How To Get Back On Track: Food

Yesterday I wrote about my goals, including getting back on track with clean eating.  Goals are nice, but here’s a specific action plan.

Action Plan:  Food

1. Remove tempting food from my house.

   

   My kids brought home left over cookies from their end-of-school parties.  I couldn’t have that in the house, so I ate them.  Ok, this was not the best choice for removing tempting food, but it’s out of the house now.

2. Buy healthy food.

   

   Healthy food tip:  shop the perimeter of the store avoiding the aisles where the tempting processed “food” lives.  Clean food = greens (spinach, asparagus, green beans, peppers, kale, etc.), carbs (brown rice, sweet potato, old fashioned oatmeal), protein (chicken, tilapia, turkey, egg whites) and fats (olive oil, avocado).

3. Cook healthy food for the week.  Food prep takes me about 90 minutes, but then I don’t have to think about it for at least a week.

   

4. Eat the food I just cooked.  Sometimes I look at the healthy food I just cooked and then reach for cereal instead.  That’s not really helpful.  Tip:  Cook only your favorite healthy foods the first week.  For me, this includes oatmeal pancakes with fruit for breakfast.

   

5. Drink water.  Given the opportunity I would drink Diet Pepsi all day.  That’s not even remotely beneficial to my body.  So I have to pay little games with my water.

   

   For each event I’m training for I write a little message on the gallon of water and keep it on my counter as a visual cue to 1) show me how much I have to drink by the end of the day and 2) to remind myself why I’m choosing to eat healthier.

6. Limit TV to once per week.  Confession #1:  I’m a binge watcher.  My husband and I will pick a show and then watch three to four episodes plus maybe a SNL episode too, all while eating popcorn (it’s delicious), drinking soda and staying up till 2 a.m.  My husband takes it a step further and will eat chips and dip, ice cream cones and rum and Coke next to me.

   

   Confession #2:  Sometimes I’ll have the chips too.  I’ve tried healthier things like eating pickles and kale chips, but come on!  Kale chips suck!  No one wants to eat kale chips next to someone eating ice cream cones!  So I’m just going to have to avoid the Man Cave (where our TV lives) every day but Sunday, when Game of Thrones is on.

7. Weigh in daily.

   

   Yes, at a certain point the scale means nothing; what matters is how your clothes fit.  But right now, starting back, it is a good reality check.

8. Take weekly progress pictures.  That first progress picture is painful, but twelve weeks into it when you look back at the first one you will realize that consistency pays off.

   

   

9. Allow one cheat meal per week.  You know how you have to puncture holes in a potato before you bake it so it can blow off some steam so it doesn’t explode?  That’s what a cheat meal is.  Live a little.  Go to your friend’s birthday party.  Have a dinner date.  Just once a week and not every day.

   

10. Reward self for following plan.  At the end of the first week I will get my nails painted.  At the end of the month I will get a massage.  (I like rewards.)

That’s my game plan.  If you fell off the clean eating wagon, feel free to hop on board mine this month.

P.S. – My book, “She’s Losing It!” has my first bodybuilding meal plan in it called The Bikini Diet.  I dropped from a size 12 to size 5 using it.

Lisa 😉

Lisa Traugott is a Mom’s Choice Award winning writer, fitness blogger, wife and mom of two.  Her book, “She’s Losing It!”  is available at Amazon.com.

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