Eating healthily can transform your physical and emotional well-being, and it’s not as hard as it may seem when time and options are seemingly in short supply. While many people associate healthy eating with diets and restriction, you don’t have to go hungry in order to eat in a healthy way. In fact, you might be surprised at just how satiating a nutritious diet be. What’s more – you don’t need to sacrifice time with work or family, or cut back on activities, to find the time to prepare healthy food. With these five tips, you can incorporate healthy eating into lifestyle no matter how busy you are:

1. Start Meal Prepping

Preparing meals in advance ensures you’ve always got a healthy meal to hand. When you haven’t got much time to make dinner or lunch, it’s tempting to resort to junk food, but meal prepping will make it easy to reach for something healthy instead. With handy containers for meal prep, you can refrigerate or freeze meals and take healthy lunches or dinners to work with you too. When you meal prep at the weekend, for example, you can create healthy meals for the entire week and ensure that you spend a minimal amount of time in the kitchen from Monday through to Friday.

2. Don’t Skip Meals

When you’re super busy, it’s easy to forget to eat. However, going for too long without eating can wreak havoc on your blood sugar and leave you feeling weak, shaky, and dizzy. Furthermore, skipping meals may mean that you’re more likely to crave sugary snacks and simple carbs, which will give you a quick sugar high but lead to a subsequent crash.

Once you’ve prepped your meals in advance, you’ll always be able to grab a quick, healthy meal that will provide you with a consistent source of energy. With regular macro and micronutrients, you can ensure that your body has the sustenance it needs to keep up with your busy schedule.

3. Find Healthy Snacks

Excessive snacking can be bad for your health but eating two or three healthy snacks throughout the day can be an effective way to nourish your body. Of course, you’ll want to ensure that you have healthy snacks to hand, rather than sugar-laden candy, pastries, or biscuits. Apple slices with peanut butter, unsalted nuts or veggie chips are great examples of healthy snacks that will keep you feeling full.

Remember – ready-to-eat snacks are often filled with preservatives, sugar, and saturated fat, so prep your own snacks in advance and take them with you so that it’s easy to grab a healthy snack when hunger strikes.

4. Invest in Kitchen Equipment and Appliances

If you don’t have the right equipment to prep meals quickly, you’re going to spend longer than necessary when you’re cooking healthy meals. You can prep soup, smoothies, or protein shakes in seconds if you have a blender at home, for example. (A hand blender such as this one couldn’t be easier in terms of use and clean-up.) An Instant Pot can also save you tons of valuable time (this is the most popular one on Amazon). While you don’t need to blow your budget on fancy gadgets, investing in kitchen appliances that will genuinely make it easier and faster to prepare meals will empower you to eat more healthily.

5. Do Your Research

Eating healthily doesn’t have to be complicated, so don’t be fooled into thinking you need to use tricky recipes or obscure ingredients. With a little research, you can learn more about the macro and micronutrients a healthy diet should include, and find out which foods are packed with the vitamins and minerals you need for optimal well-being.

Find Easy Ways to Eat Healthily

When healthy eating becomes easy and straightforward, it also becomes a lifestyle. With a few tweaks to your current routine (which, yes, can take some time), you can transform the way you think about meal prep and feel good about eating a healthier and more satisfying diet–which will ultimately also give you more energy for chasing around kids, working, what-have-you.