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Everyone wants to be healthier, to be fitter, and to live their best life. Why is it then that so few people actually attain their fitness goals, and the health that they so want and deserve?! The short answer is that “wanting it” simply is not enough. It’s easy to want something, but knowing how to get there is another story altogether. Picture this; you have decided that you are going to go to the gym every day on your lunch hour, it just makes sense and so you are going to make this part of your day and your routine. You have plenty of time to make it there and back, and it all fits beautifully into your health plans. So, each morning you wake up, eat your breakfast, and pack your gym bag for the day... And there you have the fatal flaw – because one morning, inevitably, you are going to wake up late, or you won’t be able to find your gym shoes, or you will have forgotten to move your gym clothes from the washer to the dryer and this will prohibit you from continuing with your goal of going to the gym every day... Which in turn sets off a chain reaction of continuing to not attend the gym.
Right in the beginning when you are setting a new goal, the most important thing of all is identifying and implementing strategies to facilitate achieving that goal. For instance, in the story I just told you, it is as simple as always packing your gym bag the night before and setting it by the door, so that no matter what you are set up for success. With Nutrition and Diet, planning literally is EVERYTHING, and pre-preparation is the be all and end all of attaining health, diet, and nutrition goals.
Now I’m going to give you a list of my five favourite strategies for staying prepared and achieving your nutrition goals. Follow these steps, and I guarantee you success. Seriously, it is this easy. .. Almost as easy as “Wanting It”!
1) Plan your meals for the week before you grocery shop, and do not grocery shop when you are hungry (this is a double strategy)!
Think about it, most people go to the grocery store and wander around the aisles eyes wide, not knowing altogether what they are going to buy - or what they feel like making or eating in the days to come. All that uncertainty coupled with all those delicious foods taunting you, calling your name... EAT ME... makes it very hard to wield any willpower, or to know what you truly should be buying in order to set yourself up for success (this effect increases if you are hungry!). Instead of going that route - which is really no route at all - sit down and think about what meals you want to be eating in order to fulfill your nutritional goals this week. Then, write down what you will need in order to make those meals and snacks and do not veer from your list no matter how tempting those cinnarolls are.
2) When you get home, pre-prepare all your produce.
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| This is my fridge! |
If you are on a healthy eating plan, I am going to assume that it includes a lot of fruits and veggies. Now, the thing with fruits and veggies is that although they are nutritious and delicious, preparing many of them is a pain in the ass. All that washing, peeling, slicing and dicing... When you get the need to feed and you go over to the fridge and then you see food that is a lot of work, when in your cupboard you know there is food that is fast, hand-to-mouth simple and so-what-it’s-not-as-healthy-I’m-hungry-NOW. Well, you get the idea. It’s a recipe for disaster – again pardon my bad pun.
Instead of leaving this up to chance, what I prefer to do is upon getting home from the grocery store I wash and pre-prepare all my produce. Grapes are pulled of the vines, washed, dried and put into a Tupperware container... Lettuce is washed and shredded and dried as well. Everything!!! Peppers, washed and diced, strawberries, washed and sliced, all produce prepared for use in cooking or ready to eat as a snack. Now on top of all the ease of use, by doing this your fruits and vegetables will last much longer in the fridge than they would in those dinky grocery store plastic bags and also, you are less likely to be throwing out rotten produce because it didn’t get eaten. So you are saving money while getting healthy! Even better.
3) Pre-Cook Your Breakfast.
Breakfast is the most important meal of the day. Consequently, it is also the hardest meal to prepare in a healthy way and then actually eat because of time constraints (never mind motivation constraints) in the morning. But what you probably don’t know it that it is incredibly easy to pre-make delicious breakfasts that will last up to five days in your fridge. I am going to give you two types here:
Breakfast 1: Dice up a half a cup of green onions and leave separate. Then pan fry a cup of diced ham, and a cup of sliced mushrooms, with 1 tsp of olive oil ‘til they are all browned. Hard-boil a dozen eggs, peel the shells off, and throw out half the yolks by splitting the egg in half and popping the yolk out. Mix the whole shebang together with a fork chopping the egg all up, maybe add some pepper if you like. Separate into 6 small containers with lids. These will last up to 5 days in the fridge, you just microwave for 45 seconds and eat in the a.m. So easy. Breakfast 2: Peel, core and dice two regular size apples. Separate into 5 little containers. Add 1/3 of a cup of stone ground oats (not the minute kind, that stuff is no good!), one teaspoon of brown-sugar splenda, as well as a half teaspoon of cinnamon to each container. Shake them well and store in the fridge. When you are ready to eat simply add enough water to almost cover the mixture and microwave for one minute. Voila... Tastes like apple cobbler or apple crisp but is healthy, nutritious, and delicious. You can also substitute any other fruits with regular splenda... Try banana and coconut shreds, or strawberry and peach... Mmmmmm...
4) Make Big Dinners and Plate and Freeze Leftovers.
Since you have worked so hard to make a delicious meal why not enjoy it twice?? You actually could if you just doubled up how much you made. It hardly takes any time to prepare extra when you are doing it already, and if you buy some “covered plate” style containers you can literally freeze a perfect plate of food to eat later when you are in a rush! Think of it as a healthier, home-made, TV dinner.
5) As you use up certain items, add them back on to a grocery list.
Nothing thwarts a healthy eating plan like not having healthy food available to eat. It’s easy once you get into devouring all that pre-prepared, fast, and easy healthy food you made to forget that someone needs to be replacing it! Tack a pen and pad onto the fridge (you can get a magnetic one from the dollar store!) and jot down what you use up as you go. This also gets you used to buying and making the same things, and habits like these are what set you up long term for success.
Hope that you enjoyed my tips...
Happy planning!!
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