It's that time of year again.  Time for everyone to make resolutions that, while good intended, are usually set up to fail from the get go. Don't get me wrong, the New Year is a great time to reflect, set new goals, plan life changes and reinvigorate a fitness regimen.  Maybe even you'll vow to blog again.

A 2007 study by Richard Wiseman from the University of Bristol involving 3,000 people showed that 88% of those who set New Year resolutions fail, despite the fact that 52% of the study's participants were confident of success at the beginning.  Wikipedia

Last year I made a resolution or new years goal of sort to blog 3x a week.  I had just come off of 36 days in a row of blogging and I thought I was committed to the cause.  What I lacked was a daily strategy to get it done.  It was easy to get it done during the holidays when I finally had a little more time, but by not setting up a designated time on one day or 3 days to churn out contact, I think I did ONE POST, and then let it go.

ONE FREAKING POST!!!  It's not like I ran out of stuff to say, I just failed to give myself a strategy to get it done.

97% of all resolutions are about losing weight or getting fit.  Me

This seems like a realistic number supported by Facebook and other stuff.  I don't need a survey to know that most everyone wants to lose a little weight or be more fit than they are on today December, 29th, 2014.  Below I am going to give you one of a ton of different strategies you can use to actually have a chance at success in 2015.  FOR FREE!!!  Save the cash you were going to spend on a fad diet, "P90x light", and "3 min abs" and throw all of your efforts into the food you eat.  Or send me the cash.  I need stuff.

Before I get into the meat of this, I am going to give you a piece of insight.  While many of you think I eat nary a french fry or piece of cake, you'd be wrong.  My family is no different than yours.  My kids don't like a damn thing, my wife works, and there are multiple nights a week when we are saying "where are we going for dinner?" because life gets in the way.  Eating right is all about planning and if you don't plan, you get home and eat a handfull of almonds, 4 wheat thins and bowl of cereal while drinking a beer and yelling at everyone because your blood sugar is so low you're close to calling social services on yourself.  It happens to everyone.

MAKE A FOOD PLAN-DON'T YELL AT YOUR KIDS-could be a new t-shirt at my house.

I will be making some fancy looking spreadsheets and planning guides soon that I'll charge you an arm and a leg for, but until then here are my top tips for food planning, set to the structure of a week.  Good luck, and feel free to add questions in the comments either here or on the FB.

1.  PLAN A MENU-I am going to go SUN-SAT for this and you will see why soon.  The strategy is to cook less, not more.

• BREAKFAST-I have a list of 4-5 things I eat every single day for breakfast.  Eggs everyday, then either a english muffin, smoothie, fruit, etc.  I'd say I eat oatmeal, but I hate that shit.  I recommend it though!  On the weekends I'll make greek yogurt pancakes or a shit ton of  homemade waffles (for the kids) so they have something they like all week.  I want my kids to eat well, but I'm closer to solving the Middle East Peace issue than I am to getting them to eat great food all the time.  Unless you have kids like that annoying Food Babe, your kids likely want some waffles.  Use maths to up the volume,  and premake a dry mix in bulk.  Sneak in whole wheat flour if you want, but really homemade is better than box garbage.
• LUNCH-Eat leftovers-which if you do as I say, will be plentiful. If you are downtown eat @ FRESHJUNKIE.

DINNER- Plan to make a bunch of one protein on Sunday.  I usually recommend grilled chicken as you can then use for sandwiches, Tuesdays dinner, salads and the like.  Buy ziploc and as you cook that stuff, make a bag for lunches and to be used later.  Simple.  I use steam in the bag veggies alot.  3 mins and I have green beans.  If you are nice, I may share some recipes later that will help you mix this up a bit.  I usually add salt and pepper.  Pretty crazy right?  Shoot to make a new meal on Sunday, Monday and Friday.  Then use items from Sunday for Tuesday, Monday's items from Wednesday.   See below for an example:

SUNDAY-Grilled Chicken (8-12 breasts for the whole week)/Green Beans/WW Pasta w/ Olive Oil and Parmesan MONDAY-Grilled Pork Tenderloin/Grilled Asparagus/Roasted New Potatoes TUESDAY-Chicken Pasta w/ Grilled Asparagus/Green Salad WEDNESDAY-Pork and Green Bean  Stir Fry/Brown Rice THURSDAY-Flank Steak Fajitas/Crock Pot Black Beans/Guac/Brown Rice FRIDAY-Dine out/Leftovers SATURDAY-Dine out/Leftovers/PLAN/SHOP

2.  Figure out your shopping day and where you have to go.   When I shop I go to 3-4 places.  A produce stand or farmers market, whole foods, sams/costco, and a grocery store.  Sound excessive and time consuming?  It can be.  I am also not willing to pay $8 for asparagus at whole foods, so I get that at the produce stand along with fruit which is always overpriced.  I make a list from my menus and fill in my shopping sheet by store and further by store aisle.  When I am in that store, I don't veer off the list.  I can get into and out of each store in 15-20 mins including checkout if I don't go off the list.  Get your goods and get out.  Remember, those effers at little debbie know you will be standing in line at the register and see an end cap full of star crunches and hope you are also starving and pissed at the world.  They have research that says you'll soothe your pain with a zebra cake.  For god's sake eat a snack or meal before you go shopping (this tip alone will save you a shit ton of $$ and calories).

3.  KIDS-When we were young, we all had our parents say, "I hope when you have kids they do 'insert ridiculous bad behavior here.'"  Well mom, my picky eating has come home to roost in grand form.  I'm more likely to figure out how to quell global warming than figure out how to get kids to like certain foods, and to be honest, I am still hella picky.  I'll tackle kids eating in another post soon.  For the time being, just throw them one of those zebra cakes I know you bought.  Can't win em all.  :)

hugs + high fives + happy new year

PF