Disclosure: I received sample products from Meijer in exchange for this post. All opinions expressed are my own.

I’m not the kind of person that likes to make big sweeping resolutions…mostly because they don’t work out. I like to set goals and take baby steps to reach them. In 2005-2006, I lost more than 50 pounds, working out and sticking to a strict diet. Unfortunately, in 2007 I slowly started to gain all of that weight back plus an additional 45 pounds. BOO. Ever since we adopted our sweet pup Sport, I’ve been getting up early each morning to walk him nearly three miles and I’ve lost 15 pounds since implementing that step into my daily routine.

This is a picture of me at my lowest weight in 2007.

The point of all this is to say after losing a lot of weight very quickly, I never really changed my lifestyle and that made it easy for me to go back to the status quo once I had lost all the weight. So my goals for 2016 are to start making small changes and mastering each step before adding something new in. I hope to be successful this way and really sustain healthy living.

So after I started my daily walking routine, which in turn gets me to 10,000 daily steps, I decided that the next goal was to start drinking my daily water goal. I was recently introduced to an awesome app called Plant Nanny that has been helping me reach my water goals. This app is like a game and makes logging your water a fun task by growing a plant. It also reminds you in a real way that if you don’t water your plant it will die and in this case you are the plant.

This is my third plant, a cactus named Sparky

The next step is where Meijer comes into play – healthy eating and calorie counting. I like to incorporate shakes and meal replacement bars into my diet so when I go out I can indulge a little bit more on the big meals. Meijer sent me a variety of different shakes to try. I’ve previously only done Slim-Fast shakes before so I am excited to try some of these. Depending on how much time I have in the morning, sometimes I will add fruit to my shakes for a little something extra. I usually take my shakes with me during my morning commute, so convenience is important.

Do you have any good shake recipes? I normally just do a cup of milk, powder and sometimes if I’m starving a tablespoon of peanut butter. For lunch, I will do a meal replacement bar and 200 calories of something else, usually a half of sandwich or a serving of soup. It’s a joke in our house because I keep all my bars in our cookie jar. There are rarely cookies stored there, haha!

Calorie counting and movement are the keys to shedding the pounds for me and I am thrilled to start 2016 out with some helpful calorie management aids in my pantry. Meijer also has a great website called “A Healthier You” where they share tips and tricks for meal planning, health and fitness.

Have you lost weight before? What are you best tips and tricks for a healthy new year?

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