I’ve a confession to make.
The last few days I’ve fallen off the wagon food wise. Not in a MAJOR major way like I have before, but enough that it’s playing on my mind.
I was thinking about it last night while I was eating my double waffle cookies and icecream dessert, after I’d knocked back my pizza, to quench the hunger from lunch time beers.
The first week or so I’d been great – lots of lean meat, veg and good fats. And not too much snacking. Then as the days wore on I started to get bored of the food I was eating. It was basically just souvlaki for lunch and dinner. Maybe the odd pita wrap as well.
(souvlaki is basically meat on a skewer – and it’s delicious, in case you were wondering)
WHOOPS
I’d a pizza one day to break it up,and then another, and one day I didn’t fancy lunch so I had pastries and a protein shake, and another I just skipped it all together and made up for it at dinner, and… well… you can see how the slippery slope forms.
Obviously being away from home and out of routine plays a bit part in that – “will power” tends to erode over a 3-5 day period before you end up back at your normal eating patterns, unless you’ve made a conscious effort to change them long term.
That’s why people fall off the diet band wagon so easily (more on that tomorrow – we’ll talk about how to be an 80% success rather than an 80% failure when it comes to habit change).
But I can’t just blame willpower. Boredom was a much bigger factor for me. I just wasn’t enjoying eating the same foods over and over again, and didn’t have much of choice when it came to “body composition friendly foods” that weren’t souvlaki or similar.
…so I had my few days of indulgence, and now I’m back on track. Hell, chips came with my lunch today and I completely ignored them. Just wasn’t enticed at all.
(the fact I was just finished training and about to throw up from the heat and amount of caffeine I had was a factor too)
BOREDOM IS THE ENEMY
But it reminded me of something I’d forgotten – boredom is a much bigger factor in “diet failure” than anything else. So here’s my solution for you.
90 different meals. 30 each of breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Don’t get overwhelmed. All you need to do is find 3 or 4 you like from each day and use them for a month or two until you get bored. Then find a few more you like and get stuck into them.
Pick ones that are relatively easy to prepare. By the time it comes to pick new ones, you should be more confident in your prep abilities, and they’ll be a cinch to prepare too.
Easy peasy.
Download it here. No email opt in or anything is necessary. The link will take you straight there.
Have a look, and let me know what breakfast, lunch and dinner you’re gonna pick (just one of each for now even!)
My favourites are banana and cinnamon omelette for breakfast (pg9) the kebabs for lunch (pg45), and the thai green curry with chicken for dinner (pg71).
TL;DR -boredom is the enemy of dieting, download the cookbook and pick 3 simple breakfasts, lunches and dinner to spice things up