Episode 83 - How to Master Meal Planning with Organizational Expert Tracy Hoth

In this episode, Jo welcomes organizational expert Tracy Hoth to discuss how to organize the meal planning process. Tracy, who runs Simply Squared Away, pairs practical organizational steps with mindset coaching to aid clients in various aspects of life. She explains her five-step SPASM method—sort, purge, assign homes, set limits, and maintain—and applies it to the task of meal planning. They discuss the importance of mindset in tackling organizational challenges and share practical tips for efficient meal preparation.

Follow Tracy on Instagram @tracyhoth
Join Organized Life Academy here.  

00:00 Introduction and Special Guest Introduction
01:13 Defining Organization and Its Importance
02:24 Mindset and Organization
03:55 The Five Steps to Organizing
09:28 Applying Organization to Meal Planning
17:05 Dealing with Obstacles and Maintaining Organization
25:12 Overcoming Thought Obstacles
26:14 Balancing Enjoyment and Health in Meal Planning
26:54 Developing Meal Planning Skills
27:40 Tracking and Overcoming Obstacle Thoughts
30:09 The Importance of Nutrition in Weight Loss
31:11 Teaching Children Healthy Eating Habits
31:33 Compassion and Skill Development in Cooking
32:22 Practical Meal Planning Tips
43:51 Organizing Your Life for Better Health
45:42 Join the Organized Life Academy

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Transcript

0:43

Hi everyone. It's Joe with Couture Coaching today. So today we have a special guest, Tracy Hoth. Tracy is an organizing expert. And so I will let her describe her business and the services that she provides but today we are going to talk about Organization of meal planning. I know that meal planning and trying to figure out what's for dinner is vaccine for almost everyone, especially if you're a busy mom with kids. Especially if you're trying to implement a new nutrition plan. So Tracy is going to break it all down for us from an organizational expert. So Tracy, do you want to introduce yourself? Tell us where listeners can find you and then Tell us what we're going to talk about today. Yeah. So my name is Tracy Hoth. My business is Simply Squared Away and I've been helping people organize since 2008. I've went into people's homes and offices and in 2018 I got certified as a life coach. So now I'm really combining the practical steps of organizing with the mindset piece and the identity piece and putting those together to help people get organized in their home and life and also in their businesses. But yes, I, we wanted to talk about. Organizing and let me just start by saying organization or being organized just means that you know what you have and you can find it when you need it. Super simple definition. It doesn't mean it has to look like all the Instagram pictures or Pinterest, all those photos. It doesn't mean that your process has to look a certain way. It's just knowing what you have and being able to find it when you need it. Okay, applying that to the meal planning concept. What this sounds like is simply maybe knowing what's going to be a dinner for maybe a set period of days and having it in your house. The components of that in your house and knowing we'll just store it and where to find it. So it really can be that simple. And that's why you see people that have, little boards up that have their meals written on them. Like they know what they're going to have and they can find it. So yeah. And they're having their kitchen organized. That's helpful in finding what you need for the meal, but all of that, it can be very simple when you're Just start there. It releases all this tension that organization looks a certain way and you have to do it that way. Yeah, I do want to step back and talk just a little bit about the mindset piece. And I do think probably organization and then also getting healthy or getting fit. It really does start with your mindset, right? Because if you're listening to this, telling yourself, I'll never be able to meal plan. I'm a disorganized mess. It'll never change. It's going to be so hard. You can have all the practical know how, but if you're stuck in that belief system, that's where you need to start first. Do you agree with that? Yes, totally. And the organization steps that I'll teach in just a minute help you organize your mind in that situation. So we can use these steps in every area for a project, for your stuff, for your digital files, for every single thing, we use the same exact steps. So the more and more you use that, the better and better you get, but it also helps you organize your mind. Just like a space in your house. You take all those thoughts out, all those beliefs that you have and get them out. You look at them, you decide which ones you want to keep, which ones you want to get rid of, what new ones you want to bring in, and then you assign homes to them and decide, okay, this is when I'm going to. Think this and practice this thought and find evidence for this thought. And you all of a sudden, have an organized mind, but it like all of it takes maintenance. So you have to continually do that in order to maintain the organization in your mind. Yeah. You're going to tell us what the steps are, how to organize. Yes. The five steps they spell the acronym spasm. So goofy, but if your muscles having a spasm, you're going to think about organizing now. So the first step to organizing anything is to sort. And it's a lot of people go into organizing, they decide they're going to organize something and they just, they start trying to make a decision right away. Don't start there. Just start by sorting like items with like items. And this releases, all the pressure of having to make decisions on whether or not you're keeping something. And I say, just start with the first thing under the light switch or the first thing you see right in front of your toe, pick that up and put it like with and then