Happy New Year!
I hope you’ve been enjoying the holidays these past few weeks. I know I have been, but I’m excited to get back to a normal routine for sure.
I finished my first workout of the year today and it didn’t go down without some super fun pants!
These were a favorite Christmas gift of mine because as a teenager I was obsessed with the Backstreet Boys. I think they helped my workout. :)
Today was day 3 of the Hammer and Chisel program that I plan to complete from start to finish. It’s a tough program but I’m loving the challenge (and the muscle soreness) so far.
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What I really wanted to chat about today was how to keep your eating in check all year long. The new year means that a lot of people are setting goals to lose weight, exercise more, eat healthy, etc. It’s easy to start out full blast but then lose steam in the next month or so, so I’ve come up with tips that help me stay on track with nutrition throughout the year.
How to Control Eating Habits
Log your meals in MyFitnessPal.
I love MyFitnessPal! If you haven’t heard of it, it’s a FREE app that you can use to log your meals. The database is HUGE. You can also add in your own recipes that you prepare to make sure all of your meals are accounted for. If you aren’t used to tracking your food and you fear you’re consuming too many calories, MFP will help you see where you are and where you should be for the goals you set. It’s awesome and it’s super easy to log meals. I have it synced up with my Fitbit Charge 2 for even more awesomeness. If you’d like to connect, I’m still “missmelinda” over there. I’ll happily accept a request.
Invest in portion control containers.
I really had no idea how wrong I was about portions until I gave these babies a whirl. My veggie portions weren’t large enough and my “crap” (sugar, carb, ick fat) portions were wayyyyy too big, haha. Portion control containers help you put everything into perspective. Unless you’re very familiar with portion sizes I can almost guarantee you’ll be surprised to find out how they really measure up. Each of these containers is color coded to match a specific food group. The containers come in sizes that correspond with that specific food group’s suggested portion size.
- Green = veggies
- Yellow = carbs
- Purple = fruits
- Blue = healthy fats
- Orange = seeds and dressing
- Red = protein
*These containers are BPA-free, DEHP-free and microwave and top-rack dishwasher safe. The containers also nest inside each other for easy peasy storage.
There’s also a cookbook that helps you plan healthy meals while also sticking to healthy portion sizes. It’s called FIXATE and it has 101 delicious recipes to help you plan your meals. It works beautifully with these containers because each recipe tells you how many servings of each you’re getting with one serving.
I own this cookbook and I find it to be simple yet interesting enough to get several meal and snack ideas from.
You can purchase the containers and cookbook together as a bundle to save money or you can choose to order them separately here.
Plan and prep meals.
Use the containers to help with portions and then use meal prep containers. We actually own a few sets of these and then I just received this set for Christmas. I’m so excited to start using it for bringing meals and snacks to work this week!
It’s perfect for day-to-day meals if you work outside the home.
It comes with all of the following:
- Cute storage bag
- Six containers (four two-cup containers and two one-cup containers that are dishwasher, microwave, freezer safe)
- Reusable ice pack
- Shaker cup (not shown in my pic)
- Pill/vitamin storage
I just love it!
Previous posts about meal prep and planning:
- My super simple meal planning template + free download
- Vegetarian meal plan series
- My meal prep strategy (beginner friendly)
- Mason jar salad meal prep
- Paying it forward + 21 meals in 3 hours
Build up your cookbook library.
To prevent burnout from eating the same recipes over and over, invest in some useful, practical cookbooks that align with your goals.
Some of my favorites:
- Skinnytaste
- Skinnytaste Fast & Slow
- Thug Kitchen
- The Can’t Cook Book
- Practical Paleo
- The Instant Pot Electric Pressure Cooker Cookbook
Fall down? Get back up! We all have bad meals and bad days. Sometimes there’s a string of them, sometimes it’s just a meal. Whatever happens, just get back into it. Don’t hate yourself, don’t beat yourself up, just acknowledge how delicious it was and promise yourself to eat healthier at your next meal. Nobody’s journey is perfect and nobody’s journey is a perfectly straight line.
Taking control of our eating all year…? We got this!
