Using a Meal Map: Like using a Road Map

My first day of meal planning was as awful as the day I navigated downtown Boston with an old-school map and a list of addresses during a revolutionary war reenactment. (I am a Midwestern girl—I did not know that the downtown of a city would be used for such a historical purpose… or that people cared enough to dress for it.) I took a wrong turn and I went an extra mile down one-way roads and circled a rotary five times before exiting on the road I had previously been on, only to retake the same wrong turn two more times before getting it correct. I nearly crashed into several Tories dressed in red war gear who cursed me in faux-British accents and mowed down what looked like Amish women but were probably corporate lawyers dressed for the day. By the end of the day, I wanted to rip up my map and throw my shoe at the men carrying muskets. Thankfully, common sense overrode that last urge. I was angry, humiliated and totally confused. How could I make the same mistake three times? How could I lose control so often? You will ask yourself these same questions after you look back at your plan and compare it to your reality. Just remember: Practice makes perfect.
Now, after several months of practice, I am hoping to give to you the secrets I learned through four months of trial-and-error. Think of this as a GPS with a James Bond-esque sexy voice escorting you through the chaos of downtown Boston under a revolutionary invasion. Tune everything else out and just listen to the husky voice tell you the turns to make.

1) You need a friend to do this with. Friend might be a strong term—this could be a person you vaguely know but who you can check-in with via text message or email. Just having someone else to hold you accountable and laugh with really makes a difference. Ecards are a good way to congratulate each other.
2) You should have a very pretty notebook to write everything in. You will probably find yourself writing more than you think, anyway. (Example: “God wanted me to eat a bag of Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. I was at the grocery store in the 75% off Halloween candy aisle and my cart hit the side of the display and one fell in. That is serious divine intervention.”)
3) Plan for “bad days”. Not all days and weeks are created equal and you know when you have to put in the push for work and what-not, so plan for that by designating appropriate snacks and snack times. Right before an exam I would plan a macrobiotic diet, thinking that it would shift my brain into high gear. Unfortunately, my stomach vetoed my food choices and went straight for the Sara Lee Oatmeal Cream cookies. One sweet snack was like a rain drop in the desert: it doesn’t rain, it pours. After a few of these episodes I decided to allow myself to have designated 100-calorie snack packs and Jello chocolate pudding cups the days I needed them because of an exam. This did not overcoming stress eating, but it did give me control over it, which was empowering. I am slowly weaning myself off the snack-packs, but it is a process.
4) You have to be honest with yourself. Write down that you only baked half of the cupcakes for your friend’s birthday because you ate the other half of the batter. The feeling of shame you get from that will keep you from doing it again the next time… or in my case it made me eat only a quarter of the batter the following time. Third time is the charm, though.
5) Recognize that your life could actually be easier due to meal planning. If you are busy like me, choosing food from a vending machine is an obscene process that takes more time and energy than I have for food. Now I just keep the carrots and hummus in my purse and cannot remember the last time I dug in my wallet for the correct change for the machine that does not accept anything otherwise.
6) Trouble-shoot your snacking: when do you do it? Why? Avoid situations in which you do it or come up with a substitute. I stopped studying at home—I started going to the library instead. I went to friend’s house to watch a movie and I would constantly be renewing the gum I was chewing so I did not dig into the Chex mix and Reese’s Pieces.
7) Write a list of things you will do instead of snack. Realistic things, not like “Do 20 pushups”. You won’t do 20 pushups. You won’t even get to the floor. You will shove some Doritos in your mouth. When I wanted to snack I thought of little stupid things around the apartment I needed to get done— I would chew a piece of gum and take the rugs outside to beat or checked under the cushions of my couch.
8) Plan your drinking. It is not fun, but it is responsible. And your liver loves you the next day.
9) Figure out whether you need to go day-by-day or week-by-week or whatever. I started trying to go week-by-week and I would give up before I even started. Day-by-day was the only way I could reward myself consistently enough to inspire me for the next day.
10) Every day is a new day to stay on track. Every meal is a new meal to get back to your plan. Do not throw all your plans out the window because you grabbed a Snickers instead of a carrot. Think of taking a wrong turn in Boston. Correct what you can by getting back on your main road and you will ultimately get to the destination you wanted in the first place. When you get to know the city better you can troubleshoot more creatively, but in the beginning just focus on staying on the right road. Do not blame yourself for the mishaps; as far as I can tell Boston’s downtown was planned by a four-year-old with a box of Crayola’s. Admit to yourself that what you are doing is very hard and you will make mistakes. You always have a journal to remind you, a friend to call and a top-ten list to refer to if you need to remember where you are heading.

Hopefully this GPS system will help keep you on track, but if you have anything short of a full-time chauffeur and a couple doses of Xanax you are going to feel some anxiety and frustration while you’re weaving between traffic. In those moments, keep your eyes on the road and your ears on the sexy man’s voice telling you to proceed to the intersection.