Planning for Success!

When trying to tackle the seemingly large goal of changing your lifestyle it will become obvious early on that this is a big endeavour and will have many obstacles.

The first biggest obstacle for many people is time. We are all extremely busy trying to balance a career, education, a family, friends, organizations, etc. and there just seems to be no time to squeeze in health. I understand this is a huge challange and it`s something I`m still working out for myself. It`s definately not easy but I can say that it gets easier as you turn everything into habbits and really make it into a lifestyle change. When eating healthy and being fit becomes your lifestyle you no longer stress over what to do because it becomes automatic for you. You become more efficient as it becomes your `go to` in your daily life. It becomes how you function.

Don`t get me wrong it takes a long time before something becomes a true lifestyle change but it will have huge impacts and benefits in all areas of your life. And being healthy is the best way to teach your kids and everyone around you that you care about how to be healthy, by example. It will put them in a better place for living a long healthy happy life for their kids and loved ones and beyond.


Oops! Back to the topic.....time.

How do we manage our time to eat nutritiously and not drop something else in the process? The key to this is time management. You have to first learn how to be an efficient time manager. In order to do this you have to plan and map everything out ahead of time.

I am sure you can find extra tips along the way that will help you personally with this obstacle however here are the 3 top most important tips in planning for success!

1. Meal Plan: You will need to make a meal plan for yourself and/or your family (weekly/bi-weekly). This includes every meal and every snack. EVERYTHING YOU WILL PUT IN YOUR MOUTH.



2. Schedule: You must schedule your time for cooking, grocery shopping, meal planning, etc. Once you have a meal plan for the week/bi-week you can create a shopping list and go once to the supermarket for everything you need. Doing #1 properly will help you tackle #2 efficiently. If you know you are going to be too busy on Tuesday to cook a healthy meal then prepare a meal on Monday that will last for two days (i.e. make it bigger). If you are busy multiple days in a row then you can always prepare one to two large meals on the free day prior (i.e. Sunday) and freeze it/refrigerate it so that all you have to do is warm it up and enjoy!



3. CHEAT: Make life easier for yourself when possible. If it`s easier to just suck it up and buy the pre-cut veggies/frozen veggies then do it! Your health and your body is worth the extra dollar or two. It will save lots of time in preparing meals and ultimately give you time to accomiplish other things on your to do list. Find shortcuts that can tackle the same thing in less time. If you think about it long term...doing all three will help you eat healthy hearty meals on a daily basis which will cut down or eliminate take out eating all together, which ultimately saves you the most money!
   

Maybe you have other personal challenges keeping you from being healthy but like my mom always says `when there is a will, there is a way`. As long as you have the will to make your health and body a priority (along with help like my blog) you will have no excuse not to succeed.