Time for the pledge: “I’ll never eat pizza again!” Yeah right.

The food you eat when life is just taking too long!

Your meal plan is one of the cornerstones of your fitness routine. If you think of your body as a car, compare your food to the gas you buy. You wouldn’t put kerosene in your car’s tank, but in essence that’s what we do with our bodies when we fill them with junk food. Successful meal planning doesn’t have to be difficult. With a little homework and some common sense, figuring out the “what and when” of your meal plan should be fairly easy.

When determining what to include in your meal plan, the first thing that I recommend is making a mental list of the foods that you don’t like. This may sound strange, but consider this: if you hate broccoli but you make it a part of your meal plan because it’s healthy, I can guarantee that you’ll be cheating on your plan within three days. Unless you are a very fussy eater, you should still have a wide array of foods to choose from. Make a list of all the foods that you eat or would like to eat, and from this range of food choices, you can cross off chilidogs, donuts and the like. (These represent the kerosene in the gas tank!) What’s left to choose from? Lean beef and pork, fish, poultry, eggs, milk, butter and just about every fruit, vegetable and grain imaginable! My rule of thumb: if you can’t pronounce the ingredients, don’t eat it!

Now that you have all of these great food choices, when should you be taking them on board? Unlike some animals, humans are not designed to gorge themselves with as much food as possible. We function much better by grazing, i.e.: having a small meal every three to four hours. Remember, these meals don’t have to be big sit-down affairs. While you may still have the traditional (but smaller!) breakfast, lunch and dinner, you can easily add in a piece or two of fruit or some nuts as small snacks. Your body stays happy because it’s always getting food in appropriate quantities. You’re happy because you never get very hungry. What about restaurants? With restaurants serving absolutely enormous portions, don’t feel that you need to be a member of the “Clean Plate Club.” Most meals served in a restaurant are more than sufficient to feed two or more people. Utilize the free to-go box and take it home. You’ll thank yourself later!

Time for the pledge: “I’ll never eat pizza again!” Yeah right. You will eat pizza again. And you’ll have some fries, also. Just don’t make these foundation foods. If 80% of your meals are made up of good natural foods, you don’t have to feel bad about the occasional bit of junk. Work yourself up to 80% wholesome. You’ll be amazed at the difference!

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How to Fail at Fitness -And Sabotage Yourself All the Way Down

Most people who decide to “get healthy” will be back to their old habits in about a month. They start off with good intentions, but can’t seem to break their old lifestyle habits. Why is this? Getting started with a new fitness plan should be easy, right? While it may not be technically difficult to get yourself going, it can be easy to sabotage yourself with your own enthusiasm. Trying to do too much too soon, whether physically or mentally, is the easiest way to kill your motivation.

Your body can only take so much at any one time. If you haven’t been physically active for a while, you should take it slow with your new exercises. While the exercises may seem easy at first, they apply unexpected stress to your body. Overdoing it won’t help you progress faster, but it will make you very sore and you won’t be very enthusiastic about going back to the gym. Let your body get used to exercising! If you ease into it, you’ll be more likely to stick with your program.

“Too much too soon” also applies to your mental game. A common set of goals usually reads something like this: “I’m going to exercise every day, eat six small healthy meals a day and get eight hours of sleep every night.” Wow! Great idea, but too much too soon! While you should definitely have these goals in mind, they are long-term goals. If you don’t exercise, eat poorly and get five hours of sleep a night, you’ll be trying to change three major habits all at once. Try accomplishing them one at a time instead. When I have a new client, I tell him or her to just worry about getting in the gym and to forget about meal planning for about a month. Trust me, exercising three or four days per week is going to be a big enough adjustment! After the exercise habit has developed, then we can start working on the meal planning.

If you have set some lofty goals for yourself, that’s great! You should be congratulated for just making the effort, but nobody climbed Everest by running straight for the top. Climb your personal Everest in stages and you’ll have a much better shot at reaching the top.