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Kitchn’s Delicious Links column highlights recipes we’re excited about from the bloggers we love. Follow along every weekday as we post our favorites.

If I’m attending a dinner party, I don’t fuss too much over the main course. It’s nearly guaranteed to be well-prepared and filling. No, what I look forward to the most are the appetizers. The snacks you eat while you’re waiting for dinner to come out of the oven set the tone for the entire evening. A well-arranged cheeseboard and plates of still-hot finger foods can be the difference between a legendary party and one your friends wish they could forget. It’s imperative to keep your hungry guests from getting cranky while they sip wine and try to make conversation.

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“This is it!” you say to yourself. “I’m going to lose 40 pounds and get in shape. I’ll join the gym, lift weights seven days a week, and finish each session with an hour of cardio. I’m going to quit eating sugar too! I’ll throw away everything in my fridge and pantry, and I’ll only eat protein and vegetables. I’m going to quit drinking soda every day, I won’t have wine on the weekends anymore, and I’ll only drink water from here on out. Let’s do this!”

For the first and second week, you stick to your new plan. Even though it feels like a lot to manage, you manage to purge your pantry, and avoid all treats, soda, and wine. You find yourself going to bed late each night in order to fit in your long workouts after work, but you figure, “no pain, no gain.”

The third week, however, feels hard. You’re dragging yourself out of bed each morning after pushing the snooze button multiple times. You find yourself significantly sore from working out nonstop. You’re ravenous and craving treats due to being so restrictive with your diet, and from exercising so much.

You find yourself obsessively thinking about ordering take-out, and drinking soda. Your friends have a dinner party that weekend, and you white-knuckle your way through the event, turning down wine and passing on dessert.

By the fourth week, things have gone sideways. You are physically and mentally exhausted, and have begun to dread your workout sessions, so you skip them. That Friday, the office orders pizza for your co-workers birthday, and you’re so hungry and tired that you give in and scarf down several slices. Between skipping your workout sessions all week and overeating pizza, you feel like a failure.

“Why can’t I just stick to the plan? What is wrong with me? I guess I’m not meant to reach my goals.”

You throw in the towel, and go back to your previous habits, feeling embarrassed and defeated.

Does this cycle sound familiar? Starting off with a bang, and then fizzling out over the course of the next few weeks?

If so, you are not alone. We have worked with thousands of women, many of whom have shared similar stories of setting goals to improve their fitness and nutrition, failed to reach them, and are left wondering what is wrong with them.

We have good news: nothing is wrong with you.

You are not the reason that you aren’t achieving your goals. The problem is your goal setting process. You weren’t set up for success to begin with!

While it can be incredibly tempting to overhaul your entire life and make big sweeping changes, that almost always leads to burnout within a couple of weeks. Luckily, there is a better way.

Get Clear on Your “Why”

You likely already know your outcome goal, or where you’d ultimately like to be. For example, in the opening story, the outcome goal was to lose 40 pounds. Other examples of outcome goals might be being able to do five pull-ups, running a marathon, or squatting your bodyweight.

While there isn’t anything inherently wrong with outcome-based goals, they leave out something important — the step-by-step instructions of how to get there!

The next step is to get clear on your “why.” Take some time to work through your answers to the following prompts, and consider writing your answers down on paper. Writing things down gives us the opportunity to really think things through, and can also offer a different perspective.

• How will achieving your outcome-based goal enhance your life or make you happier?
• What are you willing to do to achieve this goal? For instance, maybe you’re willing to invest in a gym membership, start doing weekly food prep, or schedule time for yourself, away from your family, in order to exercise.
• What are you unwilling to do to achieve this goal? Perhaps you’re willing to get a gym membership, but you’re not willing to spend more than three hours per week there. Getting clear on what you’re not willing to do is just as important as knowing what you are willing to do.
• How do you want to feel after achieving your outcome-based goal? More confident? More energetic? Stronger? Happier with your relationship with food?
• When would you like to reach your goal? Do you have the time, energy, and resources necessary to achieve this particular goal within this timeline?
• Are you pursuing this goal for yourself, or is it for someone else?
• Does your outcome-based goal align with your priorities? In other words, does it fit with how you want to spend your time and where you want to put your attention and energy?

Answering these questions can provide clarity, and may prompt you to make some changes to your outcome goal, based on what is important to you.

Consider Your Other Obligations

One of the biggest reasons that people struggle to meet their goals is because they fail to consider their other obligations in life, and try to force their life to work around training and nutrition. This is completely backwards.

In order to stay consistent, and for your efforts to be sustainable, your training and nutrition must work around your life, not the other way around.

