Seth Godin talks about recipes on his blog today.  He says that a "sure fire-recipe for success is often a sure fire-recipe for disappointment."  Of course, he's talking about marketing, but it's just as true for healthy eating too.  Fad diets insist if you follow their "recipe for success" you'll drop pounds and find a new boyfriend, fit into those jeans from high school, or all of a sudden lead an exciting life.   And what about weight loss plans? They guarantee success, but whose?  Kirsty Alley didn't manage to stay the course with Jenny Craig, even though they paid her (and I bet they didn't deduct the $100/week food bill or the weekly membership fee).  Both of these lead to disappointment over the long haul.

The truth is, healthy eating takes time and planning. That's why MealMixer.com offers Menu and Meal Planning to help you stay organized and on track.   Don't think of it as a "Sure Fire Recipe for Success"  but a way of life that makes long term sense.

Ok.  January is over for all practical purposes.  Time to evaluate those goals! 

Eating better?   Check.    Fruits and veggies up, secret stash of snacks down.   Calories that the meal planner gives me?  WAY down.

Drinking water?  Slosh!

Exercising?  Well…um…  After a great beginning, it got a bit boring.  What to do?  Music!  I discovered that our cable provider offers some interesting music channels, my kids have hip music on their MP3 players, and slacker.com (an awesome commercial free radio). 

If you go to a fitness center you’ll notice that they always have peppy music playing.  There are plenty of studies out about how adding up tempo music to a workout is shown to increase intensity and duration.    If you don’t have a personal selection of music that makes you feel like dancing (or running, or crunching), do an internet search for fitness music and build one!

 There’s one other benefit to adding music to a work out:  people tend to assume you cannot hear them when you’re wearing earbuds!