I don't have a system per say, but my biggest time saving tip is to always make extra when you're preparing/cooking a meal, and put the surplus in the freezer/fridge. It takes virtually the same time to make a meal that serves 4 or 6 as it does 1 or 2.

This way when you don't have time to cook you always have great options to go to quickly.

Easy peazy :)

3.5 months is still the romance period with anything. Don’t get me wrong, its good that you started all this but an important point (especially since you mention youre doing paleo and crossfit) is:

KISS: Keep it simple, stupid.

Its trite but really, don’t start overthinking everything, reading too much, trying to tweak everything to make it perfect, etc. Keep it basic.

Don’t spend too much time at your box. Especially with crossfit, people will do this all the time: start WODing, love it, start seeing results, love it, then they’re going to WOD 4, 5,6 days a week and stopping by on off days to hang out, etc. If you can make that work in the long run, god bless. But for MANY people that will burn you out. Less is more. Try like 3 WODs a week for a few months and see how it goes. Then add if you want, subtract if you want. You’ll have more free time.

For cooking the only thing close to a system that I have is that I make dinner fresh every night. The leftovers from each day’s dinner gets me through eating the next day till dinner again. I like cooking dinner every night, therapeutic.

I choose 1-day a week to do all my food shopping, greenmarket + meat and staples, then the day after I prep everything that takes time: sear steak, make meatballs, poach/roast chicken, cook up burger patties, roast/steam all the tubers, hard boil eggs, wash and prep every veg. I then store in quart containers, or wrap in towels, in my fridge. Meals once I do this take no time at_all. I eat a lot, about $200 a week in groceries, so this way works aces for me.

One thing that I like to do is make a huge bowl of salad greens mixed with a bunch of veg that I ran on the mandoline or sliced up. Then it's just grabbing a handful of complete salad, top with tubers, meat, other veg or fruit, then... grom :) Cheers!

Cooking large amounts of food and bone broth in the slow cooker overnight is a big time saver for me. I also prep two or three days worth of food at once. Clean and lightly steam veggies, wash greens, hard boil eggs, etc. Not being too concerned about what types of food constitutes a particular meal is also helpful. Eggs, if you eat them, are a quick prep meal anytime and sardines also make a great quick meal too. The grocery shopping was doing me in so now I shop once a week at the farmers' market and once at my local big box store. I usually buy the same staples every week and just add what's seasonally available and/or on sale. I buy some foodstuffs such as coconut milk in bulk online so I always have it in the pantry.

As to going to four grocery stores a week: If you factor in time and gas/or other transportation costs, are you really saving anything? I check the local food circulars in the paper or online and then decide whether an extra trip is worthwhile. When it is, I stock up.

Also start making a food shopping "master list" so you don't have to stay up at night thinking about it.

It does get easier!

I guess my first question would be can you cut down the number of stores you are going to? Factoring in the cost of gas, wear and tear on the car (and you), and your time spent driving around, are the savings worth it?

I buy frozen precut vegetables so I can easily stick them in a bowl and zap them. I get potatoes and sweet potatoes thi way because I hate going through the hassle of peeling, cutting, and cooking them everyday. I cook my protein in a cast iron pan and voila, dinner in under ten minutes.

Everybody's mentioned good things, so I'll throw in that no snacking and IF (eating lunch and dinner only) both save a lot of time.

A chest freezer full of grass fed meat saves me time shopping!

I eat all my food at night-- 97%. Twice a week I shop. I buy food from my Hunter genotype food list. I make dinner and eat it.

My boyfriend and I order meat from a butcher once a month. I stop by the farmer's market once a week, and before the season is over, we'll stock up on root vegetables for winter storage. They'll stay in the fridge. I also buy my eggs at the farmer's market, but there's a small grocery in walking distance I could buy them at as well.

Once every two months we go to the grocery store to stock up on household things, spices, butter, coconut oil, fish, that sort of stuff.

It's actually a lot easier than when we were eating SAD, because I don't need to plan recipes and shopping list ahead of time. All I do is buy the meats at a good price, some vegetables, and cook them up!

I eat breakfast and lunch, my boyfriend eats 3 meals. I make easy soups for breakfast which I keep in mason jars in the fridge. I also keep any leftover meat. So he always has something he can microwave for brekfast. I on the other hand, do the leptin reset, so I make myself eggs, and sometimes eggs and meat. For my lunch, I cook a meal. The leftovers become his dinner, and his lunch the next day, which he takes to work.

Super easy! But I work from home so... for those who don't have much time, you might cook meats and soups once or twice a week, even pre-cut vegetables. Then just grab the meat for the day, cook up the vegetables. I think that's what I would do.