The best part? Eric is not even close to qualifying right now.

You know that please-let-this-be-over-before-I-puke feeling that it takes to run a 5K PR? Well, to qualify for Boston, Eric would need to hold his current best 5K pace for an entire marathon.

But you know what? I think he will do it.

How can I say this, when I don't know anything else about him? Because his post grabbed hold of my soul and shook it, the way a piece of music, a line in a favorite book, or the smile of your child does, when you recognize in it something that is purely, unmistakably you.

This is the mindset that it takes to BQ

A lot of people have asked me how in the world I qualified for Boston, when my early marathon results showed nothing that could be mistaken for even slightest bit of natural talent for running.

To answer the question, it's simple to list the steps I took to stop getting injured and eventually get faster. Proper cadence, foam rolling, speed workouts, long runs that approached goal pace.

What takes much, much more explaining — and without which the other stuff wouldn't have ever had the chance to happen — is the mindset that was required.

The hardest part, I tell them, was to actually believe, after I finished my first marathon in a painful 4:53:41, that somewhere I still had a 3:10 in me (the Boston-qualifying time that I had naively penciled in as my projected finish when I registered).

I told myself that I was slow because my training was weak due to injuries. "Once I figure out how to keep my shins healthy and complete a full training program, then I'll qualify."

Three and a half years later, I figured out how to keep my shins healthy, and I ran my second marathon — a full hour faster than the first. Finally, I felt like I had really "run" my marathon.

Reality struck when I realized I was still 43 minutes away from Boston, and my ace had already been played.

Where the heck was I going to find another minute and a half per mile to shave off?

Be willing to fail, again and again

In a way, it was like those cults you hear about every so often, the ones who publicly predict a doomsday date in the weeks ahead. They fully believe what they're telling everyone — but then what happens when the date passes without so much as a thunderstorm, and they're proven indisputably wrong? They simply find a miscalculation, revise their prediction, and go back to believing again.

That was my trick too: with each subsequent marathon, I found another reason to grab onto, in order to convince myself that this one would be my Boston qualifier.

What's different between this mental sleight-of-hand of mine, and that of the end-of-days cult, is that my evolving belief was backed up by slow, but steady, progress. Real progress, the kind that comes from "being doubled over on my knees, sucking wind at the end of another 400 meter repeat," as Eric correctly imagines his qualifying will require.

And so I put everything I had into qualifying for Boston. I read books. I learned new ways to train. I incorporated more speedwork, more hills, more tempo runs, better nutrition. I told all my friends that I was going to qualify, and that they should come watch me to do it.

Not someday, but this time. And I believed every word of it. What happened?

I failed.

Then I failed again.

And then I failed again.

And finally, one time, I didn't fail. At the Wineglass Marathon in October 2009, I ran my BQ, after seven years of trying.

Five failures, one success. But that success is what I'll remember when I'm 70 as one of the biggest victories of my life.

Eric's post resonates with me so strongly because, in just a few lines, it captures perfectly what it felt like to be so determined and so focused on one thing — to know that this huge goal, which should have seemed impossible, was instead inevitable.

If running Boston is on your bucket list, then I suggest you read Eric's post and adopt that mindset too.

If you want to run your BQ…

Announcement time! For the past six months or so, I've been working on a project with my friend Jason Fitzgerald from Strength Running. In that time, we've put together a huge resource we're really proud of, and one that's entirely devoted to helping runners qualify for Boston, like I did and like Jason did. (As a 2:39 marathoner, he had a little easier time with it. )

Our project is called Run Your BQ, and we're really close to finishing it up. In a couple weeks we're going to accept our initial group of members. Registration will only be open for a few days, so that we can get in there and help our first members make progress towards their own BQ's.

If that sounds like something you're interested in, and you'd like to sign up for the list to get updates about Run Your BQ and be notified when it's about to open, you can go here to do that.

P.S. Jason wrote a great post yesterday on his blog, called Qualifying for Boston: The Thrill of Running  BQ Marathon. He also gives a few more details about Run Your BQ in it. Go check it out!

Photo by Susanna Bolle.

Tom in the summer of 2008

That's how Tom Giammalvo describes his health and lifestyle prior to 2010. Not atrocious, not disgusting, not embarrassing. Not any of the extreme, negative descriptors we've come to expect with stories of transformation. Just average.

And that's why his is the perfect one to share. As far as his health was concerned, Tom wasn't the guy you see on The Biggest Loser. Instead, he was your next door neighbor.

Tom is an RN at Falmouth Hospital in Massachusetts. When he worked night shifts in the intensive care unit, the odd hours made it difficult to find a healthy routine.

The way he describes it, "I ate an average American diet. Food was the least of my worries."

At the peak, Tom weighed around 190 pounds. Just 0.9 below average.

What does 'average' mean?

What's funny — or maybe the opposite of funny — is what average has come to mean.

Tom smoked between a half a pack and a whole pack of cigarettes a day, partly because he "needed nicotine to stay awake" on his 45-minute commute. He was also fond of energy drinks like Red Bull and Rockstar, "to keep my 'energy' up," he says, looking back.

Tom wasn't completely sedentary. He worked out some, doing mainly weightlifting and sometimes a 15-minute session on the elliptical machine. Always followed by whey protein or casein powder. His smoking inhibited these workouts, Tom says.

As for his average meal: "Having Portguese, Italian, Polish and French heritage, I mainly had meat for a centerpiece of lunch and dinner. At restaurants I would mainly order beef, chicken, or fish and always end up with that 'I'm sooooo full' feeling after dinner."

To boot, Tom watched about 10 hours of TV a week, and occasionally stayed up until 3 in the morning playing World of Warcraft.

This is what average is.

Tom now

Tom in June 2011

During that year, Tom had run his first half marathon and finished a Tough Mudder event. Most importantly, during this time he lost 30 pounds and six inches off his waistline, en route to completely transforming his lifestyle.

When I sent him the first round of questions to start fleshing out his story, here's how he began his response:

As I sit here on my stationary bike typing this out, I'm feeling determined! This is how the change makes me feel. I now thrive on inspiration, efficiency, and positive outlook on life. I just went through some before and after pictures and, man, do I feel good.

You sure don't feel like that, and you definitely don't do what Tom did last year, by just being average.

So what happened?

There's another thing about Tom's story that makes it very real: he didn't get knocked to the ground by a bolt of lightning, see a burning bush, or have a health scare or near-death experience serve as a wakeup call.

Those things are dramatic and inspiring, and they sure make for good stories. But most of us have heard those stories so often that we tend to wait around for our lighting bolt, our light-bulb moment, thinking that until it happens, we can't really be expected to change.

If there's a moment we can point to when Tom's trajectory changed, just slightly at first, it was when he started working days instead of nights in January 2010.

Tom started to exercise more on his new schedule. He completed the P90X home workout program, and saw some muscle growth as a result. Though he still ate "lots of meat and dairy for protein," his diet was about to make a major shift.

How Tom went plant-based: "I wanted more"

It's at this point that Tom did what most people don't (and won't).

In what might be the first instance of a recurring theme, Tom wanted more. "I think I may have an addictive personality," he says. "After deciding to do P90X — and not thinking it was going to change my life — I guess I wanted more."

So somehow (and to be honest, I'm still not sure how, and I don't know that Tom is either) his experience with P90X led him to explore a plant-based diet. It was in this search for information that he first stumbled onto No Meat Athlete.

"I used your 'less legs' approach," Tom told me. "I really weened off meat. First beef, then chicken, then fish, then no meat at all. I really did this. My last routine meals with meat were salad with tuna. As for dairy and eggs, I have to give credit to T. Colin Campbell and The China Study. I really had no intention of becoming vegan; it just happened."

