Journey along with Kyle as he deals with cravings, meal prep, where to find healthy options in a hectic airport and more… If you love food like I do, you know how hard it can be to stay on track with a healthy diet. I know people who look at food as an annoying necessity for life – they can eat the same thing every day or eat just enough to get by. I am not like that. 
I like to EAT. Every now and then, I imagine I could have been a fairly decent competitive eater. I have been gifted with capacity for intake. I used to put away 18 wings, an extra large pizza, half a bottle of blue cheese, and a pint of Ben and Jerry’s…not on a cheat day, but 3 times a week when I was a senior in college. When I was a little kid, my mom would take me to Friendly’s and I would order 2 orders of the grilled cheese sandwich with fries, then an adult-sized sundae. I can’t do that anymore. I probably couldn’t do it then either, but it was easier because I was very active and had the metabolism of a young person. I eat like a responsible adult now, one that wants to be healthy and like what I see in the mirror (which to me means maintaining a body fat percentage down to a number around 12 or less). To do this, I’ve adopted habits like learning to cook, batch cooking (cooking a lot of healthy meals all at once and dividing them up into portion controlled meals), limiting fast food, and reducing alcohol consumption to 1 night a week or not at all.
I’ve adopted habits like learning to cook, batch cooking (cooking a lot of healthy meals all at once and dividing them up into portion controlled meals), limiting fast food, and reducing alcohol consumption to 1 night a week or not at all.
I really love to cook – but these habits can be really hard sometimes. It takes a fair amount of planning and effort to batch cook healthy meals. It’s not always fun to eliminate foods that are counterproductive to your goals, and when I’m REALLY hungry and I drive by a Wendy’s, it takes a good amount of will-power to seek out a better alternative. When I hit a long holiday weekend with lots of opportunities to drink, it can be difficult to practice moderation. Getting results and hitting goals always makes it worth it – but that’s delayed satisfaction and there are many obstacles along the way.
I really love to cook – but these habits can be really hard sometimes.
When I’m at home, I get into a great routine. My wife and I rarely go out to eat because it’s expensive and we’re trying to be responsible managers of our money. Saturday is grocery shopping and Sunday is my meal prep and cooking day. Fresh Market has $2.99 Tuesdays where you can stock up on meat. Wednesdays have been “grilling day” lately because it’s summer (we have winters like Westeros where I live).
Getting results and hitting goals always makes it worth it – but that’s delayed satisfaction and there are many obstacles along the way.
Breaking this routine can derail me pretty quickly. I travel frequently for work. Not George Clooney in “Up In The Air” frequently, but enough that I invested in TSA Pre-Check, know where the good spots are in the airports, and I can make a trip or two on frequent flyer points every year. I am often on the road for 7-12 days, which is about 1/3 of a month. Getting off of my normal dietary routine for this amount of time can (and sometimes does) totally throw me into a tailspin of bad habits. 
I can actually FEEL my body react poorly to my bad food choices when this happens. It also makes it harder to get back into my routine when I get home. I have a 5-day trip coming up to Nashville that is going to have some tough obstacles. I’ve made a point to take what I’ve learned on the road over the last couple of years and try to have a great week of nutrition. I have decided to journal the week as a way to hold myself accountable to having a plan, putting it into action, and sharing some strategy with you. Stay tuned….
