1. I like to cook...usually.
2. I like eating fresh veggies and I feel a lot better when I eat them. A salad is my go-to lunch.
3. I don't mind peeling/chopping/slicing/prepping fruits and vegetables. I find it very relaxing and kind of meditative.
But after a workout, standing in the kitchen to chop vegetables and cook a meal is the absolute last thing that I want to do. My main goal is getting food in my face and my butt on the couch. I should note that this is also how I felt when I got home from work back in the days of my 6am to 6pm job. As I learned then, the key is forethought and preparation.
So on Mondays, I go to the grocery store and buy all my salad ingredients: some kind of leaf base, precooked beets, sauerkraut, cucumbers, carrots, other things that look fresh/tasty, plus some feta and smoked salmon.
When I get home, I wash the leaves and then repack them in a big ziplock bag. I let them air dry for a while so they don't get all nasty over the week.
Then it is chopping time: I have 5 big jars set out and proceed to fill them with the toppings for each day's salad. (If you are using beets, put them in first!) All the veggies, minus the base leaves, go in here, and into the fridge. It takes me less than 30 minutes to do all of this, but that time probably depends on which vegetables you choose.
Interestingly, I have this memory from my childhood of my mother standing at the kitchen counter and chopping the ingredients for her lunchtime salad. So your parents do have a huge influence on your eating habits!
Another eating related item: I found Matt Fitzgerald's interview on the Endurance Planet podcast very refreshing. Instead of "you should eat x because of y, but not a because of b," he was much more realistic about food choices and identifying what works for each person. I'm going to have to listen again...