And so the positive changes started to stack. He was exercising more and eating much better than before. But there was still a big one to make.

How Tom quit smoking

If you've been through a change that's anything like Tom's, you know the compounding effect that small changes have. It starts with just one habit, then it's another, and soon, perhaps out of the desire to be consistent, you change your whole life.

A trip to visit his best friend and his family in Florida seems to have been the catalyst for both Tom's quitting smoking and becoming a runner. He didn't bring the P90X DVD's with him, so to get a workout in, Tom went for a run. It was his first in many months, and just three miles or so.

"I felt great. So I kept running daily that week and by the end of the week I ran for 8 miles. I not only surprised myself but my friend I was visiting as well."

And so Tom become a runner, almost by accident, the way it happens for so many people (myself included).

So what does this have to do with quitting smoking?

I'm the godfather for my best friend's three children; Abby, Zach, and Tyler. As I ran that week I thought of quitting smoking and that I'd like to be an example for them in the future. I don't want them to see their 'Uncle G' smoking! I'd rather them see me running.

So I decided when I returned to Massachusetts I would quit. I had one or two cigarettes that month and that was it. The exercise took over and the smoking lost. No meds needed.

August 2009 (left), August 2010 (right)

Tom, the runner

Excited to have discovered that he could run, and driven by his "I want more" personality, Tom decided that he would run a half marathon.

But it wasn't just the snowball effect of his own changes that inspired Tom to take on the distance:

I used my father as inspiration to run it. My dad was diagnosed with Gliblastoma Multiforme (a fatal form of brain cancer) at age 56. He was an unbelievable man and fought an inspiring fight for four years. My mother and I, in addition to the entire family, pulled together during that time but he did all the hard work. So 13.1 miles was nothing compared to that.

Tom finished his half marathon in 1:45:45, holding his father's prayer card as he crossed the finish line. His uncle had met him on the course, with a six-foot high sign supporting him, which "was the boost I needed to finish strong."

Looking back at the achievement, Tom says, "I couldn't believe this was me! Not only finishing my first half marathon but ending the training on a vegan diet was an accomplishment. I felt great, recovery was awesome for any injury, and I attribute that to my NMA lifestyle. I felt the healthiest I had in my life."

The marathon

Three months after completing the half, Tom was — surprise, surprise — hungry for more. He chose the Cape Cod Marathon, scheduled for October 2011, as his next challenge and expression of his new lifestyle.

Tom downloaded the Marathon Roadmap and used it as his training plan. He told me, "I dedicated myself to your schedule and used the advice of yourself and Brendan Brazier (from his book Thrive) for diet."

Eighteen weeks later, with a time that most first-timers would envy, Tom completed the hilly Cape Cod course in 3:48:10, and became a marathoner.

Of his experience with the Roadmap, Tom says:

The schedule is really helpful and doable; it really is! I never thought I could run a marathon and the Roadmap is what did it for me. It was challenging and it worked.

Running the Cape Cod Marathon, Oct. 2011

"As I approached the finish line, I prepared to take it all in. I acknowledged my family and then crossed the finish line with Dad's prayer card in hand and relished every minute of it. It's a moment I'll never forget."

As you've probably guessed by now, Tom isn't stopping there. His race schedule for the next few months is already booked full: next up is the Martha's Vineyard 20-miler, followed by the New Bedford Half Marathon in March.

The new Tom

Looking at Tom's lifestyle now, it's hard to imagine that only two years ago, he was so "average." He shops mainly in the produce aisle, eats daily salads, and his whey and casein protein powders have been replaced by pea, artichoke, and hemp versions. (His favorites are Tru-Food Vegan and Vega Whole Food Optimizer.) He cooks a lot at home and loves finding new recipes, and says he never has that "I'm so full" feeling anymore. Tom is grateful that his girlfriend, Aimee, and his mother have been so supportive of his new diet with their cooking and support at races:

"Aimee is always looking out for me. On our nights out she will search for places that conform to my lifestyle. She also figured out how to master seitan, so I only eat homemade seitan … I'm spoiled. And my mother is a wonderful cook. She at first had a hard time understanding my choices, but now her spaghetti and meatballs have turned to spaghetti with lentil and leek tomato  sauce. Her Polish golumpkis, which are cabbage stuffed with pork, beef and rice, have become cabbage stuffed with rice and beans. And her rice and bean dish is a staple of mine, but she won't give me the recipe because she says, "I wanna have something I can make you."

Tom has ditched the energy drinks, opting instead for a little black coffee or green tea about every other day. "I used to not care about what I drank," Tom says. "Now I'm conscious. I drink primarily water, about three liters a day."

He told me that he used to enjoy going out to bars, but "now, there's no time when you're running in the morning or training for an event. I'm on to wine now, and that's usually about once a week."

Tom's changes have even shown up in areas beyond diet and exercise: While he was training for his marathon, Tom decided to go to school for National Ski Patrol. In November of 2011, he completed the three-month course and became a member.

To sum up his new lifestyle, Tom says:

I have more energy at work. It feels great to be health conscious while taking care of people. I choose to be active most of the time instead of being sedentary. I actually enjoy mornings and have steady energy during the day. All these healthy lifestyle changes make me sound like a prude, but I find I appreciate the little things in life a lot more now.

Be like Tom

I love Tom's story. It's real, he's real, and it's a story that could be anybody's. Your coworker's. Your neighbor's. Yours.

There wasn't a sudden wakeup call. Tom's doctor didn't tell him "change or die." Tom didn't lose 300 pounds; he lost 30.

But that 30 pounds — and more importantly, the things he did while losing it — changed everything about his every day.

So how did Tom do it? How can you do it?  For those who are tired of being average and are inspired to create Tom's results in their own lives, here's how you can follow his lead:

Make commitments to others, not just yourself.

In the goal-setting section at the beginning of the Marathon Roadmap, you're asked to share your marathon commitment with others, so you'll have a strong reason to follow through. Most people won't do it, I'm sure, but those who do will have way more success.

So how did Tom commit? When he filled out the application to sign up for his marathon, he took a picture of the completed form. But he didn't stop there; he sent it to his friends — so that they could make fun of him if he bailed! We know how that story ended.

Immerse yourself in your change.

When Tom decided to try a plant-based diet, he didn't just wing it and simply eat the same diet he was eating, minus the meat. Instead, he soaked up every bit of information he could about how to do it the right way, and in a manner that meshed with his training for races.

Tom listened to The China Study on CD while he commuted to and from work. He did research, and found not only this site, but also Brendan Brazier, Robert Cheeke, Forks Over Knives, Dr. Michael Greger,and Dr. Caldwell Esselstyn, among other influences.

Just as importantly, Tom made it a point to see his physician regularly and get vegan-specific labs like B-12, iron panel, electrolytes, complete blood count, testosterone. "Last check, all were normal," he says proudly.

"There is a lot to learn about vegan eating," he says. "You can't do it without learning. Which is why it's fun. The research out there is very intriguing."

Find your mantra.

Tom's favorite line was "I just want more." He repeated sayings like, "Go big or go home," "Shoot for the stars but keep your feet on the ground, and "Never live your life 'shoulda, woulda, coulda.'" Cliches? Maybe, but anyone who has ever been at the 20-mile marker knows that doesn't matter.

Tom says of his desire for more, "I couldn't be satisfied with eating healthy so I turned vegan. I couldn't be satisfied with 'just' a half marathon so I did a full. I'm now a vegan marathoner … hmm … Ironman?"

Follow a plan.

P90X is what started everything for Tom. He actually completed it a second time, before he started training for his marathon with Marathon Roadmap. (And he excitedly tells me that the next version, P90X2, includes a vegan meal plan.)

