A dozen ways to get back to your New Year’s resolutions

  1. Don’t beat yourself up about things. Nothing you do today will make you 600lbs…so it’s not
    what you do today…it’s about what you keep doing.
  2. Drink more water. Don’t drink anything with calories or bubbles. Bubbles because they are acidic and that can cause / exacerbate joint pain and may leach calcium out of your bones to maintain the body’s equilibrium.
  3. Sleep a little more. Critical for Hormonal regulation and repair. If you don’t sleep enough…you will be hungrier and be unable to repair you Lean Body Mass (LBM = muscle).
  4. Limit your alcohol…it goes directly to fat storage. Only drink tropical drinks (Pina Coladas, etc) if you hear live steel drums…they have plenty of alcohol and sugar calories.
  5. Plan ahead….what and when you will eat. The worst situation to be in is: “I am starving…what should I eat”. This means you waited too long to eat and now you will crave foods, and that means poor choices. “ You only have will power when you are full.”
  6. Try and to cut out high calorie (expensive) foods. You must “caloric-ally cheapen” your meals. That means grilling instead of frying or no cheese, less oil, etc.
  7. Eat more times. Eating 3x per day is for prison and not optimization. Eat 6 times per day to keep blood sugar and energy levels steady. The goal is Breakfast, Brunch, Lunch, Dunch, Dinner and supper.
  8. Be careful about stimulants (example is caffeine)…they are appetite suppressants and not appetite eliminators. This means that you don’t feel your hunger but it is still there…growing in the background. So later on…it’s super powerful and you find yourself over eating.
  9. Control your stress. Get a massage or go meditate, or at least do something that makes you happy. Stress is bad for the body and it can cause the release of cortisol (a hormone) which is catabolic or breaks down muscle. This is bad, as muscle is metabolically active and is tied into your metabolism. The less muscle you have the lower your strength and endurance will be. Not to mention the worse you look.
  10. Don’t bother with a cleanse…you’re not that dirty. They are costly and you have organs (liver
    and kidneys) that function as the body’s cleaners / filters…and they do a great job. Cleanses are
    usually very low in protein or have none at all, which is sub-optimal for your lean body mass
    (muscle).
  11. Remember the “Egg Theory”. If on the way home from the grocery store you break one egg in
    the dozen you just bought…you don’t throw out the whole dozen eggs…just the one broken egg.
    Every meal is its own egg and you will break one (mess up / go off your plan) from time to
    time….do not throw out the whole day or week. Just get back on your plan because overeating
    food doesn’t change your body in one day.
  12. There is no “perfect meal plan”…if you shoot for something that is not real…you will always miss
    and fail. Just do a little better today than yesterday and you will be in great shape. Pun intended