the next step is to purge. Now you have piles of things that are like items with like items, and then you purge. So you pick your favorites is one of the methods of purging is to decide what you use and love and then making decisions after that. And there's lots of questions you can ask and things you let you could be thinking. So for example, we just organized our storage space and in the purging process, I kept reminding myself, I could be a hoarder and keep this item, even though I've had it for 15 years and haven't used it, or I could be super abundant and generous and allow someone else to use it right now. And I kept thinking that thought and it was so helpful for me To let go of things because I wanted to bless someone else with them and for them to be able to use it So purge, sort, purge. Now you have only what you're keeping. So you're going to assign homes. to everything that you have. And this is the puzzle piece. you may try something here. You may not like it. It may not be accessible. So you might want to move it into a different spot, but group things in zones. Maybe if you have a reading nook, have a reading basket and a lamp and a pens and a little case of whatever you need for that, or in the kitchen, have a baking zone and have all your baking supplies in one, or I have a beverage drawer. I try to keep beverages in that drawer, coffee, tea, like hot cocoa, everything goes in that drawer. And then the next step is to set limits. This is the step people usually start at. They go by containers. This is the containing step, or the using drawer dividers or getting shelves or furniture pieces that work. But setting limits, don't do that until you know what you have and where it's going to live. Don't go buy any containers. So now that you know where it's living, you know exactly what size container you need. So I might've thought, Oh, I'll put my beverages over by the coffee maker, but they don't fit on that shelf, so I have them in a drawer and now that I know they're going to be in that drawer, I know what size container I want to put in that drawer to separate them out or to contain them in different ways. And then the final step is to maintain. So sort, purge, assign homes, set limits, and then maintain. So that might mean going back and checking your calendar every night, you're maintaining your calendar. Or the key thing for me is to tie it to something you already do. So when I plug my phone in at night, I look at my calendar for the next day. So that's the maintenance step. Or when the seasons change we might want to go back through the organizing steps or something super simple. When I grocery shop, I bring it into the house and before I put it into my refrigerator, I clean out, wipe down the shelves. Get rid of anything that's in there. That's not useful. And so I'm maintaining the organization in my refrigerator. So those are the 5 steps. Any questions on that? No, we've talked about this before that the probably. The biggest. Issue that maybe people have is that maintenance piece is that you never just get organized for once and for all and how that's really parallel to getting fit and staying healthy. You don't get fit and then abandon all of your habits. This is really more of a lifestyle. I'm hearing you say the same thing about being organized. Things are always coming in. We're bringing new things into our house. Kids are leaving and things are shifting and we might inherit our parents stuff and now we have all that stuff in our house and what do we want to keep and make room for and get rid of? And it's just like life never stands still, just like a garden. There's going to be weeds that grow up and we have to maintain everything, but we can tie it to something that you do so that it's less of a problem. If that's not working and you're not maintaining, put appointments on your calendar to make sure, and If you start at the beginning it doesn't have to take a long time. I think that's part of it. We just don't plan for it, or we think that it shouldn't have to happen, or we think something's wrong with us because our spaces don't stay organized and really it's just because we haven't maintained it. We haven't put that as a priority or appointment on our calendar. I think abandoning the idea that you're going to organize your closet. And it's then forever going to be organized and purged and not something you'll ever have to revisit. So right. Very valuable advice. Now you're going to tell us how to apply all of this to meal planning. Yeah. So let's look at it. This works for any project that you want to create or do or accomplish. So you use the steps we do it. Every month in Organized Life Academy, we have a planning call where we use these exact steps to plan our month, or we can use them for a project. I do this all the time. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed, I use the organizing steps and I sort. So the first step, if we're gonna create a meal plan, is to sort. And we're just gonna get Every step, every idea, every thought in our mind out on paper. So you would just write out like, what are the steps to meal planning? And if we walk through it, maybe we have to do an internet search. We need to plan each meal. We need to find a meal plan or find recipes. We need to check the macros. Maybe if we're tracking in that sort of way for each recipe, we need to find, recipes that have macros already on them, and then we need to create a grocery list. We need a grocery shop. We need to prep the food. Then we need to follow the plan. And then we need to plan for obstacles. The worst case thing that could happen on our meal plan. We're going to have urges to eat something outside of what we planned. What are we going to do for that? So I am just trying to throw everything that I think of when it comes to the meal plan project down on paper. What's my current thought about meal planning? Hate doing this. I want someone to do it for