P90X and Marathon Roadmap worked for Tom. Whether or not those particular programs are for you, the point is that when you want to make a change, it's extremely helpful to have guidance from those who have done it before. Find something that fits your personality and your goals, and let it lead you where you want to go.

If you want to go vegetarian or vegan, do it in small steps.

"I like the word 'wean,'" Toms says. "That's how to go about it if you're thinking about it. Don't be pressured, try the 'less legs' approach. If you don't like it, you don't have to do it."

If you want to quit smoking, try replacing it with exercise.

In Tom's words: "I suggest a total reverse when you quit smoking. You don't need to run, maybe just start walking while you're weaning off cigarettes. Hopefully you'll find yourself wanting to walk more distance and you can see how less and less cigarettes will help you to do it. I would suggest aerobic exercise versus weightlifting, because you can definitely see the difference in your endurance."

Plan ahead and be smart about eating out.

Tom used to stop and eat fast food when was hungry. Nowadays, he packs a cooler for the day: "Now I can control what I eat, versus what I feel society tells us to eat."

When he does eat out, Tom calls ahead to see if they can make him a vegan meal. As he says, "At first I felt a little pretentious, but good chefs like to create amazing dishes for me." (This has been my experience as well — most chefs love the challenge and a chance to do something different.)

To sum it up, and for those who want to do what he did, Tom offers these words:

This is a true story! I used to watch lots of TV, play World of Warcraft 'til 3 in the morning, smoke, work nights, not care about what I ate … and I changed. It's small steps.

The lifestyle is very addictive. For me, I just wanted more and more as I worked hard and got results. Quitting smoking feels better period! Working out feels great period. Eating better and eventually choosing this lifestyle feels great. Put all three together and that is where I ended up. Losing 30 lbs 6 inches off my waist, and from my first 5K at the end of August 2010 to a marathon in October 2011. I challenge anyone to try it. Just get a taste of it.

#5: The Brick Workout (which actually looks nothing like whatever it is she's doing)

We're dork-ish looking people in our helmets and padded-ass shorts who think it's fun to spend hours pedaling away through roads and up mountains, pretending we're in the Tour de France.

But those of us who both run and cycle know a secret: cycling helps make you a better runner.

Many runners turn to cycling after injury- that is, they're forced into riding a bike to stay sane while rehabilitating a stress fracture or joint pain. However, they soon discover something remarkable when they return to running — cycling actually made them better than ever before!

How cycling can make you a better runner

If you're a runner, you might want to consider joining the ranks of Lance wannabes. Even if you're not injured, riding a bike is an excellent cross-training activity, one which can improve your running performance significantly. Here's why:

1. It’s a great form of active recovery.

It’s a story as old as running itself: You do your long run on Sunday, and come Monday morning, you don’t want to get off the couch, much less do any sort of active movement. For many, an easy jog the day after a long, hard run is about as much fun as a root canal.

But active recovery, such as moving your legs with an easy bike ride, can increase blood flow, flush out lactate, reduce muscle and joint stiffness, and help you get back on the trails sooner than if you were to just sit on the couch drinking beer. (Not that I’m saying sitting on the couch drinking beer is bad. Just, you know, do it after your bike ride.)

2. You’ll build strength in complementary muscles.

If your workouts are exclusive to running, you’re only building up certain sets of muscles to perform certain functions. Though your running muscles will become stronger initially, at some point you’ll plateau, because doing the same thing every day will eventually stop yielding results.

When you start cycling, you’re using muscles in your legs and core that complement the muscles used for running, making you stronger, more efficient, and yes — faster.

3. Leg turnover will increase like whoa.

Pedaling a bike requires consistent motion and a steady, smooth cadence. Sound familiar? That’s because the exact same thing is true for running. The world’s best marathoners have a leg turnover rate of about 180 steps per minute. ChiRunning, a form of run coaching with a focus on efficiency and injury prevention, suggests a cadence of 174-180 footfalls per minute.

Your cadence on the bike can transfer to running. Start by trying to achieve a 90 rpm (or revolutions of both pedals per minute) on the bike in an easier gear. Once you can hit this rate, move to your harder gears while maintaining the 90 rpm cadence.

4. Your ankles, knees, and hips will thank you.

Runners, especially those who do longer races like marathons and ultras, put a pounding on their body. Because of this, it’s hard for some to maintain high mileage without injury.

Cycling gives you a good workout without the impact of a run. If you’re not comfortable with replacing an entire run workout with a session on the bike, even substituting a portion of your run with a cycling workout can make your joints happy. Which brings me to my next point:

5. You can replicate the feeling of a long run…without actually doing a long run.

The secret to this is the brick workout, where you go from a bike ride to a run with no interruption in between. Though the term “brick” refers to the two disciplines pushed together in one workout, some athletes will swear it actually refers to the fact that running off the bike makes your legs feel like bricks.

If you’ve never done a brick workout before, you should ease into these gradually. Start with a 10 mile bike ride at a hard pace, immediately followed by a 1 mile run. Your legs will feel sluggish, as if you've already run a long way, but they won't have taken the pounding they otherwise would have. Focus on good form and finishing strong. If the 10:1 brick feels good, gradually increase your mileage for the bike and the run (or immediately repeat the 10:1 brick for a different kind of challenge!).

Bonus benefit: Add a swim, and you’re a triathlete!

As your Resident Triathlete, did you really think I’d let you read this article without me trying to convert you to the church of SwimBikeRun?

Tips for getting started with cycling

• It doesn't matter if you have a mountain bike, a road bike, a hybrid, or a triathlon bike. What does matter is having a bike that fits. If you don’t have a bike yet, or if you're riding the too-big (or too-small) wheels your neighbor gave to you for free, read this guide to buying your first bike.
• Essential items: A helmet, glasses, bike shorts (these are padded in the crotch and butt), and a seat bag with a spare tube, multi-tool, and inflation device.
• Optional Items: Cycling gloves, chamois cream, bike shoes and pedals which clip together, an indoor trainer, and a bike computer.
• Before you go on your first ride, make sure you know how to change a tire if you get a flat. If you don’t have a cycling buddy to teach you how to do this, go to a local bike shop, and they will be happy to teach you.
• Be safe and obey the rules of the road. Don’t be a bike salmon – ride with traffic, not against. Find routes with designated bike lanes and wide shoulders, and stop at every stop sign and red light (yes, even if you think no one else is around).

Surely there are lots of cyclists out there in the NMA audience. If that's you, help us out! How else does cycling help you run? Got any tips for beginners? Leave them in the comments below.

Susan Lacke has a triathlon bike named Pablo, a broken roadie named Bessie, and a deceased mountain bike named Otis. Tell her that bikes are inanimate objects, and she will look at you like you are nucking futs. "Like" her on Facebook for links to her latest articles in random corners of the Internet.

So what if there were a way to change bad habits without willpower, and with almost no effort at all?

In The 4-Hour Body, Tim Ferriss tells the story of Phil Libin, a 258-pound man who lost close to 30 pounds to achieve his ideal weight of 230, without any exercise or conscious change in his diet. Phil did nothing.

Well, almost nothing.

Phil took only one tiny action. He figured out how much he wanted to lose in how much time (28 pounds in two years), and plotted the two points on a graph in Excel. Then he drew a line connecting them. That line represented the path his weight would need to follow to smoothly, imperceptibly drop from 258 to 230. He also drew two more lines around the path, creating a small "buffer zone" in which his daily weight could acceptably reside.

Each day, Phil plotted his current weight on the chart. As long as he was in the safe zone, he was on track.

Just by being aware of his progress — again, he was very careful not to change his diet or exercise habits — Phil lost the weight. Not by magic, but because the simple act of paying attention caused him to make myriad small, positive choices he didn't even know he was making.

Is it really that easy?

