What is the ultimate secret to crushing your nutrition and fitness goals?
PLAN!
Every time I go off track with my nutrition, I can guarantee it was due to lack of planning. I would forget meals or have very small meals that left me starving by midday or the end of the day leaving me in a fit of hanger. My clients have also experienced the same thing. This is often faced with SO many excuses. Reality? They just didn’t plan.
Yes I understand crazy scenarios but 9/10 times, going off track could have been prevented if they had just planned their day/week out.
Why is planning important? It keeps you accountable literally 24/7 and keeps you moving forward at all times. It’s like your own personal helicopter mom bustling you around all day… it’s wonderful… if you actually take advantage of it.
Creating new habits is hard. Losing weight isn’t easy. Changing your nutrition just doesn’t happen overnight. It happens after repetition after repetition. You don’t just eat a broccoli and go “oh wow! I’m healthy now” or “oh! I’ve lost all the weight I wanted to lose”. It would be great if it was that easy… but it’s not. It requires breaking old habits and establishing new ones. That’s not easy!! So it takes a ton of effort on your part to adhere to these new habits and repeat them enough times so that they become natural and second-nature.
Let’s look at some of the most common excuses I hear as to why people fail their nutrition/fitness game:
“I’m too busy to eat or to workout”
No you’re likely not too busy. You just don’t plan enough ahead of time or make it a priority to fit within your schedule.
“I forgot to eat”
No, you didn’t plan your meals or day ahead of time to set you up for success for the day.
“I didn’t have anything good to eat.”
Because your Sunday wasn’t spent meal prepping every single day making sure all days and meals were accounted for. I am not perfect at meal prepping, so I will allow some leniency, BUT you should still be planning the night ahead for a game plan.
“I was tired”
This is a really easy excuse to give for not going to the gym… and believe me I have used that excuse appropriately. I support listening to your body if you need an early or an extra rest day. If you got 3 hours of sleep, definitely take a day off.
What you don’t want to do is snooze that alarm because you simply don’t want to get out of bed or just drive home after work because you had a long day. The second these excuses start working, the harder it is each day for you to resume those new habits.
“It’s just too much food. I can’t eat that much.”
Sorry, no you just choose not to. We live in a world where most of us under-eat, SO to rebuild new habits of actually eating food, you have to work hard and PLAN those meals out. You’re not going to intuitively go from eating two 200 calorie meals to 4-5 400 calorie meals. At the start, YES it will seem like a lot of food and if you go all day without eating and then have to fit 1200 calories in for dinner 2 hours before bed, yes you will feel like garbage… but that’s not my fault. It’s yours for not planning those meals out and ensuring you’re eating enough at the right times evenly spaced throughout the day.
“My job doesn’t allow me to”
This is just as common as the one above. I work with people of all professions: students, nurses, doctors, stay at home moms, caterers, firefighters, you name it. ALL of them make their nutrition a priority and make it work. They find the time to eat. If a doctor or nurse can do it or my caterer who runs around bossing it up at events for as much as 10 hours, then you can, too!
This is where individualized nutrition plans succeed over every approach. Templated meals or meal plans provide a structure that works for some people but not for everyone especially those with busy lives. My clients are not stopping mid-surgery or event to eat. We’re fueling around these events so they can do their jobs. It’s possible… but again it takes A TON of planning.
My caterer is the best example for this. She’s honest with me. She simply won’t find the time to eat during an event. We tried several things before getting to this conclusion. We tried sneaking one meal in, just eating snacks, 2-3 meal replacement bars during the event, nothing worked. She still felt terrible and had a “hangover” the next day. SO here’s what we decided to do. Say she has a 10-hr event or 2-3 back-to-back events on Saturday. Friday, she “refeeds” with 100g extra carbs in addition to her usual macros. This is about an extra 400-500 calories. Saturday, she simply gets through the day. I encourage a breakfast if possible and drinking water throughout the event. Saturday night, no matter what, she is required to get a meal in, whether it is a large or small meal, just something. Sunday, she goes back to her normal macros if she’s feeling good. If she has that hangover feeling, then she does another refeed, this time only 50g carbs extra.
Friday-Saturday-Sunday are not 2,000 calories across the board. One day is 2500, the next day is 500-1000 and the day after is ~2500. This leaves us with a net weekend caloric intake of roughly 6,000 calories, same as if she’d eaten 2,000 every day… only this actually works with her schedule.
Planning is a wonderful thing. ALL successful people do it. If you’re feeling stuck or lost, then planning out your day and week is essential. For you “busy” people out there, the more time you plan ahead of time, the more time you actually have to be “busy”. Imagine the amount of time you spend thinking of what you’re going to eat that meal then the time you take to prepare it… if you plan those meals ahead of time, then you get all of that time back!
1. Take 1-2 hours on Sunday to meal prep
2. While your food is cooking, take 30 minutes to plan your week and all you plan to get done. Include workouts and even bedtimes!
3. Plan 2-3 big tasks you want or need to achieve this week.
4. Every night, go into MyFitnessPal or whatever tracking app you use and log your food you plan to eat. This will ensure 100% success the next day.
These four steps are crucial to crushing your nutrition goals. You do this and you’ll be astounded at how much more productive and mentally sane you are!