Less than eight weeks ago, I weighed 450 pounds.  Today, I weigh in at 417.4 pounds.  The question I keep getting asked is, “What’s your secret?”  I’m not working out.  I’m not starving myself.  I’m not on any pills or “vitamins” to assist with weight loss and I’m not on any crash diet.  The secret is:  six weeks ago my wife and I decided to make changes to our lifestyle that are both sustainable and long term.

Unfortunately, the pace of our lives does not support the changes that we have made.  Both of us have professional jobs and work very odd hours throughout the week.  So, I understand when anyone tells me, “I just don’t have time for all that.”  However, understanding doesn’t mean I agree.  Let me tell you something, everybody has excuses, but none of them are really any good.  Today, my wife suggested that I share a couple tips that we have learned along the way to make things as easy as possible.

• Plan ahead.
  • Take the time to plan out your meals (including calories, fats, protein, carbohydrates, etc.) for the week.  If you know what you are going to eat and that’s what you have available, you put a bridal on all that emotional eating and spontaneous snacking.
• Shop weekly.
  • My wife and I go shopping every Sunday.  While this may lead to a temptation to spend MORE on food than normal if you are used to shopping less often, it will help to keep the frozen stuff to a minimum.  Fresh meats, vegetables, and fruit all equate to quicker preparation and BETTER TASTE.   Get in the habit of having a good idea how your week of meals is going to look and buy the things you NEED, not the things that look good.
• Eat more food.
  • Emotional eating and spontaneous snacking can be incredibly damaging to a healthy lifestyle.  My wife and I eat three meals and two snacks every day.  We are aware of the calories we want to have for each of those five food interactions and how that food is going to impact our bodies.  When I started this, I vowed I would find a way to do it without being hungry.  Thanks to fresh vegetables and a finding better relationships with protein and carbs, we have taught ourselves  how to eat foods that fill us up and keep us feeling energized throughout the day.
• Prepare… Everything… Early…
  • After our Sunday afternoon trip to the grocery store, my wife and I take the time to sit down and chop, weigh, and separate into lunch or snack bags all of our snacks for the week.  Whether we are getting our lunch together in the morning or we are grabbing a snack while still around the house, it’s READILY available for us to grab and go.  By limiting access to unhealthy snacks and placing

    healthy snacks at our fingertips, we enable ourselves to stay on track throughout the busy week.

• Prepare… Everything… Early!
  • OK… maybe this isn’t a separate recommendation at all, but I did this to highlight the importance of this habit in keeping us on track.  In addition to preparing our snacks for the week, we also take the time to cut, weigh, and prepare our chicken for the first several days of the week.  By having fresh ground beef and pre-cooked chicken in the refrigerator, we are able to have 90% of our meals on the dinner table in just about six minutes.  Thanks to this habit, we are able to have a plethora of healthy options to carry us through through lunch on Friday  which leaves open the option for a nice evening out or making a fresh dinner together at home to finish out our crazy week.

Life is busy and it seems that we are always needed somewhere other than the place we most want to be.  However, we are learning new ways every day to make healthy eating fast and sustainable despite our hectic lives.  We hope you’ll find our tips useful and begin to adapt these tips to your own life.  We also hope you’ll share the tips you’ve learned with us. For now, though, it’s back to taking my life back…

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