Maybe. But whether you can change without putting forth any effort really isn't that important, since most of us want to put forth a little effort to make positive changes.

What matters is recognizing the immense power of tracking. Not just as a tool to aid your efforts to change, but as the very force that causes the change.

How tracking can help you change anything

I recently started reading another book about change, called The Compound Effect, by SUCCESS Magazine publisher Darren Hardy.

Darren's biggest key to changing? You guessed it: tracking.

His advice, as the first step to improving your entire life, is to track one bad habit for one week (or ideally, three weeks). Just one habit.

Each day, start a new page, and on it make a tickmark every time you indulge your habit. Or if it's something like spending money or overeating, make a note every single time you buy or eat anything at all, recording what it was and how much it cost, or how many calories were in it.

You can get more sophisticated, of course, but the key is to make the act of tracking simple enough that you actually do it. Jotting down a mark every time you bite your fingernails is easy; putting it into a spreadsheet might be just enough effort that you'll put it off a few times and eventually forget about it.

The difference between this and Phil's story from above is that Phil purposely did nothing but track his weight. We, on the other hand, can (and should) try to make improvements while we track.

Why tracking works so well

I've been trying this out for the past few days, and I've been floored by how well it has worked.

I've bitten my nails for 20 years (!). It's a small thing, but I've become utterly powerless to change it.

Several times, with different approaches, I've tried to stop. I had some success early on, but in recent years, every effort to quit has lasted a few hours at the most, and sometimes only minutes.

Having been down the try-to-quit-and-fail road so many times, it seems like I put up less of a fight with each new attempt.

But with tracking, it's been totally different. I'm not about to say, after only a few days, that I'm cured. But something else is going on this time than in any other attempt I've made in the past five years. Here's what I've noticed.

1. Tracking makes it okay to not be perfect.

I've always found cold-turkey approaches to work better than gradual ones. Unless I draw a hard line (no coffee, no nail-biting, etc.), I'll slowly slip back into my old ways after some initial success. The flip side, of course, is that if you give in during a cold-turkey attempt, it feels like you've completely failed, and it's hard to get back on the horse.

The beauty of tracking is that it allows you some leeway, but prevents you from slipping for long. Because you've kept records, maybe even plotted a chart of how many ounces of coffee you drink each day, it's very visible when you start to slide back into your old habits.

2. It's a lot easier to commit to tracking your habit than it is to changing it.

It's tough to promise yourself that you'll exercise every day for three weeks. Most people recognize their shortcomings in willpower department, so they won't commit.

But it's easy to promise yourself that you'll track how many minutes you spend exercising for three weeks — that's just writing down a number. Once you've developed that simple habit, the act of tracking forces you to focus on what needs improvement, and that focus lasts far longer than if you just commit, fail, and forget about it in disgust.

3. It's humiliating to see the cost of the status quo, and lots of fun to see improvement.

This is fairly obvious, perhaps, but important. When you track your progress, you can look back over the course of several weeks and see how your tiny decisions to indulge add up. A beer or two a night doesn't seem like all that much, but count how many extra calories it amounts to in a month or a year, and how many calories equate to a pound of fat. Or figure out the monthly cost of your Starbucks soy-latte habit, in terms of dollars and calories, and you'll have another reason to improve.

On the other hand, nothing feels better than seeing progress. Tracking lets you see where you are now in the context of where you started, and that alone can be enough reinforcement to stick with it.

As always: do something

When I first read Phil's story in 4-Hour Body, I didn't do anything about it. I thought it was cool, but since the story was about weight loss I didn't pay much attention. It took seeing it again in the Compound Effect for me to put it into action, and now I'm super pumped about the potential.

If you're intrigued, do something. It's so easy to decide to track one habit for one week. But it's also very easy not to do it, as Jim Rohn would say. Don't just read, do. Like, right now, maybe?

Two announcements before I go

1) I wrote a guest post on the Art of Manliness that was published a few days ago, called Beginner's Guide to Long Distance Running. AoM is a great blog and I'm extremely proud to have appeared on it, so I hope you'll check out my post.

2) We had a huge sale over the weekend in the No Meat Athlete store: Buy any two items, get 50% off your entire order. Over 100 people bought shirts during the sale, and everyone was really appreciative of the chance to get stuff for so cheap, so I decided to extend it through the end of the day today (that's Wednesday, 1/25/12). Don't miss it!

http://www.facebook.com/pages/Vegan-Proteins-The-Best-Sources-of-Cruelty-Free-Protein/168740020955

Look around, though, and you'll find all kinds of resources out there to help you stick with your vegetarian diet and get the most out of this truly enjoyable lifestyle. Thanks to the internet, there's now plenty of good advice, ideas, recipes, people — and even food — only a click away. You just need to know where to look.

And that's where this list can help you. Here are the top 50 resources for new vegetarians that I know of (though most are useful to not-so-newbies as well). I've tried to include mostly stuff that's free, but a few things that cost money, like foods and shopping places, made the list too.

Enjoy.

Nutrition

1. Thrive in 30 — vegan pro Ironman Brendan Brazier's e-course teaching the fundamentals of maximizing energy and vitality through plant-based nutrition in 30 days

2. PCRM's 21-Day Vegan Kickstart — a useful starter kit from the Physicians Committee for Responsible Medicine, including a meal plan, a community forum, and lots of nutrition information. Check out PCRM's homepage for lots more good stuff, some of which is surprisingly light-hearted and funny.

3. Primitive Nutrition — a series of videos (over 70!) arguing against the popular Paleo diet. I think it would have a greater impact if it were more balanced and not quite so overtly in favor of veganism, but there are a lot of interesting points in the few videos I've watched.

4. Protein in the Vegan Diet — the Vegetarian Resource Group's explanation of how much we need, and a list of good sources of high-protein vegetarian foods

5. Iron in the Vegan Diet — another good article from the VRG, this one addressing the second-most popular question people ask about vegetarian nutrition

6. PaleoVeganology — the argument that we should look at the past and how are bodies have evolved to decide what's good for us makes a lot of sense. PaleoVeganology does this, but draws conclusions that are often very different from those of the Paleo diet crowd.

Sports and Fitness

7. Vegan Bodybuilding and Fitness — Robert Cheeke's passionate community of plant-based athletes, mostly bodybuilders. There's an active forum community and lots of good articles on sports nutrition.

8. True Love Health's "Day in the Life" series — in this video series, registered dietitician Matt Ruscigno hangs out with some amazing vegan athletes and has them share favorite recipes and nutrition and training advice on his blog.

9. Organic Athlete — a nonprofit dedicated to "creating a better world through sport." The site highlights a lot of vegan athletes through videos, podcasts, and articles.

10. Vegan Muscle and Fitness — more nutrition and training articles, mainly from Derek Tresize and Marcella Torres, two competitive vegan bodybuilders.

11. 4-Hour Body — what? 4-Hour Body is for vegetarians? Well, not really. But the few chapters that focus on plant-based diets (including ultrarunner Scott Jurek's) are totally worth it.

12. Brooks Running Shoes — while many of the major running shoe companies make animal-friendly shoes, Brooks is the only one I know of that advertises that all of their shoes (except walkers) are vegetarian- and vegan-friendly. Some, like the Green Silence, are eco-friendly as well. Bonus: the aforementioned Scott Jurek helps design lots of the shoes!

Cooking How-to

13. Sprout School — you don't have to be vegetarian to sprout beans and seeds, but it's one of those things nobody seems to try until they stop eating meat. Sprouts are healthy and very easy to grow at home, and probably fun for kids.

14. How to Cook Beans from Scratch — beans are so much better tasting, healthier, and cheaper when you cook them yourself instead of buying canned. Here's how to do it.