me. All those thoughts you can write down. So when you have these categories, maybe there's a category that you would sort into called planning. Maybe there's one called executing. Maybe there's one called mindset. Maybe there's one called obstacles in the categories that you put them in. Don't really matter. It's you. Just. getting it all out and saying, Oh, what's this and I want to say, there's two ways. You can just write all this down in a list. And then go back through the list and say, okay, this happens pre, before the week starts. This happens at the very first day of the week. This happens, here's the obstacles. So you could sort it out after that. Or you could get in the practice of when you're sorting, you put them into categories as you take them out of your mind. Does that make sense? Yeah, I can see where you could sort it by day of the week and activity. So maybe, Saturday is grocery shopping day and Sunday is meal prep, like food prep, Monday, Wednesday. Is some other part of the step and then Friday would probably be where the obstacles come in because you want to go out to eat or things like that. Yeah, I can see how you could do it by day of week or by task type of task or, yeah, thing. Yeah, so now that we have everything that has to do with this project of meal planning down on paper, the next step is to purge. So we're going to go back through. If we have them in categories and try to purge, so I think if I have a category of before the week starts, like the planning category, and I, when I think of purging, I like to think, okay, could I delegate anything? Could I delete something off the list? Is there something I can delay because I just don't have time this week to do it? I might delay it for next month or next week, or is there something for sure that I want to do? Maybe I decide I'm going to delete that and instead I'm going to purchase a meal plan that's already made. So you've just cut off maybe two hours of trying to figure out what to plan and what to make for each meal and then creating a grocery list. Maybe it's just I'm going to find a meal plan that fits my macros and I'm going to just buy the meal plan. I will tell you. I know the macros bloggers that I follow all have many of these options. I know 1 has a cookbook that it's called planned and it has a shopping list for each week. All the meals are going to take to do what you're going to do 1st day of the week. The 2nd day of the week. Everything's already entered into my fitness pal. Really. You just have to execute. It has all three meals. Like I said, the shopping list, everything. And so I'm just telling listeners most of the macros bloggers have something like this. And it too, that you can buy a meal plan that get delivered to your. Yes, each month. So there's certainly. Ways that you can make this easier on yourself, right? That's so cool to have that. So let's say that's what you have. You need to look over the meal plan. You need to decide I'm no way eating that meal. I need to substitute it for something else. You still have steps you need to do, but they're different now. Then that's the other thing I was going to say, when you're the shopping and prepping stage, you could delegate that out and hire your daughter to go buy the food and prep it. Or I know some mother, mothers come and prep their food, or you would. Keep that task. Let's say you really like it and you want to listen to a book audio book during that time So you would keep that task. So you're just gonna go through each step each category and delete delegate delay or do those steps. So now in each step you have the items that you're going to do, that you need to do. So the next step, so we sorted and then we purged, and then the next step is to assign homes. This is the step where you pull out your calendar and you assign an appointment for each of the tasks that you need to do. And the next step is to set limits When you're planning time, these two steps are somewhat connected. So you're going to set the limit for the time it's going to take you to assign that task and to do the task. Now at first you might have no idea, so you're just really guessing. It's going to take me an hour and a half to food prep and really it takes three hours. So after you do the task and you realize my one and a half hour appointment did not work for me, next time you'll know better what to plan and you're just going to look at it curiously and say, why didn't that work? Because literally it takes longer or because I was distracted on my phone half the time or because looking at recipes on my phone didn't work. And next time I want to print out a prep list in advance or write it out, maybe that's why. And so whatever adjustments need to make, you can make those adjustments. So you've set limit or you've assigned homes on your calendar and set a limit. By giving the appointment a time frame. And then the final step is to maintain. So you're just going to go back to your calendar, go back to your food plan. And check in. Am I on track? Am I following my plan? Yes. Why? No. Why? And make any adjustments that you need to. Okay, a couple of questions for you. So in the sort phase, you talked about like thoughts that come up or obstacles that come up. So how do you advise your clients to deal with those things? So maybe a thought is. I freaking hate meal planning and this, I'll never like it, or this is never going to work. What do you, where do you assign that? What do you do with that? And you have a whole category of thoughts. You've sorted those thoughts. Yes. Category. What like practically speaking where do you go with them after they've shown up in the sorting process? One of my thoughts in that category is I've tried this a hundred times and I'm not following it. So I take those thoughts and I think, there's a few different things I would say is just to look at those and first say, are they useful? So is that helping me reach my goals