If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail – Benjamin Franklin

No matter what you want to achieve in life, preparation is the key to success. Yes it sounds very simple doesn’t it? If you fail to prepare, prepare to fail.

Imagine a marathon runner who does no training before an event, he enters the event and then doesn’t complete the race. Is this surprising? NO!

If you have a person who wants to be a doctor and they attend university but don’t study for their exams and they fail. Is this surprising? NO!

So why is it when it comes to normal everyday things like exercise, nutrition and health most of us take this attitude that it will be ok on the day not to prepare and then when we go to eat meals and exercise we fail over and over and over again. Surely we are not that silly that we think eating healthy food is easy? Finding time for exercise isn’t that hard? Well for the number of Australians today that are bordering on morbid obesity and obesity is staggering and growing everyday. So clearly this is something that we are not prepared for or it hasn’t become a priority in life.

I get asked all the time how do I find the time to exercise? How do I eat healthy foods? Easy I prepare! I usually spend part of my Sunday getting myself organised for the week ahead. I plan what foods I am going to have for each day. Breakfasts are pretty simple, Lunches tend to be a little more difficult and dinners well they can be down right awful to organise because I don’t like having the same thing all the time. BUT saying that – I usually do a big cook up of a meal that I can put into serving containers and freeze – Soup, Spaghetti, Stews, Chilli Con Carne. These will last me a few weeks as I will make 4 – 5 serves and then only have one per week. I tend to have fish one night, chicken another night and steak on the fourth night. Friday nights tend to be a left over night or I may even head out one night of the week. The weekends are easy because I’m usually at home. PREPARATION, PREPARATION, PREPARATION!

I can hear all the mums and dads crying but I have kids and I don’t have time to do all that. Well YES YOU DO ! Saying you don’t means that you haven’t given it the priority it needs in comparison to other things you do in your day! An example Australians now spend 8 hours a week looking at Social Media – 8 hours ! Wow – now tell me you don’t have time?

When it comes to my lunches I make big salads and separate them into containers and mix them with a cooked meat.

Yes it is a routine that you will need to develop overtime, Yes it will cause you some grief, BUT if you want to eat healthy and also save money – yes save money – take out turns out to be much more expensive than eating at home!