Making Healthy Eating Happen: Planning Meals and Snacks (part 1)

I'm all for deciding to change your eating habits and then suddenly everything falls into place. The only problem is - it doesn't happen that way. You may not want to hear this but if you want to start trimming your middle and properly fuel your workouts, you're going to have to do some planning and shopping with that in mind.

One great way to get started on that is to use the healthful eating chalice I introduced in a previous post: http://45yearold6pack.blogspot.com/2007/11/nutrition-101-road-to-40-something.html

I use this graphic as a guidepost for shopping, preparing food and for deciding what to eat either in advance or on the fly. So, for instance, I make sure I drink enough water throughout the day to keep my urine (sorry - but we all have it so grow up!) relatively pale or clear. Next, I plan to have veggies at least three times a day (I eat 6-10 times a day, so that's veggies with about half my meals or snacks.)

To make that happen, I keep the following foods handy:

- frozen mixed veggies
- frozen chopped spinach
- fresh salad greens
- fresh cherry tomatoes, baby carrots and snap peas (I call this a pocket salad)
- broccoli and cauliflower to eat with hummus

I also occasionally make a delicious veggie soup (watch for it in a future post) and keep a running list of the veggie-heavy dishes at the restaurants I go to most often.

The next area of focus for me is protein. Watch for the lean protein "hot list" to be revealed in a post next week.

See you soon...