by continuing to think about this? Thought to continue to think this and believe that this is true. And if it's not helping me to reach my goals, I can, now that it's on paper, I see it and I can realize how much it's keeping me from the goal that I want to reach. And so I might say to myself, I like to do this thing called loosening thoughts. And so if the thought is I hate meal planning, the opposite of that thought is I love meal planning. So when you think that. immediately for me, resistance comes up. So you know that's not your thought. Then I like to, so the circle is meal planning's in the center of the circle. That's the fact. And your thought is I hate it. Another option of a thought is I love it. But there are about a hundred other options of thoughts that you can think. So I like to think about someone that's really good at it. What might they believe? Meal planning helps me reach my goals. Meal planning is a time I take care of myself. I love doing what's best for my body. So you just make up a bunch of thoughts. Meal planning is I'm stewarding my health the best that I can. So you just start writing some options down and then test them and see how does this one feel when I think I love doing what's best for my body. I believe that and I want that so I can think that on purpose versus I hate meal planning. I may still not like meal planning, but I love trying to do what's best for my body. So then you decide, okay. I'm going to take those thoughts I don't want to believe because I know they're not helping me and I'm going to insert instead, I'm going to make a home for these other thoughts. I like saying maybe. So you think, I hate meal planning when you sit down cause it's your time to meal plan and you're like, maybe, but maybe it could be fun. Like just being goofy with your brain and questioning it a little bit and saying. Maybe, or I hate meal planning right now, but I still am someone who follows my calendar. And that's what's on my calendar right now. So you can add an ending to the sentence that you're believing that's not useful and make it some, turn it into something or add a part of it that is helpful or loosens the hatred up a little bit that you have. And talking with you, you have one of your favorite thoughts as well. Might as well. I think probably all of this is so anxiety provoking because we're imagining That we're going from 0 to preparing a Martha Stewart table scape every evening for our family. And that's not really it doesn't have to look like that. Or I would guess most people's. Mule planning does not actually look like that, but the might as well just takes the pressure off. You get credit for even trying. So I like that one as an antidote to can't do it perfectly. So why even try? So that's one given me that I really like. We talked about that in your group. Yes. You have a thought and then you think, but I might as well. Might as well do it right now. Might as well. It's on my calendar, that is fun. So it sounds like with some of the thoughts and such maybe they go and you look at them and you decide to delete them because you realize they're not helpful or you're just aware and they go in a category and you just know they're going to come up. And maybe you have an antidote for them. But they don't get to supplant the calendar appointment you've made with yourself to chop vegetables or whatever. I think it probably helps your brain see Oh, that's really not a reason to blow off, doing the food prep because I was just in this other category and it's probably not true anyway. Or have you ever heard where you can say, okay, I've been doing this in my business. Like sometimes you just want to quit. And so I think someone suggested that I wait to think those thoughts until five o'clock, like when I finished working in my business, if that thought comes up, I'm like, Nope, I gotta wait till five o'clock. Nope. I can't do that till five o'clock. And so it's just my way of buffering is to think the thought. about quitting. And so I pushed that off until five. And then at five, I don't even remember that I was going to think that, but at least my brain has an option to put it, or some people do that in the shower or they have a worry hour. You could have a hate meal planning hour. You think that at 7 PM on Mondays. And then, okay, what happens? So this might get into the obstacles, like when you've sorted and you come up with obstacles, which is kid gets sick. Baseball game runs long emergency meeting comes up. So what happens as you're going along with your plan and you can't stick to it? something comes in from left field. And I would say probably for most people, this is going to happen at least once a week. So what do you do with those obstacles? When you're planning a project or planning using the steps to organize anything, you think best case scenario. This is how it's going to go. This is how it's going to look. But then you always go to worst case scenario. So worst case scenario, all those things you mentioned are going to happen when you're planning. You want to consider all those things and plan for them in advance. So maybe that means that, that you're going to have at least two meals that are grab and go type of meals. And those are, you don't plan those for Tuesday and Thursday necessarily, but you plan those and have those as options for when the obstacle comes up. So it's something really easy. What were some of your other obstacles? Just meeting runs long kid gets sick. Just, you don't feel like it. That's probably a more realistic obstacle to or one that maybe we don't want to admit is a real obstacle, but probably something, like it just sounds better to go down to the neighborhood grill and get a burger and a beer. Yes. I go down for lunch every day and I'm like, Oh, I don't want to eat a vegetable. This doesn't sound good. easy meals versus the other thing or cooking two meals on Monday night so that you have one ready