There are lots of 'Top Tips' out there for losing weight but one of the most common phrases I hear from my clients is "I must get myself organised and plan some meals". Little do they realise the importance of what they have just said. The fact is that because they are not planning their meals ahead, they are making on the spot decisions about their lunches and their evening meals and worse still, they are making these decisions when they are hungry!
Deciding what you want to eat when you are hungry is fatal. This one thing alone can absolutely sabotage your diet in an instance, especially if you are in a supermarket at the time. Diet and plan is something that I always recommend to clients and is one of the most important keys to weight loss and as such should be exactly what you are thinking from day one of your plan. You need to choose your weight reducing programme ensuring that it's the right plan for you and then you need to get your diet meals planned in advance.
I've always called this method of working "diet, plan, diet, plan". You'll begin to understand the significance of both the words and the actions pretty much as soon as you start using this clever little trick.
Supermarkets are designed to make you buy food and lots of it whether you need it or not. They are laid out to entice you into the isles to purchase the gorgeous foods that they have to offer. Have you ever noticed how you pop into the supermarket to buy a pint of milk and a loaf of bread and come out having spent £50? This is because they are professionals at selling their wares and if you are hungry when you go into the supermarket then they've got you even before you've set foot through the doorway. Resulting in you buying what you went in for and lots of other calorific and tasty foods too.
Now strangely enough the answer is really simple but one that many people find so hard to implement. All you need to do is sit down for 5 minutes before you do your weekly shopping and decide what you are going to cook and eat each day that week. Then write everything you need down on a list, go to the supermarket and buy everything on the list - nothing else, just the items that are on that list.
Then when you return home from work each evening that week, you'll be in a position to cook every healthy meal that you intended to, without excuse, because everything you need to fulfill that plan is right there in the house. Plus because you already know what you are going to be cooking that night you can begin to look forward to it during the day and your thoughts won't begin wondering off onto other more calorific meals.
Working in this way stops the cycle of shopping on the way home from work and buying the first easy to cook meal you see sat on the shelf because you're struggling for ideas and starving hungry. No, diet and planning means that you are organised and you will without a doubt benefit through your weight loss programme from being so organised. It also means that you will remember to buy fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, the wholemeal produce, the wholegrain items and the healthy snacks which will benefit your family too.
But remember before you visit the supermarket for that weekly shop you must ensure that you have eaten sufficient food prior to your visit to stop you purchasing all the other foods that you really don't need.
When you practice working in this way, you don't need to make any of the meals in advance, you just simply need to have the food in your cupboards to enable you to make a particular meal each evening or your pack up each day. Practicing this little trick will also help to save you money because you will only purchase what you need and what you are going to use that week which means that you won't find yourself throwing out food at the end of the week that you bought thinking you would use.
You could even take this one step further and try ordering via the internet and have it delivered to your door which could save you even more time, money and the temptation of buying anything surplus to requirement. Then with the extra time that you have gained yourself you could go and do some kind of exercise, benefitting your weight loss programme even further.
And finally, there is a further pay off for using the trick "diet, plan, diet, plan" and that is that once you have planned your meals for the first couple of weeks, you can start to rotate the meals around adding in extra ones as you go. This ultimately builds up a bank of healthy meal options which then takes away my personal number one pet hate about cooking which is 'what to cook each night!" Having a bank of healthy meals to choose from does make life so much more simple and enjoyable. Good luck!
