Healthy eating plans made easy

Having a healthy eating plan is one thing, but the sad reality is that most people find it extremely challenging sticking to their healthy eating plans or diets

If you’ve struggled and are still struggling with your healthy eating plans, don’t feel bad because you’re NOT alone. Most people have a hard time sticking to a healthy meal plan that will help them maintain a healthy weight for life.

>>> Why it so hard to stick to healthy eating plans?

There are hundreds of valid reasons why most people find it challenging to stick to a diet plan, but there are a few reasons that are quite obvious in keeping people trapped in an undesired weight:

1. There are just too many temptations lurking at each corner ready to set you off course when it comes to your diet. Unless you are aware of the trigger points that push you right into the arms of your favourite comfort foods, it is easy to experience setbacks.

2. Willpower is not all that it’s cracked up to be. Sticking to healthy eating plans is not just about willpower! You really have to have a good reason “why” you want to make changes in your life in order to successfully reach your weight loss goals.

3. Weight loss information overload? Oh yes, I’m sure you must feel the pain of all these nutrition scientists and the “eat this not that” books and all the conflicting data that is reported in the news when it comes to weight loss. Let’s face it, you get so much contradictory information about what you should or should not eat that in the end, you become completely overwhelmed, give up, and end up eating whatever you feel like. It’s no surprise so many people find it challenging sticking to their weight loss meal plans.

>>> How do you remain faithful to a healthy eating plan to maintain a healthy weight?

If you find it challenging to sticking to your healthy diet plans, it might be time for you to try a different (and more successful) approach:

1. The reason why so many people fail at dieting is because it’s difficult to follow the precise rules of a particular diet. It’s far easier to follow sensible guidelines that will set you on the right track (that’s the way most Europeans eat)!

2. Strict New Year’s resolutions to lose weight are a waste of time! Why bother making promises to yourself that you will “never (EVER) again” eat a doughnut, drink a soda, order a double cheeseburger, eat an ice cream Sunday or buy chocolate for the rest of your life. Giving up all of your cheat foods for life might not be the best plan … it’s best to keep them to 10% of your weekly intake of food.

3. Giving up all your temptations will surely lead to dieting failure. Remember that when you predictably give in to temptation, you say to yourself that you’ve failed yet again, and quit even trying to stick to your original plan (your brain feels defeated and find it pointless to keep on eating healthy). If you want to increase your chances of success, why not work on gradually eating fewer doughnuts and triple cheeseburgers and drinking more water and less soda. If you make your healthy eating plan a gradual thing, you automatically increase your level of success.

>>> Best ways to stick to your healthy meal plans!

1. Using a food journal can really be beneficial to help you stick to eating healthy.

2. Have a vision board of foods you know you should be eating more of in order to train your brain to accept them. Basically this entails you writing down and collecting images of the foods you want to eat more of (and not the ones you want to avoid).

3. Have a vision board of what you would look like at your ideal weight. This will help your subconscious mind absorb your new goals and you’ll find it easier to be successful.

4. Introduce new foods slowly. If you don’t eat a lot of veggies, you may want to introduce one new veggie per week instead of doing a 360 all of a sudden.

5. Do your grocery shopping with a list and that will avoid you leaving things to chance.

6. Don’t bring home foods you know you cannot resist – leave it at the grocery store.

7. If you find it challenging making better food choices when you eat out, check out the restaurant’s Web site in advance in order for you to pick out a number of healthier food options without having to deal with the pressure of a waiter standing over you waiting for you to make a decision.

8. You fall off the wagon, dust yourself off and start back on your healthy eating plan the following day. Don’t wait until Monday. Do it the very next day!

Sticking to healthy eating plans can be a huge challenge for a lot of people because of the many temptations, but if you know the “why” you want to drop the weight and if you have a definite set of goals, you’ll automatically increase your chances of success.

Creating healthy meal plans can be quite difficult when you don’t know where to start.

Everywhere you turn, you hear nutrition and health buzz words that sound like:

* eat seasonal foods

* cut out the processed foods

* shop for local foods

* avoid refined sugar

* stay away from simple refined starch

* don’t eat foods with saturated fats

* eat more fruits and vegetables

* cut back your portions to healthier portions

* get out of the supermarket and visit your farmers’ market

* don’t eat this, eat that instead

* don’t eat food that comes from a drive-thru window

* don’t eat too much salt

It’s really no wonder so many people are so confused, they don’t know where to start and as a result, they are paralyzed.

Health meal plans are the only viable solution to take control over your weight and the only way you can even get close to mastering the list that I have above is my planning out your meals well in advance.

Most people decide on what they’ll eat when they get home at night after a very long day at work, but the people who are the most successful plan out their meals in advance and they go their grocery shopping in accordance to what they intend on eating for the coming week.

Health meal plans prevent that panic feeling you have at night when you realize you have nothing in your refrigerator to eat, yet you have a family of four to feed.

Health meal plans will also help reduce if not eliminate the number of times you rely on unhealthy take away/take out foods (aka convenience foods) that are loaded with fat, salt and sugar.

Health meal plans can easily be integrated in your life by taking a few hours on Saturday or Sunday to cook or pre-cook your meals for the entire week.

There are thousands of healthy recipes that can be thrown together in 20 minutes or less; you can also plan ahead to make large portions of slow-cooking foods like soups, stews, and large meat cuts on a Saturday or Sunday afternoon, then freeze individual portions for easy meals on busier days.

Planning out your meals in advance will also ensure that you plan out healthy lunches. You’ll not only save a lot of money, but you’ll also be better able to control what you eat.

Health meal plans should be a family thing. Involve your partner and make sure to include your kids. Kids learn by modelling their parents. By including them in the meal preparation (even if they end up sitting at the kitchen island and watch you prepare), they’ll end up with a better appreciation of what they eat. These kinds of valuable lessons will ensure that your kids don’t end up turning 18, leaving for university studies and only know how to zap a frozen dinner in the microwave!

Healthy meal plans prepared as a family will strengthening the family bond and help you spend quality time with your kids.

I make a point each week to plan out my recipes and prepare the list of ingredients I need to buy to prepare one week’s worth of healthy meals. I’ve learned many years ago that it was the best way to cut back on multi-grocery shopping trips and on buying meals at the food court.

Healthy meal plans start with making the commitment to yourself, your body and your family that you’ll make healthy eating a priority!