15. Kitchen Fundamentals: Basic Knife Skills — one of the hidden perks of going vegetarian is that it forces you to cook your own food more often. Learning basic ways to chop food will save you hours upon hours in the kitchen, so check out this Art of Manliness post if you've never thought about your knife skills.

16. How Can I Spice Up Vegetarian Dishes? — Madhur Jaffrey is the author of one of the best vegetarian cookbooks I've seen, World Vegetarian. In this post she gives several simple guidelines for making your food more interesting.

Recipes

17. YumUniverse — Heather Crosby offers tons of free, whole-food (and sometimes raw) vegan recipes at YU, including lots of innovative approaches to replacing dairy products. The site also offers several guides for getting started on a plant-based diet.

18. Peas and Thank You's Reci"peas" Page — family-friendly recipes that are always delicious and usually quick and easy. Sarah's cookbook is one of my wife's favorites for finding vegan dishes (especially breakfast foods) that our 20-month old son will eat.

19. Post Punk Kitchen — when you want to spend just a little more time on dinner and know that the time will be worth it, Post Punk Kitchen is where to turn.

20. Choosing Raw — Gena Hamshaw's approach to raw food isn't the militant, complicated one so many people associate with raw. Instead, she creates lots of recipes to help readers incorporate more raw foods into their diet. She also writes lots of thought-provoking posts about vegan issues.

21. Vegan Latina — delicious vegan latino food recipes from Terry Hope Romero, Veganomicon co-author (and NMA guest poster!).

22. Foodily — a new and fast-growing recipe search engine that allows users to search for recipes that contain and, more importantly, do not contain certain ingredients. (For example: "French onion soup without beef stock.") Foodily is also a recipe-sharing site; check out the my favorite recipes on the No Meat Athlete page.

23. Fat Free Vegan Kitchen — thanks to Forks Over Knives, everyone seems to be jumping on the "no added oil" bandwagon. If that's you, you'll like Fat Free Vegan Kitchen, which has hundreds of recipes that fit the bill.

24. The Blissful Chef — Chrisy Morgan's food is what some might call macrobiotic. All I know is it's good food that you feel great about eating. Lots of gluten-free, soy-free, and raw food, presented in a light and approachable way. And the best curried chicken-less salad that I know of.

25. 44 Finger Lickin' Recipes for Vegans and Carnivores Alike — Mark's Daily Apple, from former pro triathlete Mark Sisson, is anything but vegan (instead, it's Primal, a close cousin of Paleo). But here he shares a list of healthy recipes that fit in with both camps.

26. 20 Plant-Strong Soups — a list of low-or-no fat soups from the Engine 2 Diet's site.

27. 101 Cookbooks' Vegetarian Thanksgiving Recipes — it's funny how many people let the thought of a meatless Thanksgiving or Christmas prevent them from being vegetarian the rest of the year. Here's the 101 Cookbooks (an amazing site for vegetarian recipes) approach to Thanksgiving without turkey.

Groceries

28. Barnivore — lots of beers and wines aren't vegetarian or vegan. Barnivore is incredibly good at helping you figure out which ones are.

29. The Dirty Dozen — one of the benefits of giving up meat is that it leaves you more dime to spend on better produce. This list explains which fruits and vegetables you absolutely should buy organic and the ones where it's okay to skimp.

30. Field Roast — fake meats aren't a health food, by any means. But they can be useful when you're transitioning to vegetarian, or as an occasional treat later on. Field Roast sausages are just about the best meatless meats out there.

31. Gardein — more fake meat that isn't disgusting (most of it, anyway).

32. Daiya Cheese — vegans love Daiya. While it's better than other cheese alternatives I've tried, it took me a while to come around on the texture and taste of it, but I've learned that if you just use a little bit (on pizza, for example), it's pretty close to the real thing.

33. Food Fight! Grocery — Food Fight! is a fun little mini-mart in Portland Oregon with vegan health food and vegan junk food alike. Check out their mail-order website next time you need your beef jerky fix.

34. The "Accidentally Vegan" List — a list of all the food in the grocery store that's so bad it couldn't possibly be vegan, but it is.

Shopping

35. Vegan Proteins — an online store for vegan protein powders and other supplements.

36. Vegan Essentials — a massive online store that sells just about anything you can think of related to vegetarianism and veganism. They even sell No Meat Athlete stuff!

Travel

37. The Most Veg-Friendly Cities in North America — while there are some notable absences (no Austin, TX?), it's a good list. I like that they had a category for small cities as well as large.

38. Happy Cow — if you travel a lot, Happy Cow is essential. Just type in a city name or zip code, and you'll soon be presented with a list of all the vegetarian-friendly restaurants and natural foods nearby. They have a mobile app too.

39. Stress Free Vegan Travel — one of my favorite posts on the now-defunct Ridiculously Extraordinary blog. Karol offers a Buddhist approach to vegan travel that won't be for everyone, but I like it.

Entertainment and Education

40. Forks Over Knives — a documentary about the benefits of a whole-foods, plant-based diet that took off and found some mainstream success. Starring China Study author T. Colin Campbell along with Caldwell Esselstyn. You can get it on Netflix.

41. Fat, Sick, and Nearly Dead — also on Netflix, a documentary about a guy who lost a crapload of weight when he started juicing. I haven't seen it, but many people have told me it inspired them to go vegetarian.

42. Earthlings — an utterly gruesome film about the horrors that go on in food production and other industries in which animals are exploited. This isn't a topic I like to write about No Meat Athlete, but if you're looking for some motivation to stick with vegetarianism, this is it. It's hard to watch, but if you're up for it, the entire film is available for free on their website.

43. VegNews — of the vegetarian/vegan magazines, VegNews is my favorite, mainly for the recipes and lack of stuffiness. I've included it here mainly because there's a bunch of free content on their website.

44. The Vegetarian Food for Thought podcast — for those who like to take their vegetarianism on the road. I don't listen to many podcasts, but when I announced that No Meat Athlete was starting one, many people recommended that I check out this one from cookbook author Colleen Patrick-Goudreau.

45. How to Become a Vegetarian, the Easy Way — practical advice from Leo Babauta in typical, no-pressure Zen Habits style.

46. The Kind Life — actress Alicia Silverstone's site, with tons of "plant-based lifestyle" information beyond just recipes, like environmentally-friendly products, what to feed your dog, and vegan pregnancy. Basically, girly stuff.

47. VegWeb — a site with tons of user-submitted recipes and a big forum community.

48. Vegan Drinks in your town — if you live within driving distance of a decent-sized city, chances are there's a Vegan Drinks for you. I had fun when I went to DC's version, where the bar ran several specials on vegan food for the night, and I met lots of great people who I've since run into all over the place.

49. Your local library — I didn't include any cookbooks in this resource list, mainly because I've only tried about a dozen in a universe of hundreds. Cookbooks aren't cheap, so I like to try them out from the library before I buy. A few favorites are CLEAN Food, 1,000 Vegan Recipes, Thrive Foods, Supermarket Vegan, Veganomicon, Vegetarian Cooking for Dummies, and Madhur Jaffrey's World Vegetarian.

50. 8 Common Foods You Thought Were Vegetarian — I can include one of my own posts, right? When you're a new vegetarian, you'll probably slip up here and there. Check out this list, though, and you'll save yourself a few of those mistakes.

Got one to add? Feel free to leave it in the comments.

Also, if you found this list helpful, help me out by clicking a button below to share it on Twitter, Facebook, or Stumbleupon!

Perhaps more than anyone else, Brendan Brazier is leading the growing trend of athletes moving to plant-based diets — from recreational runners and endurance athletes, like many of us, to NFL and NHL players whose very careers depend on their ability to perform at the highest level.