Once you’ve gotten clear on your “why,” take a look at your calendar over the course of the next six months, and notice which events you have coming up. Do you have any travel, vacations, big work deadlines, activities for your kids, or anything else that could be disruptive to your nutrition or exercise? If so, it will be really helpful for you to plan around those times, rather than wrongly assuming that you’ll be able to push through it.

For example, if you are an educator and back-to-school season each year is chaotic and disruptive for about four weeks, that likely isn’t an appropriate time to try to follow a diet that requires a lot of food prep and time in the kitchen, or to follow a training program that requires hours and hours in the gym.

How can you plan for that time in a way that will still move you towards your goals while honoring your work obligation and busy schedule? Maybe you can sign up for a temporary food delivery service during that time, or perhaps you simply lower your expectations and use that time as a period to focus on maintaining. Instead of trying to get to the gym five days per week, maybe you commit to taking walks outside after work instead.

However you choose to adjust things, remember that you have obligations throughout the year and it’s necessary to take those things into account when you are creating your plan to achieve a goal.

What Are Your Non-Negotiables?

The next thing to consider when establishing your goals are your non-negotiables. These are the things and events in your life are really special to you that you either aren’t willing to change, or that would make you unhappy if you changed them.

For instance, perhaps your social life is very important to you, and all week you look forward to meeting your friends for Happy Hour every Thursday night for appetizers and drinks. Maybe you and your best friend have a tradition of meeting for brunch every Sunday, and it would break your heart to cancel this in order to adhere to a diet. Maybe you love having creamer in your coffee every morning, or you adore having a glass of wine on Saturday night.

Among the things that bring you happiness and joy, which ones are you unwilling to give up in order to meet your goal? These are important things to keep in mind and take into consideration.

Now that you’ve gotten clear on your “why,” reminded yourself of your other obligations, and identified your non-negotiables, it’s time to set your behavior-based goals.

Set Your Behavior-Based Goals

Your behavior goals are the things that you are willing to do that will get you to your outcome goal.

If your outcome goal is your desired destination, your behavior goals are the road map that will get you there.

For example, if your goal is to lose 40 pounds, your behavior goals might be:

1. Go to the gym three times per week to do your workout.
2. Prepare food every Sunday for the week ahead to ensure you have healthy food on hand and ready to eat.

When you are setting your behavior goals, it’s important that you set goals that you are confident you can consistently achieve over and over again. If you look at your behavior goals and think that they will be too easy — perfect! You want to set yourself up for success.

Once you have established one or two behavior goals, you’ll follow those for two weeks. If you are able to consistently attain your behavior goals over the course of two weeks, it’s time to add on another one or two behavior goals.

A lot of people think that they could stick to their goals if they just tried harder, but that’s rarely the case. The majority of people struggle to meet their goals because they:

• Set unrealistic goals that don’t align with their lifestyle or values.
• Don’t have clear instructions on how to get to their outcome goal.
• Try to overhaul everything all at once, which leads to burnout.

To recap, in order to set and achieve your goal:

1. Identify your desired outcome,.
2. Get clear on your “why.”
3. Consider your other obligations.
4. Establish your non-negotiables.
5. Select one or two behavior-based goals that you feel confident you can consistently reach.

By following these steps, you will be crystal clear on exactly what to do in order to achieve your outcome goal, and you can find peace in knowing that it aligns with your lifestyle and preferences, which will keep you consistent!

Tired of not getting the health and fitness results you’re looking for?

We can help!

Our small group Get Results Coaching program gives you everything you need to accomplish your goals – with GGS co-founder and head coach Jen Comas right by your side.

Enrollment opens twice a year – get on our free, no-obligation pre-sale list now to learn more and get an opportunity to enroll early.

Learn More!

The post Why You’re Struggling to Reach Your Goals (and How to Set a Goal You’ll Reach) appeared first on Girls Gone Strong.

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“Some people are born on third base and go through life thinking they hit a triple.” – Barry Switzer

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January is already proving to be a weird month. At least at Costco it is. Usually, we’d round up all the best sales for the month, but after browsing through the site, we decided there was really only one thing worth calling out. Most of the deals are on cabinets (save 25 percent on semi-custom cabinets!) furniture (barstools!), and other seriously random finds.

The one thing worth writing home about? The Vitamix S30 Personal Blender.

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Dear Marge,

Help! My mother-in-law is feeding my baby sweets. We don’t give our 2-year-old daughter anything with added sugar, and my mother in law knows it.

One night, after my mother-in-law had watched Becca for us (which she does twice a week while I work), I saw an empty box of animal crackers in the garbage. I didn’t say anything to her, but the following week when she came over, I pointed out the containers in the fridge with my daughter’s lunch, and casually mentioned (again) that we don’t give her any cookies or sweets. My mother-in-law just nodded as though in agreement. When I put Becca in her pajamas that night, I found chocolate stains on her sleeve. Since then, there have been a bunch of other incidents. I am 100% positive she gives her sweets every time she sees her.

