Another small lesson today. And while it's not a huge deal in the big scheme of things, it does highlight an important aspect of losing weight and that's PLANNING.

If you're going to be eating 6 meals a day, you really need to plan those meals out in advance and pack them the night before. I just realized that I forgot my mid-morning snack today. I've been getting up a half-hour early each morning so that I can make my breakfast and relax before the kids wake up and my wife needs her space in the kitchen to make them breakfast (no cold cereal for our kids in the morning, unless we're feeling lazy). This extra 30 minutes in the morning has given me time to get my stuff ready for the day, but not this morning.

It was a bit more busy this morning than usual. Why, I'm not quite sure, but things seemed more hurried. On top of that, I had to run to the Entenmann's outlet to pickup some bread & English muffins after dropping my kids off for school. It was so busy, I completely forgot to pack my snack and even if I had remembered, I sure didn't have time to pack it so I'm sitting here at work with nothing to eat. I am lucky in that I only live 4 miles from my office, so I get to go home for lunch, so my mistake isn't THAT costly.

Now I'm trying to figure out what to do. There is a convenient store and a large drug store across the street, so maybe I can run over there (get some fresh air and a short walk in with it) and pick up something to tide me over. Or, we have some 100 calorie snack packs in our office kitchen I could resort to. But my problem with those are that they have a mix of rice checks, peanut butter chips & chocolate chips and pretzels. I'm trying to avoid sugars, but it's a small amount that would make my sweet tooth happy as well. I know, it's not very protein packed, but do I skip a meal and let my metabolism slip, or do I put something in my body as long as it's not a huge calorie hit?

SO, remember to plan your next day's meals the night before (or heck, the whole weeks meals on Sunday), then pack them up and put them with your keys so you don't forget it the next morning.