Brendan's ideas on optimal nutrition for performance, which he developed during his career as a professional Ironman triathlete, first reached the mainstream audience with his breakthrough nutrition manual, Thrive. But he's been in the spotlight a lot recently, thanks to three new contributions to the plant-based nutrition world in the the last four months.

In September Brendan's cookbook, Thrive Foods, was published. After that, he unveiled the new line of Vega Sport products, a 7-part natural sports nutrition system to help athletes better "Prepare, Sustain, and Recover." And just recently, Brendan announced Thrive Foods Direct, a service that allows people to have ready-made, healthy plant-based meals delivered right to their home or hotel room.

In this latest installment of NMA Radio, we talk to Brendan about his new ventures, as well as some simple steps you can take at home to increase the effectiveness of the food you choose to fuel your workouts.

In this episode we talk to Brendan about:

• The new Vega Sport line of natural sports nutrition products (1:30)
• The most essential nutrition products for those who can't use the entire system (7:15)
• How your intake needs change as your body becomes more efficient (8:50)
• Two big mistakes people make when it comes to fueling their workouts (11:00)
• A simple pre-workout meal you can make at home (12:40)
• Brendan's suggestions for simple post-workout meals (13:20)
• Thrive Foods Direct, Brendan's new plant-based meal delivery service (15:00)
• Why there's no oil in Thrive Foods Direct meals (23:30)
• The carbohydrate:protein:fat ratios Brendan prefers for different types of training (25:50)
• How workout fueling differs for strength training versus endurance training (30:50)
• The NFL players and other pro athletes eating plant-based diets (32:05)

We've also got a giveaway today, one copy each of two of Brendan's books — Thrive: The Vegan Nutrition Guide to Optimal Performance in Sports and Life and Thrive Fitness. To enter, leave a comment here, or to get an bonus entry, leave us a rating and review on iTunes and tell us that you did in the comments. We'll announce the winner in the comment section on Friday, January 20.

Click the button below to listen now:

Or:

• Click here to download the MP3 file (you may need to right-click and "save link as")
• Subscribe to the show on iTunes

Links from the show:

• The Vega Sport system
• Thrive Foods Direct (use code BB1 for 20% off the price of your order)
• BrendanBrazier.com
• Sculptured by Weights and a Strict Vegan Diet (New York Times article on vegan bodybuilders)
• Brendan's first No Meat Athlete interview
• Brendan's second No Meat Athlete interview

But when you're on the outside looking in, knowing you've got to make a change but not sure where the extra time and energy are going to come from, just getting started can seem like the most overwhelming task in the world.

All it takes is planning

I've been in ruts before where I was going to the grocery store every single day. An hour before dinner time, I'd choose a recipe and go buy the ingredients, then come home and make dinner, only to do it all again the next day. I got to know the checkout people pretty well, but they must have wondered who this idiot was buying groceries every day.

Other times — and I'm sure you've done it too — I've refused to go to the store at all, eating out for almost every meal, and wasting tons of money and eating junk in the process.

But it doesn't take much to get started, and it's not worth going through life that way. Make a little effort to plan your meals for just one week, and you'll save time and feel better right away. It'll probably still take some discipline to do it a second and third time, but before long it'll be a habit, and you'll wish you could go back in time and slap some sense into your old self.

Below are my favorite tricks for making meal planning (and cooking) as simple and as a fast as possible. If you're in a rut, any one of them could be the one that gets you back on track.

1. Aim for making just four or five recipes each week, and plan them all at once.

Why four or five? Your number may be different, but I find that's my limit before the task of looking up recipes and making a list of ingredients to buy becomes a pain in the ass. Also, any more than that and food starts to go bad before you can use it up. This amount won't cover you for the weekend, but by the time Friday rolls around you'll probably enjoy a break from cooking, or be able to throw something together from the pantry.

Plan to cook enough of each meal so that you can eat the leftovers for lunch the next day. Do something simple like a smoothie for breakfast, have a few snacks on hand as well, and you're set.

2. Use a slow cooker.

No tool has saved my wife and me so much time in the kitchen as this one. With a slow cooker (or Crock-Pot), you need only to prep the ingredients in the morning or the night before, throw them in the pot before you leave for the day, and come home to a hot meal and a house that smells so good your grandmother would be proud. Not to mention that the cleanup required is next to none.

You can find plenty of slow cooker recipes online, but two books we've been cooking a lot from are The Vegan Slow Cooker and The Indian Slow Cooker. (Note: the Indian one isn't all vegetarian, but has only a handful of meat recipes in it.)

3. Forget numbers entirely and focus on eating whole foods.

There's no shortage of fad diet books or nutritional philosophies claiming to be the next food revolution, especially around this time of year. And most of them make the simple act of eating food a whole lot more complicated than it should be.

If you look at any diet that has stood the test of time because it works — and when I say diet here, I mean "way of eating for life," not a quick fix — it's based on whole foods. You can argue all you want about the proper nutrient mix, and Paleo versus vegan and vegan versus raw fruitarian, but when it comes down to it, the most important aspect of any of these is that they're based on whole foods.

So eat whole foods and little else, and you almost can't help but to be healthy.

4. When you're having trouble choosing a recipe, pick just one ingredient to narrow the options.

Okay, let's say you've set aside half an hour to choose recipes for the week. You pull out your cookbooks, you sit down at the Google-machine, whatever. Ready, go!

If you've done this before, then you know the problem here is that you have too many choices. You don't know where to start, or it seems like you already made anything that looked remotely good when you scanned through the book after you got it.

The way to get past this is to limit your options. How?

By starting with a particular ingredient in mind. Is there a vegetable in the refrigerator that you didn't manage to use last week? Then turn the index of your cookbook and look just for recipes that use that vegetable. You'll likely notice a bunch of recipes you skipped right past before, just because they didn't jump out at you for whatever reason. Even better than cookbooks, recipe search engines like Foodily make this ridiculously easy by allowing you to search for recipes that include (or do not include) certain ingredients.

So even if you don't have an ingredient you need to use up, think of one that sounds good right now, and use that as your starting point for choosing meals.

5. Make a big batch of rice (or another food you eat often) to last you the entire week.

This is one of the big advantages to planning several meals at once. If you know you can serve several of them with the same side dish, you can make a lot at once and save yourself some serious time.

I cook a lot of Indian food, so rice is a big one for me, but this works just as well with other grains and pseudograins like millet, quinoa, and bulgur. And you can do it with vegetables too, though they generally don't keep quite as well in the fridge. But the freezer is always an option!

6. Skip certain herbs and spices or make substitutions when it'll save you a grocery trip or time in the store.

I used to be quite the perfectionist in the kitchen. Probably it was because I didn't really know what I was doing, but I did not want to mess with a recipe, for fear of screwing it up. If it called for fresh marjoram and all I had was dry oregano, then I went on a mission to get fresh marjoram, dammit.

But you know what? It really doesn't matter. Chefs who create recipes are artists, and if your goal is to experience the highest expression of the chef's creativity, then yes, you should follow the recipe exactly. But for you, the guy or girl who just wants to start eating well and to do it as simply as possible, then it's not going to matter much whether you use fancy sherry vinegar or substitute the apple cider vinegar you've had in the cupboard for the past two years.

Don't be afraid to take a lot of substitutions and omissions. Plain old Tabasco can stand in for sriracha or chili oil. If you don't have cilantro, try basil or parsley if you've got either one. Or just Google "substitution for ____" and go with it.

Sure, maybe something will taste weird now and then. But in the long run you can save a lot of money and effort this way, and almost nobody's going to notice.

7. Find a few healthy staple meals that you know you can cook quickly and without many ingredients.

It's extremely helpful to have one or two quick standbys, especially if they're based on dry ingredients, so that you can have them on hand for those days when you don't have time to get to the store or simply don't want to think about meal-planning.

