The key to eating less sugar for the long haul is planning.

Plain and simple

By now you should know how to handle sugar cravings, what sugars to eat and the importance of having a dessert night.

But are you a Planning Pro?

Because that is the next key to your long-term success.

If not, you’re in luck… Peter and I are planning All Stars, that’s because we’ve been practicing and now have the perfect system down.

Here’s the deal

*We know what we’re going to have for dinner two nights in advance

*We know what we’re having for lunch a day before (and have it made the night before)

*We also know what days we’ll be eating with friends

*And finally, what day we will be having dessert

Now that might sound like a lot, but when you have all of that planned out, there’s no room for sugar or ice cream to sneak it’s way into your life.

That being said, we also only buy what we plan on eating, so there’s no extra sugar in the house.

When you plan ahead, you balance out sweets

For example, say you have a birthday party on Thursday night.

If you plan for it then Friday you’ll plan on skipping dessert and having something extra healthy.

3 Steps to Become a Better Planner & Maintain Your ELS Ways

1.) Make Time For It – Sit down and plan out your meals. I plan meals 3 times a week. I don’t like to do it on Sunday for the entire week because it’s too overwhelming, and we might change our minds. So I focus on 2 days at a time. I personally love doing this (most of the time). I browse The Seasonal Diet recipes for things we haven’t had recently, or look at some of my friends recipes. I then make a plan and go shopping for those two days.

2.) Don’t Be a Lazy Pants – It’s easy to say “oh I’ll just wing it at the grocery store” (aka no list), that’s when treats end up in the cart or you end up not buying enough food and have to eat out during the week. Lazy pants can also mean you don’t stick to your plan and end up eating out because you’re too tired to cook. Don’t do it, don’t be lazy, it’s easy to do but won’t help you eat less sugar. Restaurants = Sugar… trust us, their goal is to make the food taste good.

3.) Remember You’re Worth It – It’s easy to think “man I’m spending a lot of time on this”. But you have to know that you’re worth it and your health is one of the most important things to spend time on. Your health and the time you spend on it is exactly what you’ll get back. Making the time and knowing your worth could mean living longer then you ever imagined.

We used to be in your spot, struggling to say bye bye to excess sugar, and deciding to take responsibility for our sugar and our health.

We didn’t compare the amount of sugar we ate to everyone else; instead we chose to be honest with ourselves and that’s what we’re asking you to do.

Make time and plan ahead. And remember you and your health are worth it.

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That concludes the 4th and final week of articles – Amazing Effort!

Week 4 Action Items

Take your first step in expanding your network to include more supportive friends [week 4, article 1]
Carve out time in your schedule today to plan out your next 2 days of eating