In my last ar­ti­cle, I left off on time man­age­ment and this next top­ic has that as its foun­da­tion. As Trin­bag­o­ni­ans, there is an un­der­ly­ing cul­ture of pro­cras­ti­na­tion for some which tends to seep in­to all as­pects of life. It is more ap­par­ent with some peo­ple than oth­ers. How­ev­er, plan­ning ahead is quite the op­po­site and more of­ten than not, re­sults in more good than harm. So what does plan­ning ahead have to do with be­ing hangry? Let’s start by defin­ing ‘hangry’ so we’re all on the same page.

The ad­jec­tive ‘hangry’ has been used so much in the En­g­ligh lan­guage over the last cou­ple years that it ac­tu­al­ly is now an of­fi­cial word in the Ox­ford dic­tio­nary! Don’t be­lieve me? Go see for your­self...Okay now that you’re back you would have seen that be­ing ir­ri­ta­ble as a re­sult of in­tense hunger re­sults in one feel­ing ‘hangry’. Even if for what­ev­er rea­son you’ve nev­er heard the word be­fore you’ve pos­si­bly ex­pe­ri­enced the feel­ing a cou­ple times well. I’m sure you just flashed back to your last hangry feel­ing and we can all agree that it isn’t a fun one at all. There’s hope yet though and this is where plan­ning ahead comes in! I know you were won­der­ing where this was go­ing.

The two ma­jor ben­e­fits of plan­ning ahead are curb­ing hunger, there­fore keep­ing that hangry feel­ing at bay and al­so sav­ing mon­ey! Who doesn’t love that, es­pe­cial­ly in these times. Don’t get me wrong, there is no rule that says one can’t pur­chase ‘out­side’ food, but when you are hangry you are more like­ly to shop based on con­ve­nience which may not al­ways be the most nu­tri­tious so­lu­tion. Easy to pre­pare snacks are the way to go, es­pe­cial­ly if your life is set up pret­ty busy. If many of your meals hap­pen to be in your car...keep read­ing! If this isn’t the case, still keep read­ing be­cause what fol­lows will ei­ther be new habits to in­cor­po­rate or wel­comed re­minders. No need to rein­vent the wheel when it comes to this, a few wor­thy snacks are overnight oats- com­plete with enough fruit and flavour that you don’t feel for any of the foods waft­ing in the breeze as you cruise the Av­enue. Home­made trail mix- this can be per­son­alised based on your pref­er­ences and the pos­si­bil­i­ties are end­less, just be sure to in­clude a range of nuts and dried fruits. If you’re al­ler­gic to nuts that’s okay! A smooth­ie may be a way for you to go. Whether wa­ter or dairy- based, this again de­pends on your likes, dis­likes and lifestyle of course!

Some­times pack­ing the night be­fore a busy day can be down­right an­noy­ing, but be­lieve me, your fu­ture self al­ways thanks you for it. Think about the longest your day can pos­si­bly be (for me it may some­times go in­to the night) so I make sure my con­tain­ers are laid out, packed and ready to go for the next day. A few easy to prep meals are those one pot meals we all know and love! It could be any­thing from pelau to pas­ta with a range of veg­eta­bles and your pre­ferred source of pro­tein to even sal­ad (a fill­ing one of course!- one com­plete with pro­teins, car­bo­hy­drates and enough good fat for sati­ety.)

A sage mot­to is don’t leave for to­mor­row what you can do to­day. Get to pack­ing so that on your long days you don’t miss the snack­ing and end up with less mon­ey in your pock­et and a re­cur­ring hangry feel­ing an hour lat­er from foods that didn’t du­el you.