Whether you live to eat or eat to live, your food choices matter.

That’s especially true if you’re trying to lose that COVID-19 and have been working out every day or so to try to meet your weight goal.

Reality check … workouts alone WON’T get you to your weight goal. Fitness and food go hand in hand.

There are all sorts of diets out there that claim you can lose weight rapidly. But if you really want to lose the weight and keep it off, you need to change your relationship with food. Eating healthy, keeping your meals within the proper proportions, and avoiding impulse and binge eating is essential to meeting your weight and fitness targets.

My favorite healthy, lean diet starts with a breakfast of oatmeal with slices of banana or strawberry (sometimes both) mixed in. Lunch is a small, simple salad with chicken or turkey, and dinner is either chicken or fish with veggies. Salmon or shrimp are my seafood of choice.

My healthy meal plan of choice includes lots of fruit and veggies, with chicken and fish as my proteins. You can check out my sample meal plan here.

You may notice there are some food items missing from my meal plan. Coffee, alcohol, sugar and processed foods don’t appear anywhere on it. I’d love to tell you that I don’t include any of those in my diet, but I’d be lying. I have a big cup of coffee every morning. And I live for my glass of wine with dinner, and maybe a second glass later as I’m relaxing with my favorite TV show.

My point is, the meal plan I follow is an ideal, and I do stray from that ideal to a small degree at times. But if you’re serious about weight loss, you’re counting calories. And when you’re counting calories, EVERY calorie counts.

What about carbs, you ask? My meal plan does include small servings of bread, rice and pasta. And yes, I do have a piece of chocolate from time to time. But I limit myself to dark chocolate … it has some legit health benefits.

The fact is, if you’re feeding your fitness on that quest to lose weight, flatten your tummy, or minimize the risk of life-threatening conditions like cholesterol, high blood pressure, or heart disease, you need a healthy meal plan that works for YOU, preferably physician approved. And you need to stick to it.

Even you’ve tried and failed before, make 2021 the year you SUCCEED at feeding your fitness!