(that I wish I knew earlier in life)

You don't need more discipline. Or willpower. All it takes is a proven system.

I was born in 1990, so I saw the rise of health & fitness influencers — meal prep 21 meals every Sunday, count every macro. That's not the model that works.

The crew of 200 sailors I fed in the Coast Guard never had all there meals made a week in advance. That would’ve been chaos. Instead, they got a system. Simple. Repeatable. Sustainable even when I was "too busy" or "too tired."

Let the fitness gurus analyze calories to the gram. I'll build sustainable plans you can actually run every week.

Try this: Drop one "should" from your meal planning this week.

10 minutes on Sunday solves three daily failures.

3 mistakes I see every busy professional make:

All three are the same problem — you're deciding food in real time. The fix is to sit down Sunday morning, for 10 minutes and plan your weekly meals. The system works, if you use it. (read exactly how I do it)

Try this: Block 10 minutes this Sunday. Pick B/L/D for the week. That's it.

Repeating meals isn't lazy. It's efficient.

I once served 350 lbs of the same pasta dish over 4 Mondays in a row to 200 sailors. I was frantic hoping the captain didn't notice. The captain said nothing. The crew said nothing. Operations ran smoothly.

At my house on a random Monday, we're usually having pasta. My wife never complains, because it frees up mental energy for the day's actual decisions. We’re not scrambling at 5 pm figuring out what we can eat for dinner. So, I'm giving you permission to repeat the same meal the next few Mondays in a row.

Try this: Pick one meal next Monday. Eat it every Monday this month.

Breakfast should never be a decision.

For 10+ years, I'd wake up at 3:30 am to prep breakfast for a couple hundred people. Every second counts when you wake up. High performers apply systems thinking to every business problem they have. The ones that take years to crack become rocket ships.

But they never apply the same thinking to something as simple as breakfast. No weekday breakfast decisions, means your morning can reset your mind for the day. Master this and the rest of your day runs on autopilot. I use the No-Decision Breakfast System. (read how to use it)

Try this: Pick one breakfast you'll eat Mon–Fri this week. Don't deviate.

A good morning routine begins the night before.

Anytime I have a pre-planned weeknight dinner, my next day is 10x more productive. The reverse is brutal — when I wing it at night, by the time the day starts, I already feel behind. But, a few minutes of planning the night before dramatically increases the ROI of the morning.

You wake up to a meal you already know you're eating, flow into your workout, decompress before working, log on with a fresh cup of coffee.

Try this: Tonight, make tomorrow's breakfast ahead, or at least put out the ingredients. Takes a few minutes.

Sidebar:

If Lesson 5 hit, the easiest way to act on it is the 60-second weeknight dinner planner I built. It took me hours to make.

But it picks your full week of dinners in about 1 minute. Same system I used in the Coast Guard, stripped down for your household. $9, one-time. Lifetime access.

Put your week on auto pilot → Get it here

Back to the lessons.

Match your prep to the day's intensity.

I slept in once on a ship in the Arctic Circle and had 200 grown adults ready to throw me overboard. (I would have been a popsicle) Not having breakfast ready can kill any hope of focus and clarity for the rest of the day.

But there's no reason to spend 30 minutes every morning cooking fresh either.

The day decides the prep.

Try this: Check tomorrow's calendar. Pick grab-n-go or a quick-meal, based on how packed it is.

Plan lunch, even if "planning" means takeout.

Last Wednesday I took 30 minutes during lunch to myself. Sushi from a nearby Wegmans. Just me and a few ducks.

Out of the 300,000 meals I planned in the Military, I never made the entire week on one day. Any unplanned meal mid-workday throws off the rest of your day and bleeds into your family time at night.

Instead, sit down for 5 minutes, find the lighter days, schedule takeout for one or more, write the spot in your calendar. The weight of another food decision in the middle of your week — gone. Planning takeout is way better than ad hoc delivery food. (read why)

Try this: Schedule one takeout lunch in your calendar. Restaurant + day.

A dinner backup isn't a meal plan. It's a pre-made decision.

Frozen corn dogs were technically responsible for 12,130 lbs of drugs being captured off Central America — a cool 490 bales. Having freezer options on board meant the crew always had a backup. No delays. No decisions. They stayed on mission.

You log off at 5:30 pm after making 100 decisions, and now comes the 101st: "what's for dinner?" Some nights it's DoorDash, other nights pantry chaos. Either way — no nutrition, no thought, pure survival mode.

A freezer backup is one less thing for the version of you who has nothing left in the tank.

Try this: Stock 2 freezer meals you actually like. They're not lazy — they're insurance.

Use categories, not just recipes.

In 2013, I was in Culinary school for the Coast Guard. 3 months of 16-hour days, 6 days a week. Week 2, I learned cycle menus: a way to meal plan for months at a time by categorizing meals. Each cycle repeats every 6, 8, or 10+ weeks.

The categories I still use weekly:

These plug into the week effortlessly. You don't need 30 recipes. You need 5 categories that always have a slot.

Try this: Pick 3 categories. Assign each to a weeknight this week.

Decide food once. That's the whole game.

3 months ago, we got a new dog (6 years old, energy of a puppy, attitude of an 80-year-old). The first week was chaos. But, it would've been 10x worse if our meals weren't planned. Breakfasts were made-ahead, lunches were batch cooked Sunday, dinners were freezer meals and planned takeout.

No daily "what's for dinner" spiral while keeping the new dog from eating the old one. Planning meals isn't about discipline. It's about deciding food once, so life can get busy without draining your mental energy.

Try this: This Sunday, run the 10-minute system: pick the meals, stock the backups, decide on food once.

Put all 10 lessons together, and you’ll be a meal planning machine. Your ROI on your decision making ability will be significantly improved.