in case something happens during the week or cooking like a huge batch of soup every Sunday night for those meals where you need something quick. But then the other part of that is the thought process or the, a thought obstacle, so you're going to have a thought obstacle. All of these, no the ones are really practical. Like your game runs over or a meeting comes up. Those are practical. But then the thought obstacle for me is I don't want to eat that. And what am I going to do when I feel that obstacle to have a plan in place? So I am going to walk over. And maybe inside my cabinet door, I have some thoughts that I'm intentionally practicing thinking, like I love doing what's best for my body. Even when I don't feel like eating vegetables, I might have that thought taped up there. So every time I go down into my kitchen and I have that thought, I'm going to open the cabinet door. That doesn't mean I'm going to change what I do necessarily. I don't have to believe that I'm just going to go to the cabinet door, open it up. Take three deep breaths, read the thoughts that I want to practice believing, and then make a decision after that. So even mindset plans that you have in place can be super helpful for overcoming those obstacles, the thought obstacles.. Because it's get your brain into problem solving mode. It just gets it out of its rut, which is really the first step. First step actually is awareness that you're even having the yes. Maybe they're not true. It may feel true in the moment, but there may be something else equally true. And then letting your brain go to at least a different space rather than being in this old cycle of, Oh, that salad that I planned doesn't sound good. So I'm going to hop in the car and run to Chick fil A or something like that. I think that's also a key to success. Successful meal planning is work some fun stuff into your meal plan. I make it a balance of things that healthy, but also things that you enjoy. I know for me, realistically, we're going to eat out probably at least one night during the weekend. And so there's less guilt associated with it. I probably will make better decisions when I get to the restaurant, if I know that it's not, I'm not doing something bad or I'm not such a, when it's, everything is happening by default, then you tend to not feel good about your choices. if you plan some of those things, I think into the week, your chances for success are going to be so much better. Yeah. And you can think of a lot of this. A lot of this is the journey and it's the skill that you're creating, the skill of using the organizing steps, the skill of planning a meal, because it's a skill you're going to need for the rest of your life. So might as well look at this journey of practicing these things as a skill you're developing and being really, Present in the moment, not thinking you're just trying to get it done. You can think I'm developing my skill right now. Remind me the 80% rule is if you can follow your plan and, follow this project process 80%, that's a win. Like you're, you don't have to think all or nothing. That's a win to do that. The other thought I had was tracking your obstacle thoughts. If in your, I always like to use inside the cabinet door just because nobody sees it. Your kitchen stays neat, but you have a place for it. So you open and it's just a piece of paper taped in there. You have the thoughts you want to be practicing at the top, but what if you start writing down the thoughts that come up that keep you from following your plan, your obstacle thoughts, and you just keep track of them. It's fun to see and measure how your brain is changing. And maybe their top three always come up no matter what. So you know to expect that. But maybe, one of them starts going away and the other one you're planning for starts showing itself stronger and so you can see your progress. It's so fun to be able to see it. So that's a way to overcome or make it more of a. I think the other thing I know it's just a lesson that I keep learning over and over is that Getting into action and ultimately change your thoughts. So I know that before I got into kind of got my health together. And before I got into bodybuilding the choice of eating protein at breakfast or a donut. The donut always sounded better. It doesn't mean I always ate it but that's what sounded better and sounded more, Enjoyable to me in the moment. Now, I won't say that an egg white omelet sounds better than a donut right now, but I would now choose the omelet because I know how I'm going to feel for the rest of the day. And It's more valuable to me to have good energy to have stabilized blood sugar. Like I make different choices now because I've taken action that lets me experience what different choices gives you, if that makes sense. So sometimes some of this is just a huge experiment and you might hate meal planning now. A month, two months from now, you might say I just still don't really love meal planning, but I know what it gives me. And so it's totally worth doing it. And I will choose to do it, but you will never know that if you don't give it a try. Yeah. You're developing a skill. It's such a good use of your time versus spending the same amount of time being stressed out over not knowing what you're going to eat or being mad at yourself for not having the food you need in your house. So there is the same amount of time spent, maybe even more on the negative side versus just doing the meal planning part of it. Yeah and I will say as a health and nutrition and fitness coach I would say the biggest obstacle that the clients that I work with have, in terms of getting, having success nutrition is always the thing. That is the thing that is, it's 90 percent of weight loss or changing your body is nutrition. It just is. and that is really the biggest obstacle for most people. They don't know how to cook. They don't know how to get groceries in their house. If you