My favorite, bar none, is this Indian red lentil curry dish. I make sure to always have dry lentils and rice handy, and other than that you just need a few spices and one minute (really) to get it into the pot.

Another easy one along the same lines is a grain, a green, and a bean. You almost always have some combination of these three foods (you can even skip the green if you don't have it), and they're always good for make a healthy and filling meal.

It's not rocket science

You've got something you're really disciplined about, right? Walking the dogs, running, reading for your job, making sales calls, whatever. To other people it seems hard, but for you it's a habit, and you hardly have to think about it.

Cooking your own food and planning your meals is exactly the same way. All it takes is the discipline to start and stick with it a few times. Soon it'll be second nature, and food will be one less thing that you need to get under control.

All you've got to do is start. Why not today?

The boy who was born without a right hand and wanted to play baseball with his classmates.

He devised a one-armed throw/catch method, and when the other kids didn’t play with him, he practiced by throwing a baseball against a brick wall. Years later, that boy pitched in the Major Leagues and the United States Olympic team.

The musician who epitomized the rock-and-roll lifestyle, complete with frequent drug and alcohol use.

One morning, he put on a pair of running shoes for the first time and covered the miles back to his bike, which he had left at a bar the night before. He became a runner, and never touched alcohol or drugs again.

The junk-food addict who decided long ago her running days would never return. 

Today, she is one of the fastest female marathoners in the world, participating in the US Olympic Trials this month.

What’s your excuse? 

As we begin a new year, you've probably had your fill of the stories of change and inspiration that we like to roll out after the holidays. And yet by the time December comes around again, we usually look back and find that we're pretty much the same as we were last year.

Maybe you set a goal but didn't follow though. You focused on it for a few weeks, maybe a few months. But eventually you gave up — not because it was too much work, but because it didn't hold your attention. It wasn't exciting enough to become your obsession.

You see, the biggest mistake a person can make isn’t setting the bar too high — it's not setting it high enough.

Haven't you done it too? Think of something that would absolutely love to do, but that you're certain you'll never accomplish. Now ask yourself why it's so damn impossible. Chances are, you'll think of your barriers and sigh with resignation. You can't. Even if you tried, it just wouldn't happen.

But ask yourself one more question.

"Says who?"

No matter how many names you rattle off, there's only one thing ultimately stopping you from reaching their true potential: yourself.

You choose to listen to the naysayers. You choose to believe them. You choose to set up limitations. You water down your original goal to something that isn't so hard or won't take so long to achieve, because that's what everyone else seems to do.

Stop blaming other people, things, or situations. What makes the difference isn't what happens to you, but what you choose to do with it.

Change by choice or by force.

Choosing to change can be scary and hard, sure. There’s always a voice in your head reminding you that you might work really hard and still fail. People choose to focus so much on that possibility that they become blind to the chance of success.

The one-armed boy, the musician, and the runner could have stayed in their comfort zones. No one forced them to make a change. They faced their own roadblocks to success. And each of them had their fair share of critics. Yet in spite of it all, they realized none of that mattered.

Each one of them believed change was possible, and eventually, others began to believe it, too.

Get out of your own way.

It's not easy to think like this. We're conditioned to do the opposite — to aim low, to avoid risk, to keep our goals to ourselves so that we won't look foolish when we fall short.

But with some practice, you learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Here are a few of my favorite small steps you can take to get yourself to think bigger, starting today.

• Make it public. Quitting is easy when you keep your goals to yourself. If you tell the world about it, you've made yourself accountable. And you'll probably inspire someone.
• Use denial as a weapon for attacking doubt. (If you want to borrow my mantra: "I can, I will, and kiss my ass.")
• Ignore what other people have to say. Especially if what they have to say starts with "You should…" The only person who knows what you "should" be doing is you.
• Know your reasons. Make a list of reasons why you want to accomplish whatever it is, and include painful ones like "If I don't accomplish this I'll feel ___ and I'll let down ___." Make your reasons detailed and emotional — you want to really feel it so that you'll be motivated to act.
• Keep a journal of your progress. Focus on how far you've come, not how far you still have to go. ("I took two seconds off my average minutes per mile today. I'm a BAMF!")
• Stop comparing yourself to others. Your goal should be about achieving the upper echelons of your awesomeness, not someone else's.
• Mentor someone else. Whether it's someone who wants to become a vegetarian or is training for the same 5K you did two years ago, mentoring is a great reminder that you accomplished something that, at one time, you thought was impossible.
• Refuse to settle for less. Don't water down your goal because it'd be easier. Goals are supposed to be hard. If it isn't hard, it's not a goal — it's a task.
• If you stumble, learn from your experience and try again – no one ever said you only had one shot.

It's be uncomfortable at first, I promise. Take that as a sign that you're pushing the boundaries. Soon you'll begin to see less limitations and more possibilities, and you'll start to realize something incredible:

You have far more potential than you've ever given yourself credit for.

Get out of your own way. You could be sharing your own success story next year.

—

About the Author:
Susan Lacke used to be a deaf, klutzy, awkward person. Now she's a deaf, klutzy, awkward writer and Ironman triathlete.

Everyone knows it, and it's now become almost cliched to push for a "no-resolutions New Year's." But let's make a big distinction here.

On the one hand, you have the ill-fated type of resolution we're all familiar with:

• "I won't smoke in 2012."
• "I'll start my exercise plan on January 1st."
• "This year I won't drink soda / eat carbs / eat dessert / drink alcohol once."

These are the ones where we believe that the change of the year gives us a clean slate, and that having this fresh start will make it amazingly simple to change even our deepest-rooted bad habits. This is, of course, horseshit: really, you're going to smoke up until the clock strikes midnight, but then after that you'll be able to stop? Because there's a 2 instead of a 1 at the end of the year?

But there's a big difference between a resolution like that and a real goal. You can set goals any time — there's nothing special about New Year's, because there's no "clean slate" aspect to them. But with the holidays being past us, and the recognition brought on by the change of year that time is marching by just as fast as ever, I've always found this to be the most inspiring time of all to purposefully design the next 365 days of your life.

The single key to goals that work

I've kept written goals for most of the past five years. Personal, physical, financial, and material. I set them each New Year's, and usually revise them after about six months, since what inspires me often changes in that amount of time.

And that, ultimately, is the crucial mark of a goal that works: the power to inspire. Forget about setting goals that are measurable, achievable, time-sensitive, or whatever else they taught us in the fifth grade goal workshop. I'm sure those things all help, but they're not what matters most.

What matters is simply that your goal inspires you to take action. To stay up late, get up early, and build your life around your quest for its realization. If it does that, it serves you. If not, it's a waste, and something that you'll soon forget and probably feel guilty about when you do remember it.

So how high should you set your goals?

It's said that we overestimate how much we can accomplish in a year, and we dramatically underestimate how much we can achieve in a decade. This would seem to imply that we should set our sights low for year-long goals, but I don't buy that.

In my experience, the goals that work are the ones that give you butterflies in your stomach to even imagine achieving them. If a goal's purpose is to inspire you to act, then the goal that absolutely lights you up is the best one.

This isn't to say you should have your head in the clouds — you'll know a goal is too ambitious if you can't even get excited about it because it's so unlikely. For instance, when I had my heart set on qualifying for Boston for so many years, that was the perfect goal for me because it was crazy but I believed I could do it. Had I instead set winning a gold medal in the Olympic marathon as my goal, it wouldn't have been inspiring, because no part of me would have ever believed that it was really possible. Boston, and the 3:10 marathon I had to run to get in, was just reasonable enough that I could convince myself it was possible, even if I was the only one who believed it.