I feel like she is just totally ignoring what I want for my own child. No matter how many times I say it, and no matter how nicely, she simply does what she wants. I don’t know how else to tell her. I’m really frustrated and pissed off.

Signed,

— Sugar Turf War Mom

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If you’ve been a lifelong omnivore, going vegan probably seems really intimidating. And don’t get us wrong: it’s a real change, to be sure. But it’s also a do-able one, as long as you have solid recipes to rely on. If you find yourself deciding that a vegan way of eating is for you, these 20 meat-free and dairy-free recipes are an excellent place to start. With them, we think you’ll find that going vegan is actually a lot easier than you think.

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http://www.marksdailyapple.com/

Last month, I gave a heads up about what I’m calling the Keto Kickoff—a quick and comprehensive 7-day dive into the ketogenic diet, a pure distillation of the lessons contained in The Keto Reset Diet book. That starts next Monday (sign-up closes Sunday night 1/6/19), and it assumes, but does not require, an audience without any formal experience in the ketogenic diet.

What about a similar-but-different-enough population—those who have tried keto, stopped for any number of reasons, and want back on the wagon? Should those looking to restart keto do or know anything different?

First and foremost, the basics still apply. Anyone looking to restart keto should pay attention to all the stuff I’ve covered in previous posts and books and will be covering in the Keto Kickoff email series (so sign up today!). Going keto is going keto.

What’s the most important step someone trying to restart a ketogenic diet needs to follow before doing anything else? Identify why you fell off the wagon in the first place. Then address it.

That’s really what sets you apart from the average keto beginner—your preexisting hangups. If anything, you’ll have a better physiological response to the ketogenic diet because your body retains knowledge. Some of that metabolic machinery is still there, still functioning, once you shake off the rust.

But you do need to figure out and overcome what tripped you up the first place.

People have dozens of potential reasons for quitting keto. I can’t possibly cover them all, but I can address and offer solutions for the most common ones.

It Was Challenging Figuring Out How To Eat With Friends, Family, and Colleagues

The people who give this reason usually fall into one of two camps. Either they’re too agreeable and give in to peer pressure (imagined or real) at the drop of a hat, making it impossible to get into any sort of keto rhythm; or they’re too rigid, turning every social excursion with food into an epic battle of will that eventually breaks them. The former group needs to toughen up. The latter group needs to lighten up.

Avoid rigidity and timidity. Stand firm and be resolute in your convictions about what diet makes you feel best; don’t be afraid to say “no” or order a salad with four meat patties when everyone else is getting pizza. In the vast majority of these cases the only one making you feel awkward is yourself. Most people don’t care. And if they do care, it’s probably because they’re intrigued and want to know more. Besides, going keto isn’t such a foreign concept these days. You may even have secret compatriots present who are also restarting keto.

Stick it out for three or four weeks and then lighten up. Once you’ve re-established your ketogenic metabolism and achieved metabolic flexibility, it won’t hurt (that much) to drift in and out on special occasions. You should be able to bounce back relatively quickly after a dalliance with carbs at happy hour, or Thanksgiving, or a birthday party. Just try to stick to healthy Primal sources of carbs to make the transition that much easier.

It Stopped Working

Sometimes keto stops working. An understandable reaction is to stop doing keto. It’s not the ideal move, but it makes sense.

If you’re thinking about restarting keto after a hiatus, and the reason you stopped in the first place was that keto stopped working, you probably have some bad habits or misconceptions to overcome.

• You ate too much fat. A common trajectory among keto dieters who plateau is that they overdo the fat. Early on in keto, anything you eat seems to promote weight loss. The extra fat in those early days even upregulates the fat-burning of your mitochondria, speeding up the keto adaptation process. You’re eating more fat than you ever have before, and you only seem to be growing more powerful. It’s a profound sensation. But as you keep eating more and more fat, you plateau. As you attempt your keto restart, remember that getting into ketosis is more about the carbs you don’t eat than the fat you do. Calories don’t stop counting on keto.
• You ate too little protein. Protein absolutely can inhibit ketosis, but it takes more than you think. Ketosis is protein-sparing, but you still need to eat it. And some people can get away with far more protein than others and still remain firmly in ketosis. The oft-given blanket advice to “limit protein” can really throw some people for a loop and lead to keto “not working.” Too low a protein intake on keto can reduce performance in the gym, limit or even reverse muscle hypertrophy, increase appetite, and make it hard to construct a palatable meal. If that sounds like you, try eating a bit more protein when you do your keto restart.