say you need to eat a hundred grams of protein a day, they're like, I don't even know what that means. I don't even know what to do with protein. What is protein? I don't cook protein. They're just no. Practical skills in the kitchen. They may be amazing and, make 500, 000 in their professional career, but like totally deficient in this area. And it's a real confidence killer. And I don't think that you're going to get a handle on that until you get some skills in the kitchen. I'm not saying that you have to become a gourmet chef. But there does need to be some planning and having healthy food in your kitchen. So it's a non negotiable. And the other thing, if you're a parent listening to this, it's the best life skill that you can teach your children, nourishing your body, it's a non negotiable. Everyone has to eat, everyone has to give their bodies fuel. And so even if you hate it, if you can give your child some good habits around this, you will set them up for a really, this will impact their health for the rest of their lives. Yeah. And that just shows you, you can have such compassion over it for yourself. And even with organizing, a lot of people, they're like, nobody ever teaches you how to do it. If you didn't have a parent that was teaching you how to cook, it's not something you necessarily learn. so be so compassionate with yourself through this process and through developing these skills, because There's no reason why you should know how to do it, but you want to reach a goal in your life. And it takes learning some of these skills. It's going to be a process and you're just going to follow the steps over and over until you get better and better at it. That's another point is you can use learning how to meal plan and organizing your meal plan as just a way to learn how to organize better. Lots of skills and life skills that we can be developed through this process. Okay maybe we can end with just some, if we can both share some practical tips that we might have around meal planning and getting dinner on the table every night. So would you like to go first? We just thrown out some ideas. I did just read someone that said, I want to get 30 grams of protein in the morning before I drink my coffee. And this morning I had 20 minutes before I was meeting my daughter to work out. And I was like I'm not going to do it. Like I didn't do it. And I was like, why? I should have just had some protein first thing. But I thought that was, that's such a fun kind of game to play. I'm going to get 30 grams of protein in before I have my coffee. So that's one tip that I am trying to put into practice. Okay. So meal planning. I like to, now my kids are now 20 to 25. So my two girls still live at home, but what my husband and I do now, which is different than when I planned all the meals and had all the kids home was we try to plan out four meals. And then we get all the groceries for those four meals. so to go back to that, we're not strict on what day we have the meals. We do what we feel like or whatever, but we have all the ingredients for those four meals. The other thing I've been doing is I have two options for breakfast. Either an egg, something, or oatmeal, or some sort of like grain type thing. And then for lunch, I try to do the same. So any way that I can reduce decision fatigue on what to eat, but I don't have it necessarily planned out, more strict plan versus just having those options there. And there was something else I was going to say. Oh, and what I've been doing lately is at the end of a week or two weeks, I just throw everything in a pot, all the leftovers and make soup. And literally it's blown my mind how I've done this probably, I don't know, the last, five months or something every single time. It's amazing. And I always think this is not going to be good and it is so delicious. And we eat off of it for a couple of days. We take it to my the three other people in my house go to school or work. And so they take it for lunches and then we eat it for dinner at least once or twice. And so it's been so fun. I think at my house. That might cause food poisoning. stuff that gets left over in my fridge, but that's why I have to do it every two weeks before something goes bad. That's funny. that's a good idea though. I will give you six, like kind of practical ways. Oh yes. I can't wait. Easy nutrition. So it. And my couture coaching, our big thing is protein, at least a hundred grams a day. so if you don't love eating protein, my number one tip is drink your protein. From your protein shakes, fair life shakes, I have a protein coffee every morning and it is literally the easiest it's all pre made. I take like cold brew coffee, put it over ice. Pour a protein shake over it and mix put a cold foam on it and just drink it down while I'm getting ready while I'm on my way to the gym. Easy way to get in 30 grams of protein. Okay, wait, when you say a protein shake, do you just mean like protein powder or is it liquid already? So like premier protein those are like the little containers. Okay. Yes. I love that. And honestly, this to me tastes like something I would get at Starbucks. And it's like I said, it's an easy way to get 30 grams of protein in. So drink your protein. You can make it your own, you can use protein powder and put some almond milk or milk in it and, blend it up and make it that way, What I'm saying is like a straw in the I can drink things much faster with a straw. So that's just to me, or that you could have this in the afternoon as a snack. So drink your protein. Yeah. Protein shakes are a great source of protein. And just an easy way to get in 30 grams. And there's really very little, if you buy the shakes pre made, there's no excuse. Most of them are also shelf stable. So you can throw one in your purse. Okay. This makes me think, I wonder if, cause I make, we have a very good. Espresso machine. And so I make an espresso latte every morning and I'm in love with it and it's hot. So especially going into winter, I wonder if you can froth or steam a protein shake, can you? And then I could add my. My shot to that. Yeah, you can just, I would do a pre made shake that way, like a and just put it in your milk steamer. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to try that. I will let you know. It's a large amount of liquid, so you'll probably have to play with it a little bit, but Yeah. Just, it's the key with protein shakes is heating them up. I think the pre made shakes heat up a little bit better than using a protein powder. It can get gloppy, but yeah, I have steamed, I have a milk frother, I have steamed protein shakes. I need to cut it with something that's not sweet. I don't like super sweet coffee or, teas or anything like that. So I always use like a non sweet cold foam or something or just some regular milk or almond milk to cut the sweetness a little bit. Okay. So when you say cold foam, you mean like you foam something or do you buy cold foam? You can buy it and like right now I have a pumpkin spice cold foam. Now that's a little bit sweet, but you can buy cold foam at the grocery store. It's comes like in a can, like a whipping cream But So drink your protein. Costco has some great meal options. It's usually like Kevin's or other brands. The macros are really amazing. And some I've looked at some of the things and I couldn't beat them at home. And so I always have two or three in the freezer. There's an Indian chicken that I get at Costco that my kids love, And I always have non like from Trader Joe's on hand and that's a meal that comes together in about 3 minutes as long as it takes to heat the meal. And it's really high in protein. I also always keep a big bag of broccoli, from Costco, they come in 3 or 4 servings and you just literally throw them in the microwave. Rice, broccoli, and some of the Indian chicken at Costco is a full meal and gets on the table quickly. So I always have that as an option. I love that. I'm taking notes. Yeah. Cause we shop at Costco and we usually buy meals from there, but I don't know that I've ever tried Kevin's Indian chicken. So I can't wait. That's not Kevin's, but if you just go and look at, You want at least like 20 to 30 grams of protein per serving, but there's great options. Yeah. So I make all my meals do double duty. So it really takes no more time to cook a double batch of soup than it does a single. And so I might freeze the other half or we'll just have it for two meals in a row. my family will eat leftovers or I'll eat it for lunch, If I'm going to make a soup or a casserole or anything that requires, any prep, I double it. I'm used to cooking for a lot, but now everyone takes a lunch, so if I don't make a lot, nobody wants to make a sandwich anymore. so we always have leftovers. My fourth tip is delegate. Actually I think it's a tall order to do all of your shopping well. It would be a tall order to find your recipes. List out all the ingredients, do the shopping and then come home and food prep. That's in my opinion, way too much to do in one day, not a reasonable expectation, but you can split that up in some ways. And like I delegate, my husband is not a good cook. He literally cannot. Even really boil water, but he can go to Costco. So I delegate like Costco to my husband and just tell him what to get. And that's one part of the step I don't have to do. So anything, even if you have some non cooks in your home, or maybe you're the non cook so you can ask your husband like, Hey. If I come up with a list of meals, or can we come up with a list of meals together, I'll go do the grocery shopping. If you will prep it, you can split it up that way to make it a little less overwhelming. The next one though, is I do, I'm almost cook all of my meals from, I have three or four macros, black bloggers that I love. All their stuff is in my fitness pal. So if you're tracking, you're not going to be putting an entire recipe into my fitness pal and trying to figure out the macros. I learned that a long time ago there, the food is delicious. It's just has a great like nutrient profile. So most of their. Options are going to be higher in protein, lower in fat, reasonable amount of carbs. And so that's mainly where I cook from. And I've done dinner parties, cooking that food and people are like, Oh my gosh, where did you find that recipe? So that's really key. Don't make it harder on yourself than you need to let someone else, those macros bloggers have done the work. That's part of it. Brand is to have all the macros calculated for you and an easy entry in my fitness pal. I think that's the biggest obstacle for me because I want to, reach a couple of goals. And my biggest obstacle is entering into my fitness pal. So the time in my past that I have had the most success was when the meals were already in there. So do you share those bloggers or do you share your favorites or I'll share three right now. I love Lily eats and tells I love her. Recipes. Oh, snap macros is another blogger that I love. And then Lauren fit foodie. Oh, I think all three of them have some sort of meal planning service that it's very affordable. That they've organized it, you get a shopping list, you get meals. And sometimes I think decision fatigue sets in and I'm like that looks good, but do I really want to try it? But if they're just saying this is what you're going to cook for the week, here's the shopping list. You'll probably try some new recipes that you love and never realize that you loved. Yeah. My last tip is I have three or four breakfast bakes that I just put on repeat. So one is I, like my biggest tip for getting protein in the morning is to make your oatmeal with egg whites, which means you're standing next to the microwave or I just bake it. I make it like an oatmeal egg white bake. It's literally pouring packets of instant oatmeal and then three quarters of a cup of egg whites for each