Which brings up another point: it's fine to set a goal and then fail at it. Every year, qualifying for Boston was a goal I wanted to achieve that year. So in some sense, I failed every year until I finally did qualify. Did that make it a bad goal?

Not at all. When it came time to set goals again, I wasn't disappointed that I had "failed." Instead, I was thrilled to be starting from a much better spot than I was a year ago, 10 or 15 or 20 minutes closer to qualifying than last time.

Three steps to setting goals that work

The process I use for setting goals is one I learned from Tony Robbins and Jim Rohn. It's a simple exercise that takes 45 minutes or so, and what's unique about it is that you don't just focus on what you want to create in your life, but also on why you want it so badly. Here's my version of it.

Step 1: Write down everything that you want in your life.

In three or four categories that you choose (physical, financial, personal, spiritual, etc.), take five minutes or so to write down everything you can imagine wanting. Don't worry right now about how achievable it all is, how long it will take to achieve, or even how you'll achieve it. Just get down on paper everything you could want.

Remember, think big here. No limits whatsoever! If all you write down is a bunch of boring stuff that you "should" try to do or that other people think you're capable of doing, then the level of action your goals inspire is going to be pretty boring as well. You have to really want this, more than anything in the world.

Step 2: Of the goals you've listed in each area, write a "1" next to any of them that you're committed to accomplishing next year.

Basically, this prioritizes your goals. Don't worry so much about what's achievable in one year; instead think about which ones that would inspire you the most to have as your goals. (This is where you need to find the balance between realistic and crazy that will make you work the hardest, and it'll probably take a few tries to get it just right.)

Step 3: In each area, circle the two to four most important one-year goals you came up with, and write a paragraph about why you want to (have to!) achieve each one next year.

This should give you somewhere between 6 and 12 goals, and these are your goals for the year. Copy them on another sheet and review it every single day, and don't forget to review the "why" every once in a while. More than anything, knowing your reasons for wanting these goals will compel you to act on them.

If this process sounds exciting, then don't just read; do it! So often we just read passively and never do anything — but this could be the most valuable 45 minutes of your life!

Then what?

Setting goals is just the first step; achieving them is obviously an entirely different animal. But that's okay; knowing what you want (and why you want it) automatically makes you more likely to make it happen — not by some magical power of "the Universe" to bring your goals to you (a la The Secret), but because it changes what you focus on and even the things you notice that might help you in turning your goals into reality.

It's crucial that you make actual, physical plans to achieve these goals. And just as important, you've got to adopt the mindset of the type of person you'd have to be to achieve them — and this means convincing yourself that you can and will make them happen. And in fact, that's the hidden benefit here, and indeed the entire purpose of goals: to grow into the type of person capable of doing all that you've written down.

Personally, I like to take about an hour to set my goals, and then the next day or two to make plans for their achievement. Tony Robbins is big on taking the first small action toward each one right away, and I think that's an important step too, although taking the second action is just as important.

PS: If your goal is to run a marathon or half, here's how I can help you

I mentioned the importance of making real, solid plans to achieve your goals — instead of just having this airy-fairy vision in your head that if you believe something strongly enough, it'll happen on its own and without any effort on your part. (It'd be nice, but that's not how it works.)

Well, in the case of a marathon or half marathon, especially if you want to do it as a vegetarian or vegan, I've already written those plans for you. They're the Marathon Roadmap and Half Marathon Roadmap, my guides for first-timers that lay out all the steps to make it as easy as possible, and that together have now sold more than 1400 copies since their release earlier this year.

But I realize that even with a good guide, the task of actually planning your training for such a big goal can be overwhelming. So many people buy things with all good intentions of using them, but never actually follow through once they get caught up in all the other aspects of their lives. To make sure that doesn't happen, and to really help you do this, I came up with a special New Year's offer that's good for a few days only. Here it is:

For anyone who buys the Marathon Roadmap or Half Marathon Roadmap between now and Tuesday, January 3rd, I'm going to throw in a free, one-on-one phone call, where you and I will get on the phone for half an hour to address anything you've got questions about — whether it's finding the time to train, choosing the right race, or even how to go vegetarian and making it last. In-person coaching is something I only do in very special cases, so this is something you won't get anywhere else.

Again, to get the bonus call, all you have to do is buy one of the guides between now and Tuesday, January 3rd. Then send send me an email once you're ready and we'll set up a time to talk. Click here to learn more about the roadmaps.

Have a very safe and happy New Year's, and here's to making 2012 your healthiest, happiest year yet!

If you still haven't tried roasted chickpeas, do it now and thank us later.

When I was a kid, I always swore that when I grew up my days would be filled with snack time and recess.

Twenty years later, though I still won’t admit to being a grown-up, I will say I’ve managed to make my childhood dream come true: life as a triathlete provides me with plenty of time playing in the water, riding my bike, or running around.

And the best part? The active lifestyle is one which definitely favors lots of snacking.

Workouts lead to busy days, and snacks are a natural fit to fill the gaps between meals. If you’re heading to the pool after work, for example, dinner afterwards can seem like a long way off if your stomach hasn’t been filled since lunch. And as athletes, of course, we need more calories and nutrients than the average person does, so snacks allow us to fulfill those needs without taking too much time to prepare or eat.

But if you're vegetarian or vegan, you know how hard it can be to find a variety of snacks — questions about snacking are posted at least weekly on the NMA Facebook page. So many lament on the uninspired options available for vegetarians and vegans … sure, there are days when we're cool with baby carrots and pretzels, but we can only take so much. When we come in from recess, dammit, we want some tasty treats!

24 ways to avoid the vending machine

Though the snacks served by machines may be convenient, the veg options are often lacking in the nutrients you need. They're also not the best sources of energy required for your workout. Prep some of these ahead of time (Sunday afternoon is a great time to do this!), and keep them on hand for noshing:

1. Basic baked kale chips or almond crunch kale chips

2. Roasted chickpeas

3. Sweet or savory hummus

4. Baba ganoush

5. Veggies with green herb & yogurt dip

6. Herbed cashews

7. Popcorn or kettle corn

8. Guacamole

9. Homemade energy bars or granola bars

10. Homemade granola

11. Chipotle black bean dip

12. Miniature soft pretzels with peanut butter or mustard

13. Smoothies, like a homemade superfood concoction or my favorite, the mango-lime hot pepper smoothie from Thrive

14. Fresh fruit and vegetable juice blends

15. Raw frozen banana truffles

16. Cashew hemp bars (like homemade Larabars)

And if you don't have time to make your snacks yourself, here are a few ready-made snacks that get the NMA thumbs-up:

17. Food Should Taste Good chips (especially the sweet potato!)

18. Bearded Bros. raw energy bars

19. Mary's Gone Crackers gluten-free and vegan crackers

20. Health Warrior chia energy bars

21. We Can't Say It's Cheese spreads and dips

22. CLIF Builder and Mojo bars (check ingredients, as not all are vegan)

23. Starbucks Sesame Noodles Bistro Box

24. Unique sprouted-grain pretzel splits

Be ready in a pinch

Far be it from me to criticize people who would rather watch football on a Sunday afternoon than cook a bunch of snacks for the week. I'm right there on the couch with ya.

However, if you don't take the time to stock your pantry and fridge with healthy options, you'll be buying a questionable-looking bag of god-knows-what at the convenience store … or, worse, spending ten dollars for a banana at Starbucks. And keep a snack stash in your car and your office for emergencies. (Yes, hunger is always an emergency in my book. Isn't it in everyone's?)

Do you have a favorite snack that I left out? Let us know in the comments below, and feel free to include a link to a favorite vegetarian or vegan snack recipe on your own blog.

Susan Lacke is the Resident Triathlete at No Meat Athlete, and the resident cupcake eater at her house. She also writes a weekly humor column, called Out There, for Competitor Online.