Routine or Variety? Can you have both?

Did you know that one of the habits successful weight maintainers do is to eat the same thing each day? We are often reminded that we should have a varied diet, and that variety is most optimal. Yet, it would seem that some of the most fit and healthy people don't necessarily subscribe to this strategy. It seems that routine eating habits is a successful strategy for weight management, but that variety is important in order to prevent boredom. So, how can we achieve both routine meals and variety?

One strategy is to have a switch out of one component of a given meal each day/week. For example, if you have an omelette every morning, one switch up might be changing the vegetables that you put inside it each day or each week. One morning maybe you add in a large fistful of spinach. Another morning it might be tomatoes and red pepper. Maybe some days you sub in some egg white in place of a whole egg. If you are an oatmeal eater, switch up the fruit you accompany it with. If you normally eat it with yogurt, trying subbing in cottage cheese, or swap out the oats for quinoa some mornings. Change your almonds for cashews. You get the idea. If you are a salad eater for lunch or dinner, try subbing out the proteins you eat with it. Maybe one day you have boiled egg and another you add in some tuna. Or change up the fresh vegetables you add on top. We like adding grains into our salads, so that is something else you can switch up yet still keeping the lunch essentially the same.

Another strategy is to have the structure of your meal stay the same, while you change up the actual items on your plate. For example, if you use a plate model of 1/2 non-starchy veggies on the plate, 1/4 protein and 1/4 starchy carbohydrates. One day you may have 1/2 a plate of stir-fried broccoli and mushrooms, 1/4 plate of baked salmon and 1/4 plate of wild rice. You can see how this would work well for allowing lots of variety, together with a routine structure.

Structure, routine and variety....there's lots of ways to go about it. How do you balance yours?