68 Part I: Eating Right with Every Bite
Discovering Why to Plan Ahead
“If you fail to plan, you plan to fail.” You’ve probably heard this quote before.
In no case is it more appropriate than when you’re planning your meals. If
you don’t adequately plan for healthy, quick, and convenient meals, achieving
your weight loss goal is going to be very difficult.
No one said this weight loss journey was going to be easy. You didn’t get to
the point in your life where surgery was an option by really thinking about
what and when you were going to eat a week in advance. Mealtime was
probably a “whatever is handy, quick, and cheap” proposition. Planning
meals ahead of time may be a foreign concept for many of us who lead busy
lives (and who doesn’t these days?).
Not to worry! We’re going to give you the tools to be able to plan meals. It
will take a little work at first, but trust us, you will come to love being able to
go to the grocery only once a week. Fast food will come to have a whole new
meaning! You’ll enjoy having fresh, healthy foods at your fingertips. Eating
nutrient-rich foods on a daily basis will give you more energy and time and
just make you feel better in general.
You save time
How much time do you spend each day thinking about what you’re feeding
yourself and/or your family? It may be more time than you think. You can
make the process much more efficient and take all the guesswork out of each
meal by taking a little time one day a week and planning your meals for the
week. You no longer spend time wandering the aisles at the grocery store
trying to figure out what you want to prepare. There are no more dashes to
the store for a forgotten ingredient, and there’s no need to thaw something
last-minute for a meal. With planning, it’s already done.
Most families prepare the same seven or so meals over and over. The first
thing to do is to write down everything you and your family eat in a typical
week. Then examine the list and identify places where you can substitute
healthier ingredients, prepare something in a different way, or add more
nutritious components for a more balanced diet. Of course, we don’t expect
you to completely change everything you eat, but making a number of small
changes can add up to big improvements.
Commit to trying new recipes as well (like the ones in this book). You could
make Sunday night “new recipe night” at your house and try at least one new
recipe each week. Then add to your “library” of menus as you find recipes you
and your family like.
