A few weeks ago, Sheila and I were out to dinner.

One of my favorite things is to try new restaurants and new atmospheres. I can’t really cook all that well, but I’ve become a bit of a foodie and Maine has no shortage of great restaurants to try.

On this particular night we found a good spot in Falmouth and settled in for our meals, when I ordered a Cobb salad.

I’m trying to be good, I’d said to Sheila, who hadn’t asked.

We continued on with our meal, and enjoyed a nice conversation before strolling out to the car, walking slowly and enjoying the warm summer night., We got into the car and before she started the engine, she stopped for a minute and looked at me.

This image by my friend and wild life photographer Joe Chandler doesn’t have anything to do with food - but it’s awfully adorable.

“You know, when you say that you’re trying to be good with your food, it makes me feel like my choices are bad.”

Ohhhhhh suh-nap.

Upon reflection, I realized that I was doing this all of the time. How many of us have this same dichotomous view of food? Broccoli is good, pasta is bad. Grilled chicken is good, ice cream is bad. It’s a great way to make you and the people around you feel awful.

I try so hard to pay attention to language. I try to remind clients every day to not minimize their achievements.

I only did three sets.

No, you did three sets.

It’s just one pushup.

No, it’s one pushup.

The thing about food though, is that I don’t think half of us pay attention to the way we talk about it. It’s not just saying that food is good or bad – I’ve also caught myself saying– upon eating a bowl of ice cream or chocolate snack at work, “good thing I worked out today.”

Or, “I’m going to need to workout now that I’ve eaten this.”

No.

We don’t need to earn our food, and we don’t need to punish ourselves for the food we do eat. We also don’t need to talk about our food in a way that shames other people.

I had a conversation with a client last week who was out to breakfast with her friends. One of those friends was on a diet and the way she talked about her food and what she was going to order affected everyone else at the table.

She didn’t just turn down the toast with her eggs – she turned down the toast and offered the commentary that toast had so many carbs.

“It’s a restaurant you go to once a summer,” the client said. “And I was absolutely ordering the stuffed French toast - I’d been looking forward to it. But her commentary affected everyone else at the table and made the whole experience less enjoyable.”

We don’t know what someone else’s struggles are. We don’t know what someone else’s situation is. But when we make unsolicited commentary on everything we eat, it can have unintended results.

Ever since Sheila’s comment to me about “being good,” I’ve caught myself saying that phrase a hundred times. And each time now, I remind myself that my language matters.

Language always matters.

Pardon my inference of profanity there.

But seriously.

I’ve been in a sprint mode these past four weeks with my fitness and nutrition. Not only am I coaching several clients in an online nutrition program* - I’ve been really focusing on my own anchor habits - eating slowly, eating until I’m 80% full, and hitting at least 100 grams of protein every day.

I’ve been tracking my food, increasing my workouts, and yesterday I came in to the gym feeling pretty darn good about myself.

Then I got on the scale we have.

Before I go on about how I almost put a stick of dynamite on the scale and launched it into a 50th anniversary trip to the moon:

I am and have always been fairly lean and I’ve never struggled with my weight. But I still have my own goals with fitness, and I certainly still have body image struggles. I’d love to say that I’m immune, but I’m just not.

So yesterday……

The scale said I’d gained two pounds of fat and lost a pound of muscle.

I was seething.

The string of expletives that came out of my mouth would have caused my mother to slap my face for a month. (Sorry Mom, that I said all of the things).

I mean if the scale didn’t cost thousands of dollars, I’d have taken it out to the parking lot and driven Doug’s F150 over it. Then I’d have take a sledge hammer to it, danced a fing polka with a three ton moose on it, before throwing the ever loving piece of **** on I95 for all of the summer traffic to drive over.

Until December.

Because what the *^%*&?

It was really hard not to let the results ruin my day.

But then, as I was sitting in my corner in the gym lobby (no really, there’s a sign, I have my own corner), stewing on my scale results - I put my elbows on the bar and my head in my hands.

This process takes work. I know this process takes work.

And I’m not talking about the work it takes to get my nutrition on point or my workouts in for the week. That takes work too.

