Why Preparation Wins - In Weight Loss and Life

You don't need to prepare for the perfect day. You need to prepare for the day that goes completely wrong. SNAFUs Happen!

SNAFU is a World War II-era military acronym meaning “Situation Normal: All Fucked Up.” It emerged in the U.S. military during the early 1940s and became a tongue-in-cheek way for soldiers to describe the inevitable confusion, mistakes, delays, and unexpected problems that accompanied military operations. The humor was essentially: Yes, everything is a mess—but that’s normal. The exact person who coined it is uncertain, but its use was firmly established in the American military culture of World War II. (U.S. Army Center of Military History)

Preparation is exponential

When you’re trying to maintain a healthy weight, preparation doesn’t simply make success easier—it compounds your advantage. Think about what you’re actually trying to accomplish. You aren’t merely trying to lose weight. You’re undoing years, sometimes decades, of habits created by the Standard American Diet—appropriately accronym’d SAD—while simultaneously building an entirely new relationship with food. You’re replacing convenience with preparation, processed food with whole food, excess carbohydrates with appropriate portions of nutritionally dense alternatives, and most importantly, you’re replacing impulsive eating with intentional eating. You’re also battling a million years of human evolution. As a species, your body is determined to stockpile calories in the form of fat, for long winters and famine—conditions that rarely exist today, yet your body is still opereting upon caveman physiology, which adds another roadblock to the list of roadblocks you must navigate in order to shed unwanted fat. Dieting is hard. It’s really hard. This makes proper preparation a requirement.

"Preparation isn't about preparing for the perfect day. It's about preparing for the day that goes completely wrong."

Every time you plan a meal, stock the right foods, prepare something ahead of time, or anticipate a difficult situation, you’re doing two things at once: weakening an old habit and strengthening a new one. That’s why I call the effect of preparation exponential rather than merely additive.

There will be SNAFUs. Bank on them. You’re going to get home late. Your flight will be delayed. The kids will have practice. The restaurant won’t have anything that fits your plan. You’ll be tired, stressed, hungry, or simply caught without a good option. That’s not a failure of the system, that’s the reason why you have a system. Preparation means solving the problem before the problem exists. A meal in the refrigerator, protein in your bag, vegetables already washed, or the right restaurant chosen before you’re starving may seem like small decisions, but each one removes an obstacle before it has the opportunity to become a bad decision.

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You don’t prepare because everything will go according to plan. You prepare because it won’t. SNAFUs aren’t evidence that your plan failed; they’re the reason you needed a plan in the first place. The goal isn’t to create a life without obstacles. That’s impossible. And in my experience, really boring. The goal is to become so prepared that when the inevitable Situation Normal: All Fucked Up moment arrives, it doesn’t knock you off course.

If you have kids, you already understand this concept. The only predictable thing about kids is unpredictability. Soccer practice runs late. Someone gets sick. You forget about the birthday party. The babysitter cancels. You’re driving home at 7:30, everybody is hungry, and suddenly the easiest option looks like the best option.

None of those things are unusual. That’s life.

And maintaining a healthy weight works much the same way. Preparation isn’t about preparing for the perfect day. It’s about preparing for the day that goes completely wrong.

You don’t meal-prep because you expect every day to go according to plan. You meal-prep because you know it won’t. You keep protein in the refrigerator because you know there will be a night when you’re exhausted and starving. You prepare your vegetables ahead of time because eventually you’re going to walk through the door after a long day and have absolutely no interest in cooking.

That’s not failure. That’s family. That’s reality.

The SNAFU isn’t written down, but it’s part of the plan.

Every time you prepare for one of those inevitable moments, you’re doing more than preventing it. You’re reinforcing the behavior you’re trying to establish. The healthy choice becomes easier because you’ve already made the decision before hunger, exhaustion, stress, or inconvenience gets a vote.

And that’s where the exponential effect begins. You’re simultaneously undoing the old habits and building the new ones. Every prepared meal, every protein-rich snack waiting in the refrigerator, every decision made in advance is another small repetition of the person you’re trying to become.

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Preparation doesn’t eliminate the SNAFU

It makes the SNAFU survivable. It makes the SNAFUs fun. You might have to trust me on the "fun" part. If somone would have said that to me in my late 20s when I was scrambling on a day-to-day basis, juggling work, coaching my kid’s basketball team way out in the miserable county resulting in sitting in traffic an extra two days per week because my ex wanted a yard and a new kitchen, I would have colorfully told you where to shove it. I get it. But this is what it’s all about. Changing habits is hard. It’s uncomfortable. It’s like starting a new job that pays twice as much as the last job. It’s going to be hard to assimilate to the new system, the new boss, and the new and uncomfortable surroundings, but you stick with it because you are certain that the value is there.

The same goes for eating healthy, and feeding your kids properly, even if you have to battle with them at first. You do it because it’s worth it. And in six months, you’ll look back at your struggles and laugh while looking into the mirror and loving what you see. Not because what you see is aesthetically so much better. Eating healthy will never fix my receeding hairline, but I did the work. It was hard, but I did it. And that makes the gratification ten times more appealing despite the widening boatslips surrounding the peninsula of thinning, graying hair on my five-head.

I am in the process of writing my second book, the long-awaited sequel to HCG 2.0 - A

Modern Adaptation of the Original HCG Diet. Actually, the only one that has been waiting is me - waiting to write it. Writing is hard, but it’s worth it. I can lift the contents of my determination off of a book shelf and hold it in my hand. That feels really good.

This blog post is a synopsis of a chapter from my book, GLP-1 and Done: The Exit Strategy You Need to Finally Find Freedom in Food. Below is a passage,

“The only predictable thing about kids is unpredictability. And the same is true of life. Preparation isn’t about preparing for the perfect day. It’s about preparing for the day that goes completely wrong. There will be SNAFUs. Count on them. That’s not pessimism; it’s preparation. It’s reality. You don’t prepare because you expect things to go according to plan. You prepare because you know they won’t.”