The Fit stop here.... but do they meal plan?

Fitness is awesome! It's needed. It's so important!

Fitness alongside nutrition is unbeatable! It's life-altering! It's, many times, life-saving. That sounds like an exaggeration, but there are a great many who would agree with that statement.

Ok. Let's pretend we all have the fitness part down and we're rocking out the workouts. But our nutrition, ehhh, not so much. What can we do to make sure our bodies are being fueled properly to preform the exercises correctly and to get all the benefits?

Because this is bound to happen: there may be days when we stand in front of our fridge wondering what to make for supper and then we throw our hands up in frustration and end up cooking chicken fingers. Or we find ourselves buying lunch everyday because we never know what to take from home.

Enter in the concept of MEAL PLANNING!

Scary to some. A breath of fresh air for others. Depending on our personalities, meal planning can be a burdensome chore or it can just be as easy as brushing our teeth. The thing is we need to find out what works best for us.

Let's look at a few scenarios on how we can make meal planning a part of our lives to benefit us, not just to give us more work to do.

• We all need to buy groceries. Whether we go every week or every other week, we need to replenish things and buy new things. A good time to meal plan is when making a grocery list. That way we can add any items needed for the meal(s) on the list.
  

• We all have pantry items. One day a week, we can look through them and come up with some great recipes either by memory or looking online/cookbook using the pantry items. We make a list of meals and voila. A plan.
  

• We all have schedules, dates, appointments, somewhere we need to be. Every week we can take a day, go over times and plan around them what we will eat, where we will eat, and when we will eat. It truly removes the stress out of the moment.
  

• Maybe we are among those who are very visual. So, we get a whiteboard and place it in the kitchen. Now, there's no reason to ever forget what we planned because it's all there in front of our eyes.

  
  

• Now, do we plan every meal we eat? Or just the bigger ones? It's up to the individual. Planning can encompass 1, 2, 3 or more meals a day. Maybe we eat the same thing every morning, so meal 1 doesn't need planning. Maybe we have a large family so the evening meal needs to be planned. If we are on a weight loss/gain journey, we need to plan differently. There are also lot of factors that can be weighed in on, but we'll stop here for now.

  
  

If you have any questions, please feel free to reach out!! Myself, Glenda or Adrienne would be happy to help.

I hope some of these tips do help you though. It can be frustrating and a bit confusing when we start planning, but then it becomes old hat.

PSA's

It's mid-month. Don't forget to enter the Birthday Draw if you celebrate in September!

Challenge time!! 6-week FALL INTO HEALTHY HABITS TEAM CHALLENGE starts the 22nd!! Register today to be put on a team. Compete for points with daily and weekly challenges!

Remember our App. It allows happens there. Sside.ca/FitStopApp

Thanks everyone for your loyalty and support at FitStop!

Your coach,

Tracy