5 Planning Tips for Living a Healthier Life in 2011

This is a guest post from my mom, certified personal trainer and fitness expert Kimberly Linton, aka DC’s Toughest Trainer. She blogs about fitness, nutrition and motivation at Living the Fit Life and you may know her on Twitter as @livinthefitlife. Regular HBW readers may also remember her from our life mapping video. Below she shares her expert tips for how you can plan your week around living a healthier life this year. Hope it’s useful to you!

One of the biggest reasons people fail at living a healthier lifestyle is because of poor planning. But no matter how busy you are, you can take some time out at the beginning of the week to map out your workouts and meals. This strategy is guaranteed to set you up for success! Here are five tips from my new book The 30 Day Fitness Blueprint (on sale now) for planning a fit week:

Pick one day of the week to prepare all your healthy meals ahead of time.

Here are some things to remember when cooking ahead:

• Plan a menu and go shopping to get all the ingredients.
• Make sure you get the right containers to store food in. Especially if you plan on freezing or microwaving.
• Don’t forget to label your meals. Make sure to include what’s in the container, when it was cooked, and how many servings are in the container.

Pack your gym bag at night and put it in the car or by the door.

And make sure you don’t forget these things when you pack your bag:

• Your shoes. This is one the most forgotten items and will totally blow your workout.
• Underwear. Nothing more disgusting than having to keep on sweaty underwear. Make sure you got your panties packed!
• Hair and skin care products. Don’t let your workout be a “wrap” because you forgot yours.

Use half of your lunch hour for exercise and the other half to eat.

Surefire strategies to pull yourself away from your desk:

• Set an alarm in your calendar that pops up at lunch and says “No Excuse, Go Workout.”
• Meet up to work out with a coworker or friend for accountability.
• Sign up for an exercise class you like that ONLY happens during your lunch hour.

Keep healthy snacks with you at all times to prevent visits to the vending machine.

Here are three of my favorite energy-boosting snacks:

• Protein bars and shakes
• Dry roasted nuts
• Whole fruit

Have a “Plan B” workout when you are short on time.

Try out these kick ass mini-workouts (do any of these moves for 5-10 minutes):

• Jumping rope
• Running stairs
• Body weight exercises

Want more healthy lifestyle tips, workouts, and meal plans to keep you fit in 2011? Get my new book, The 30 Day Fitness Blueprint! It contains my complete training program that I use with my clients, all packaged for you in one simple document that you can use over and over again to reach your fitness goals. You’ll get:

• 4 weeks of fat burning circuit workouts
• 4 meal plan options (1200-1800 calories)
• A step-by-step training schedule for every day of the week

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