packet, mixing it up, throwing it in the oven for three 50, you can add stuff to it, like pumpkin or cheese seeds or things like that. And I have a biscuits and gravy bake. That's like high protein. And so I just. Rotate through those because to me, getting breakfast in and getting to the gym in the morning and getting to work on time, I don't really have a lot of time, to make a gourmet breakfast. So yeah, I don't really care. It's just breakfast to me as a protein delivery device. This is my protein delivery device. I love it. Yeah, so those are my tips it's really, in like my lifestyle, it's getting enough protein and getting the right kind of food in my body. this has changed because the 1st coach I ever worked with fitness coach gave me a meal plan. And I gave that meal plan the middle finger. I was like, no way this does not sound good. But now I'm to the point that no this is worth. Yeah, it's worth eating this food and most people don't eat that much of a variety of food. So you can find six or seven recipes and put them on repeat. Yeah, that's probably what you're eating anyway. So that's my tip. I love cooking and I love healthy food. I also love junk food. But I love getting on a plan. I love having a plan because then I don't have to think and that's with anything. I always want someone else to just tell me what to do because it's so much easier. This has been great. I do want to end with I, again, another thing that really stymies my clients from getting results is their life is very chaotic. There's an organization that needs to happen in a lot of different facets of life just to be able to have the time and space to devote to their health and wellness goals. So I recently joined your organization coaching. I haven't come live to any of the calls I've listened to them, but like for this month we're focusing on the garage now. I have not done everything on your list, but what I was able to do during this month is defrost the freezer and purge that in my garage, which now. I don't want to cry every time I walk by it. I think there was like some manifesting here because we had this table that we were trying to sell. I got a new kitchen table. Not even one person interested, but as soon as I joined your program, we started focusing on the garage buyer came from Facebook and just showed up with this truck and paid me for it and took it off. So I've gotten kind of two big things done in the garage. I did go through and make a list of things that needed to get done this month. Just did a, brain dump of all the things that needed, and I sorted them. So you are good. Look at you. So this doesn't look like perfection out of the box, but do you want to tell people about that service that you offer? I really like it cause it's very low pressure. I feel like do as much as, or as little as you want. It's not a huge. Financial investment, but it just keeps you focused and like moving along. I'm sure the more I put into it, the more I will get out of it, but I think this will be very helpful for people who are just overwhelmed by their life. Maybe everything has crashed. They feel like their house is a mess. Their health is a mess and they just don't even know where to start. They're so overwhelmed. So do you want to tell us about your food service? The program is called Organized Life Academy and 2025 we'll be starting our fifth year of doing this program. So I've tried different things every year. I changed things up a little bit. This year has definitely been my favorite because each month I choose the area. Now you're always open to choose anything you want, but having the area and I make a calendar that we're decluttering and I put tasks on there. Some of the ladies in there print that. Calendar out, they put it in a sheet protector, they hang it in the area. And they, the focus is decluttering. We always have a mindset focus as well. So we're looking at some part of our mindset in our life and we'll have an expert guest at the beginning of every month. We have a planning call. So we're planning our month and that doesn't mean we have to plan something every day of the month. It just means we're intentional about what we're organizing and what we're focused on. In 2025, we're going to be focused on routines. And so we're going to have different routines. We're going to focus on a quarter at a time. So we're going to use the concepts from the 12 week year. So all through the year, we're using these skills. We're using our organizing skills and our planning. We're using them in decluttering and organizing and in the projects that we're trying to accomplish. registration opens the 29th of October And as soon as you join, you get access this year as well as next year. So it's a year long program that you are a part of. this year we did our first live event here in Kansas city. I'm planning the live event for next year. we have an amazing group of people in there that are changing their life and all of them will say it's the mindset piece. Not only do I give them what to focus on and teach them the organizing skills, but it is the mindset piece and how they're now thinking of themselves differently. And they're gaining these skills and getting better at it. And it's great. Yes. I invite your listeners to join us. Yeah, I'll put a link in the show notes for sure. But yeah, I would almost describe it. It's very practical, but it's almost like a spiritual practice too. So to conquering overwhelm, you're just going to start learning some tools to deal with anything that's overwhelming in your life. So learning to process that, manage it, having a productive way to deal with it is really helpful. So I encourage, and like I said it's not in my opinion, a huge financial, no, it's scary. It's almost, yeah. Get in this year before the year starts and you're going to get the best deal for sure. Thank you for all of your wonderful advice. Okay. Joe, thanks for having me so much. Thank you.