Being Planful

Let's talk about being planful.

I feel I have been largely successful lately because I'm pretty planful with my food. I use My Fitness Pal (MFP) mostly for meal PLANNING....not just logging calories. Each day I put in what I plan to eat the next day. Each Sunday (or whatever day I do my weekly food planning), I usually fill out a little bit of an entire week on MFP. For example, today I put into MFP for tomorrow already what I'm eating. I did the same thing yesterday for today.

I don't always stick to what I put in, but it helps me remember what to pack for lunch and what my options for dinner might be. Sometimes I change what I planned because of last minute lunch or dinner plans. Sometimes I change things just because I don't feel like eating whatever I put into MFP. Tonight, for example, I ate A LOT of calories (for me right now, over 1050 calories is A LOT). I had planned to eat shrimp & chicken. However, I had some steak left over I had to cook up and I had bought some Ambassador natural casing beef hotdogs the other day & cooked up 2 of them (I LOVE these..."Ambassador hotdogs" were a TOTAL treat for us when we were kids over the regular 99cent packages of hotdogs - you know the "lips and asshole" hotdogs as my dad used to call them!). I did eat the steamed broccoli and the shrimp I had planned on eating, but I substituted steak & hotdogs for the chicken. The protein content was not impressive but the calorie content (especially fat calories) was more than usual for me. However, I could have really blown things and went to get a big sloppy burger with bacon. The weiners hit the spot for that, so instead of close to 1000 calories for ONE meal, I stuck to about 450 for one meal. AND I got 2 cups of good healthy veggies in too for 50 more calories.

I think success in eating right comes less from willpower and making on the spot good choices but more from being planful and expecting to eat what is planned - or at least getting excited about what is planned, especially if you season it enough to make it quite savory.

When I go out of town next week, I'll have packed in my checked bag Ideal Protein for each day, all planned out. I will also include extra packets incase I have the feeling I need more food. Sometimes I do that- because sometimes naturally our bodies NEED more food than normal in a day. I anticipate doing a lot of walking and that will deplete a lot of my nutrients. I'll also pre-plan what I could order at restaurants. I already know where we are eating for 3 of the evenings and I've checked their menus already. I'm set. I'm also going to enjoy myself and make good on-the-spot choices as well because as long as I'm planful about the majority of my meals, those on the spot decisions are far easier and more in tune to what I want.

SO...being planful is very much like setting a goal and achieving the goal. It's just a good habit to have in life too. I am even planful about what I might wear each day -as long as I have a good idea of what I might wear in a week, I can make on the spot decisions quickly each morning to go with whatever whim my brain wants to do on that day. That's the same with vacations for me. I like planning what I COULD do and then just let the wind take me where ever my little heart may desire on those on-the-spot decision moments. Using My Fitness Pal as a tool to help me stick to my goals is a far better tool for me than just logging what I eat...I like to use it to plan my meals and how I'm spacing out my calories in a day. That's a life long skill I can use forever.