Going on a DIET is not a short cut but a life style. Crash diets, high protein diets, low carb diets are not only a waste of time but they have huge metabolic costs. One needs to be realistic. Can you avoid carbohydrates for the rest of your life? How many of you out there have tried going on one of those crazy diets and sustained your results?

I have been hearing from everyone that eating 5 meals a day is difficult. They all come up with different excuses!

Have you ever noticed that you normally eat even more than 5-6 times a day? If not, keep a diary for yourself from now and write each and everything you eat during the day. End of the week go through your diary and see how many times a day and how much you have been eating! I promise you will be shocked.

Here are a few tips on how you can get in 5 to 6 or even more healthy meals in, every day:
 

Prep work

What is prep work? Prep work is preparing a) shopping list for a week b) preparing a menu for a week or a day c) cook your menu in advance and freeze it

• The best thing is a shopping list. When you have a shopping list you won’t wonder what to buy and you won’t end up buying crap once you walk in the super markets. Again once you shop everything for the week, you will have everything available to cook the best food and of course you will always have all the fresh groceries in.  Remember never go shopping when you are hungry!
• If you are supper busy and you have a 9 to 5 office job which doesn’t allow you to cook food every time you are hungry the best thing is to make a menu for your whole week. It will help you not make the wrong choice of food. If you are not super-duper busy and you know what’s your plan for the next day, you might just want to prepare a menu for the next day and not the whole week. That’s also a great idea!
• Now that you have prepared a shopping list, done your shopping and have your weekly or daily menu available it’s time to cook. Again if you are too busy with your job, family and etc. you can choose a free day like a Sunday, give it 3-4 hours and cook your menu for the whole week and simply weigh and pack all your food in containers or zipped bags and freeze it. Simply before stepping out of home in the morning bring out your meals of the day and take them with you to your office or where ever you are heading to. You can just microwave it and have your meals. If you are not too busy and you will be spending time at home you can cook from your daily menu and not be confused to what to do with your ingredients!

It’s really that SIMPLE
 

Time management

I told you earlier that most of us eat even more than 6 times per day without noticing that. We usually don’t set times to eat , right? Sometimes we have lunch at 1pm sometimes 4pm. Dinner at 7 or sometimes 12. We also sometimes tend to miss our meals.

Here is an easy way to get all your 5,6 or 7 meals in. No matter how busy we all are, but we usually or at least to some extent know what’s our next day schedule. If you just set time for your meals – every three hours or maximum four hours – you will be able to schedule your other stuff around your meals and not your meals around your work. Remember nothing is better than having a healthy body.

If you have set timing for your meals there are less chances that you are going to miss your meals ,eating the wrong food, staying hungry for too long or eating too frequent – 2meals in an hour or two.

Meal replacement with Protein shakes

The protein shake myth! Every day we hear good and bad stuff about whey protein supplements. At Omnifarious we have been using whey protein as pre and post workout shakes and have recommended it to our clients too. I would never recommend whey protein if you can have real food. You should remember that these are just supplements. But, having them is better than missing your meals. Many of my clients don’t like to chew breakfast and that’s how they are, so I have recommended them to just have a protein shake. After all it’s better than those canned orange juices that you keep in your fridges for ages!

All you need to do is mix your fruit or oats (Carbohydrate), Macademia oil or nuts (Fat) whey (Protein) in a blender and there you go, you have a complete healthy breakfast ready in less than 5min. If you wish to have the shake during the day you can just carry your Protein powder in a container with you and once it’s time to eat just mix it with water (if you don’t have a blender available) and have your carbs and fats separately.

Commitment to your goals

If you don’t have goals you are likely to never get where you want to be. I advise you to write your short term and long term goals. Short term goals include; daily, weekly and monthly goals and they have to be realistic & measurable goals. Long term goals include: 3 months, 6 months and yearly goals.You can fantasy where you want to reach in your fitness life in a year or so and then work your way backwards to the shorter term goals.

Now that you have set goals, all you need to do is COMMIT yourself to them. Get daily copies of your goals and stick them to your room, in the kitchen or on your office table. Basically everywhere so you are reminded of your goals every moment of every day. The conscious mind will get it started but the subconscious mind will keep it going. Replace your bad habits with good ones and you will get where you wish to be. Every great change comes from setting goals, committing to them and taking responsibility for your actions.

Winners find a way, losers find an excuse.

Samira Tehrani,
Nutritionist

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