore, I don't want you to miss one. I'll see you there.
