How many times have you made it most of the day without snacking on junk food only to cave-in in the late afternoon and let all your effort fall by the wayside as you down a whole bag of salt’n’vinegar chips?

It’s happened to me…more than once.

Perhaps you are like Rocky Balboa and your willpower is so great that you can train in Siberia in the winter without any creature comforts. Or maybe you have the internal strength to go on a 7-day water fast while hanging out at a gourmet all-you-can eat buffet.  Or maybe, you aren’t in a Hollywood movie and don’t have the willpower of a Shaolin monk, and just like the rest of us your willpower has a finite limit.

In fact, in the last few years multiple studies have shown that our willpower can be exhausted, after which our good choices go downhill from there.  Willpower is precious and you don’t want to waste it on battles that can be won without it.

While there are ways to improve your willpower just like you improve your muscle power, through training it and using it more, eventually it runs dry.  For some people, this happens quicker than others but essentially, ego-depletion, as Dr. Roy Baumeister calls it, is worn down throughout the day and we become weaker to resist temptation.

Willpower is not solely used to say “no” to things…

but it also is used in making any decisions, controlling emotions, dealing with thoughts and regulating performance.  It ends up being spread thin over many areas of our daily lives.  That’s why if you want to maintain good habits and succeed with positive changes in the more difficult areas of your life, it’s a great strategy to minimize unnecessary effort.

This is the key to having the strength to tackle the tougher challenges.

Hollywood action heroes, professional fighters, fitness models and bodybuilding champions all have used a single, simple technique that works time and time again to make their goals easier and their results predictable.  It’s not sexy.  It’s not fun. But it works and it removes the yo-yo success of relying on your inner strength without regard to the surprises and extra obstacles that inevitably come up.

We resisted it in our household.  We thought it was too much work.  We didn’t believe that it could free up time, eliminate struggles and eventually, be embraced by everyone…including our kids.

I’m talking about the underrated, the under-utilized, the undisputed heavy weight champion of weight loss, muscle gain and physical transformation… THE MEAL PLAN!!

Creating a meal plan is not rocket science, it doesn’t take long and once you have it, you can reuse it, tweak it and ride it to victory.  Having a meal plan not only streamlines your shopping, saving you time and money, but can also eliminate the risks of succumbing to spontaneous temptations.

In our house, both my wife and I work full-time, our two kids go to school and we are able to plan an entire week of meals, including school lunches, breakfasts and snacks.  By doing this, we rarely find ourselves wondering what we should have to eat, or needing to run to the store for a treat or ingredient only to come back with the very thing we wanted to avoid.

There are many apps out there to make meal planning easier but doing it old school works just as well.  We make a simple grid using an excel spreadsheet, break each day into breakfast, lunch, dinner and snacks, then we slot in different meals.  Our menu doesn’t really change that much and we like to keep things simple during the week and give ourselves a little more flexibility on the weekends.

Meal planning can be like Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg wardrobe – simple, effective, reliable and always the same.   Note: this is their way of reducing unnecessary decision making and preserving willpower.

For the sake of taste, health and interest, we don’t eat the exact same meal every single time and make some changes from week to week. Still, having certain staples that are nutritious, delicious and pretty much enjoyed by everyone makes a good foundation for a meal plan.

It’s Simple, Quick and Saves You Money

Once you start, you begin to create a bank of meals and snacks.  Then it gets easier and easier.  It should take you around 10-15 minutes each week to plan 5 breakfasts, lunches, dinners and snacks.  This sets you up with a clear shopping list that can reduce your trips to the grocery store to essentially a single outing for the week.

Get Buy In

One of the best ways to be successful with a buy-in from everyone in your house is to sit down together and get input.  Give your kids some choices.  It is amazing to see how excited they get with the predictability of what’s coming up. It is also pretty funny to see them call you out when you try to deviate from the agreed upon plan.  In fact, that’s a clear sign of the effectiveness of a meal plan.

Here’s a tip: post it where everyone can see it and it becomes like the lighthouse beacon guiding your family through the fog of meal time confusion.

The Unexpected Results

You might even experience what’s going on in our house.  Our 6 and 8 year olds actually ask to get involved in meal prep and help out with the grocery shopping.

Take a step back and you’ll recognize that this empowers your children with skills like organization, planning, food awareness and builds their self-reliance.

To get you started, we are giving you our latest meal plan.  Feel free to substitute to meet your dietary needs and to use as a guide.

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Just subscribe with your email here you’ll get access to our Vitality Quiz and the Boundless Energy Course.   Once this arrives, reply to the email with a simple “meal plan, please” and I’ll send you a meal plan as well as recipes for 5 days worth of meals.

Now I want to hear from you.  What do you do to reduce willpower fatigue? Have you used a meal plan?  Did it work for you?

Let me know in the comments below.