Eat to FIT

Meal planning is crucial for the sustainability of your fitness. Eating the right things at the right time is key to staving cravings and keeping the body nourished and the metabolism cranking. 

Some people "eat to live" and others "live to eat", I like to think of myself as a "eat to fit" guy.

I do love my food, haven't touched a Macca's burger in a while (since a certain friends baby was born this year), but I'm sure I'd still ho one down given the right circumstances.

So what do I mean by "eat to fit"?

Eating to FIT into your schedule, eating to stay FIT and eating to FIT your FITness goals. Do you think I got enough FIT in there?

Anyway... I'm lucky enough to have a desk job that allows me to get up and head to the lunch room to grab my morning tea, lunch and arvo tea, throughout the day. I enjoy a fairly mundane repeat meal base through my working day, Monday to Friday. This is fantastic! I set myself up for a weeks' worth of food and store it in the fridge and then take a days' worth each morning in a cooler bag, destined for the work fridge. That's not to say that the meals aren't yummy or varied in some way, they are nutrient rich and correct (goal dependant) sized for each meal.

But what about if you only get morning tea and lunch?

What if you are always on the road?

What if you hardly work and spend your time at home or away from home?

"eat to fit!" so get a cooler bag and an ice block and take your meals mobile, make all of your meals as if you are going to take them to work or not and keep the routine while at home, include arvo tea and morning tea meals that don't need refrigerating and keep them at your desk to eat at the right time.

OK so what about eating to fit on the weekend? Well know your weekend is the first thing. If you know you are heading to a friends house for a barbeque on a Saturday night, plan for this, eat your breakfast at the right time, have your morning tea snack as close to the right time as possible (this can be hard if you have suffered from a case of the sleep in), lunch on time and have a smaller arvo snack. Eat minimal pre BBQ snacks (unless they are super healthy, but still, best not to spoil the main event) and then limit all of the unhealthy condiments and bulk up on the good salads to balance the meaty goodness of the BBQ.

What if you're going to the cinemas on a Sunday arvo? Stick with your routine, and make sure you have a good healthy snack BEFORE you head out. Things like frozen cokes, popcorn, chocolate bars and the appeal of that $1 upgrade need to be limited.

Everything really comes back to the planning of your food intake, not so much the calorie counting and carbs v's fat (that can be left to the formula set out for your goal), if you "eat to fit" and plan what is going to happen, you will stay hunger free and guilt free from one gym session to the next.