It Felt Too Restrictive

Not to toot my own horn too much, but this is one of the main reasons why I developed the Primal Kitchen line. Having an arsenal of reliable, convenient, and most importantly healthy mayos, dressings, sauces, and marinades promotes dietary variability. You end up eating a wider range of meats, vegetables, and other keto-friendly foods when you can modify their taste and presentation by flipping open the top of a bottle of dressing or mixing in some mayo. Meal monotony is a deal breaker for many people on any diet, including keto.

It Was “Too Hard”

That’s about as vague a complaint as you can get, but it’s very common.  Going keto forces a totally new way of looking at your food, at your conception of energy, even your experience of the world. Your breath changes. Your grocery shopping routine changes. Three-quarters of the food at your favorite restaurant is suddenly off-limits. Then there’s the salt, potassium, and other electrolytes to worry about.

If you found keto to be just too hard to get a handle on, you’re not alone. Sign up for the Keto Kickoff, refresh your knowledge of the basics (and see what you were overlooking, if anything), get daily support, and do your keto restart right.

You Just Drifted Away

Things snowball, don’t they? You have a quarter of a donut at work because it’s just a quarter of a donut and it’s your favorite kind and it’s free. You get home and taste test the mac-and-cheese you made for your kids a few times, then finish their plate because, hey, it was only a couple more bites and refrigerated mac-and-cheese gets weird. Before you realize it, you’ve eaten refined carbohydrates every single day, haven’t lost a pound, and you can’t rightfully call yourself keto.

Keto drift happens, and it demands a restart. To prevent it from happening again, remember why you wanted to go keto in the first place:

For the fat loss…

For the improved energy…

For the metabolic flexibility…

For the freedom from hunger…

For the potential for a long, healthy, active life…

When you’re ready to get serious, get moving.

It Never Worked…As I Tried It

This is rare, but not inconceivable. Occasionally, a diet doesn’t work.

If keto truly doesn’t work for you, no matter how faithfully or optimally you implement it, don’t do it. Ketosis is still a good state to visit, so just be sure to implement some other method of entering ketosis even if you’re not going to restart the keto diet, whether it’s intermittent fasting, intense exercise (with precautions), caloric restriction, or simply not snacking all the time.

Do make sure you gave it a good three-week try, however, before concluding that “it doesn’t work for me.” That’s the minimum amount of time you need to know if it’s a good fit. If you didn’t give it three full and earnest weeks, sign up for the Keto Kickoff (opportunity for sign up closes January 6th!), and see what additional guidance and support can do for your process.

For those interested in beginning the new year with the Keto Reset Diet library of books, for a limited time all the original bonus gifts—ebooks, audio, video and Primal Kitchen discount codes—for each book (The Keto Reset Diet, The Keto Reset Cookbook, and the The Keto Reset Instant Pot Cookbook) are available with purchase again.

Thanks for reading today, everyone. Are you restarting keto? Trying it for the first time? Committing to another deep dive after a successful keto experience before? I’d love to hear your stories, questions and tips for all who are taking up keto in the new year.

The post How to Restart Keto appeared first on Mark’s Daily Apple.

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Ever notice how Amazon sometimes discounts certain colors of products? For example, these 52-by-63 inch blackout curtains are priced at $19.99 in navy blue, but if you want them in a bolder shade, like purple, you’re going to have to fork out 10 bucks more and pay $29.99 for the exact same size.

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We all know what it’s like to come home hungry at the end of a long day and not want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen. Instead, we’ll turn to our default dinners — the fast, familiar bites we can toss together with whatever’s in our fridge or pantry (with bonus points if the end result is quick, cheap, and, of course, delicious).

And famous food figures — from chefs, to TV hosts, to bloggers — feel that way too. After often spending entire days cooking with or thinking about food, it’s no surprise that when they get home, they also have their shortcut suppers to fall back on. We’re asking them to share those dinners with us.

If you thought Christina Tosi might default to boxed mac and cheese and Twizzlers for dinner on those nights she really doesn’t want to cook, you’d be very wrong. Even at the end of a long day, the Milk Bar owner and MasterChef Junior judge says she still makes a point to cook something ultra satisfying.

We chatted with her about her go-to lazy dinner: a stovetop chicken dinner topped with a pile of greens. Best of all? This quick meal — inspired by chicken Milanese — comes together much faster than you might think.

Here’s exactly how Christina makes it.

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There are a few things that I can guarantee (with absolute certainty) will happen in the early days of this new year.

1. I will not be able to successfully write 2019 on the first try — until at least April.
2. I will continue to tell everyone I know that “I am going to get a gym membership when the crowds die down.”
3. I am going to resolve to eat better and save that money.

To help me get a jump-start on that third one (for real this time!), I consulted seven different registered dietitians for their best tips. Honestly, a lot of these seem doable. Bring it on 2018 — I mean 2019 — I’m ready for you!

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