I’m talking about the work it takes every damn day to shift your perspective.

It is a daily practice to work on your mindset.

Accepting yourself, loving your body, and loving who you are is as much a daily practice as brushing your teeth.

It’s all good and fine for me to run over a scale with my car. And if your curious, I did that with the old scale from the gym - and yes - I also used a sledge hammer on said scale and it was very cathartic.

But it takes daily reminders and practices for me to love and accept myself for who I am now, and not who I will be when I lose more body fat or add more muscle. It’s a daily commitment and a daily job to love ourselves.

And dammit, it’s hard. Really really hard.

But it’s a daily practice, and we have to hold one another accountable to the process. So I’ll hold you accountable, and the next time you see me….

Maybe check to see that I haven’t started a dumpster fire with the scale.

I mean, just in case.

*I’m going to open a few additional spots in my program beginning in August. Shoot me an email at kim@kimlloydfitness if you want more information.

On a scale of one to I hate meal prepping, it’s a 17.

But here’s the deal: you know, and I know, that if you want to make healthier choices with your nutrition, you need to meal prep. 

Here’s the other deal - I hate it. 

But I have to do it.

But I hate it.

So how do you reconcile those two things? I can’t tell you exactly how you should do it, because I don’t know what makes meal prepping hard for you. But I can tell you what makes it hard for me, and how I’m working with my feelings on food prep to try and better implement the process. 

1. Look ahead

This is the planning part. I’m not a planner. According to my client who is a successful writer, my writing style would qualify me as a “pantser.” I write by the seat of my pants. I do everything by the seat of my pants. But here’s the other thing: when it comes to looking ahead to my schedule, I have it easy. 

Because I don’t have kids, my weekly schedule largely stays the same. I don’t have to worry about baseball games, lacrosse games, or end of school year concerts that your kids forgot to tell you about until the morning of. I know I have it easy. 

The only planning I have to do is around my lunch options at work. I generally plan my fasting days for Tuesdays and Thursdays when I’m busiest, but if I don't bring something to work on Mondays and Wednesdays, I'll end up making choices that aren't inline with my current fitness goals.

2. Make a menu

Here’s my menu for this week:

Monday - Salmon and broccoli 

Tuesday - Chicken and peppers

Wednesday - Smoked Turkey Breast and zoodles. 

Thursday - There’s a food truck at the gym for client appreciation night so I’ll have a protein shake before hand and maybe have something from the food truck. 

Friday - I’m off so I’ll find a recipe to spring on Sheila Friday night. (These efforts usually appears on my instagram stories, because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'm trying).

3. Shop for ingredients (but make it fun)

When I shop, I wear my giant noise cancelling headphones and listen to Doris Day. I just do, ok? Que Sera Sera.

I also buy most of the same items: low fat cottage cheese, almonds, packs of tuna, beef jerky, and veggies that I can eat on the go like sugar snap peas, peppers, and cherry tomatoes. I’ll also pick up the proteins for the week or ask Sheila to do that because she does more shopping than I do. 

4. Cook for the week (but make it fun)

Last week I found a new recipe for salt and vinegar grilled chicken and that’s what I made while I watched the Pirates lose. Again. I made enough that night to have some lunch options for the week. The only way I’m going to make this routine stick is to make it fun. Right now, that means I make Instagram stories and catch up on the Handmaid’s Tale, because I need to entertain myself while I try to figure out what it means to julienne a vegetable...

5. Store it conveniently

To me, this is the most important step. If I have the food I want to eat ready to go in the fridge, and all I have to do is grab it and go, I’m in. Will I sometimes leave that food on the counter because I’m a shit show getting out the door? Yes! Of course I will. But I have a better chance of success if I have it in a container and ready to go.

Here’s the thing - making healthy choices takes work. And you have to be willing to put in the work. I’d like to pretend that it’s different than that, but it’s not. 

But I will also say that meal prepping is doable. You just have to find the routine that works for you, which might not be the routine that works for everyone else. 

Find a way to have fun with the process. If you can do that, you can stick with anything.