In order to make a change we need to take action, but often our actions are stymied by life getting in the way. By the end of a given week or day, we find that all kinds of other things got in the way of us getting in some movement or preparing a healthy meal.
Our healthy habits can easily take a back seat to other life priorities if we don’t carve out the time for them. That is where planning comes. Not only does planning help to keep our habits front and center, it also does wonders for helping us to have our own backs and avoid giving in to less healthy temptations. Whether you’re just planning out your dinners weekly to make your grocery shopping easy or you’ve got a daily plan for your water, movement, meditation, vitamins, etc., planning can be that edge you need to create and maintain healthy habits
There are a number of ways planning can help you reach your health goals. Some of these you may be aware of, and some may be new to you:
1) Saves you time and money
You might consider planning your meals and then creating a grocery list to support that plan. That way you know that the food you buy will get used. Nothing is worse than missing an ingredient for a planned meal or having a refrigerator full of rotting vegetables that you purchased with the best intentions and then didn’t plan how to use them up.
We can also plan some food prep time. This is when we can do things like chop all the vegetables we might need for a few meals all at once. Prep time saves on clean-up time as we only need to get that cutting board out once, and it makes the evening meal prep time super quick when a number of our ingredients are ready to go.
2) Keeps your priorities front and center
When we take the time to determine exactly where our healthy habits are going to fit into our week, we make them a priority. For many people, that which goes unscheduled goes undone. This might mean examining the week ahead and scheduling in the healthy habits you’re trying to reinforce e.g. movement, meditation, sleep, medical appointments, even time to make a plan – weekly or daily!
On a daily basis, we might tweak the broader weekly plan to adjust the times of those healthy habits to accommodate other things that have come up. Perhaps your child had you up all night so instead of getting in some movement in the morning, you slept in. No worries, the daily planning time is when you look for another time slot in your day that you can move that planned movement to.
3) Helps you build commitment
You know when you’re hungry and you start cruising the cupboards or the fridge for something to eat? How often do you grab something that is consistent with the way you WANT to be eating vs what you FEEL like eating in the moment? This is where the daily meal plan comes in. You plan everything you’re going to put in your mouth the day before or at least a few hours in advance. This is when your executive brain has your best you at heart. That way in the moment, when your more primitive brain is yelling ‘get me something tasty now’, you already know exactly what you will reach for if you get hungry. This can be something that you’ll feel good about eating. Some days we’ll be hungrier than others but having some boundaries around what we’ll reach for in the moment gives us a leg up on that primitive brain that wants the easy way out.
In order to commit to your daily plan, it must be realistic. If you haven’t eaten a vegetable since 2019, you’re certainly not going to be able to commit to a meal plan that has you eating salads for lunch every day. You need to meet yourself where you’re at and then make small tweaks to up-level your plan when you find you are being successful at committing to what you’ve planned. There are no ‘good’ foods and ‘bad’ foods. There are just foods that we want to include more or less frequently than others. Having a realistic plan to fall back on allows you to leverage what I call the “Not today” strategy. When you’re wanting to eat a food that you’ve committed to eating less frequently, you can simply tell your brain, “Not today. It’s not on our plan.”, then put in on your plan for another day. This way no one is making you eat anything. There is no ‘shoulding’ on yourself. Everything is a choice.
4) Allows tracking your habits
5) Identify food intolerances
6) Free up your mind
Need help designing and implementing a plan to reach your health goals? Give health coaching a try. Book a free consultation to find out if health coaching might be for you.
