Sticking to Healthy Eating Long Term

Here's a quick short cut to help you keep on track, avoiding the need to diet.

One of the keys to sustainable fitness is having a menu of meals that you:

• Genuinely love eating

• Know how to cook/are willing to prepare

• Serve your fitness goals (anchored with protein and veggies, prepared in appropriate portion sizes)

Just how many meals do you need in your menu?

11.

Only kidding.

There’s not really a specific number. You need enough options that you don’t get bored AND that give you enough variety in your diet. Based on your personal need for variety, it’s probably in the range of 7-20. But if you crave variety and want even more, go to town!

When one is all-in on their fitness and living an over powering life, sometimes meals look like this: “250 grams of meat, 22 cashews, 17 grapes, and two capsules of fish oil.”

Now if you enjoy that kind of eating... go for it! But most of us prefer to eat things that are more recognizable as "meals." And ideally these are meals you genuinely love to eat, not that you begrudgingly swallow down.

The annoying part: this takes time.

You have personal flavour preferences, your own set of cooking skills, your own wiring as to how much time and energy you want to put into food prep and may need to cook for more than one. So you'll have to build this menu out over time. And based on your goals, you may have to tweak recipes by doing things like nudging up protein and veggie portions, and slightly reducing higher calorie ingredients.

One (purely optional!) way to go about doing this: each week, prepare 1 (maybe) 2 new recipes. Not all of them will be amazing. Some will simply be quick, with enough flavour to keep everyone happy.

But over time, you'll build a personal "menu" that fits the above description.

This could be a great — and possibly even fun! — activity to do over the weekend when you have a bit more time. Perhaps you can do it with a friend or involve the family spending some quality time together.

BONUS PRO TIP: If you eat out and/or get delivery a lot, create a menu of your go-to items that you love eating AND that support your fitness goals. This means you’ll have great options for when life happens and/or you just don’t feel like cooking for yourself.

(Or when you try a recipe and it doesn't pass the edible test))