It’s no joke. Jerry Seinfeld knows the secret to good health.

Published 8:00 am Friday, July 6, 2018

Do you ever struggle with sticking to your exercise and diet routine? One skipped workout leads to another and another and another. Then, before you know it, your fitness progress grinds to a halt.

This frustrating cycle is all too common.

Many people have asked me for a magical tip to help them stick with their exercise plan. I found an answer from an unlikely source — comedian Jerry Seinfeld.

The story goes like this. A few decades ago, when Seinfeld was a touring comedian and the “Seinfeld” show was new to television, a young man approached him behind stage at a comedy club and asked, “How can I become a better comic?”

He told the young comic that to become better he should write better jokes and that to write better jokes, he must write jokes every single day.

Seinfeld went on to describe his chain method for staying consistent in improving his skills. He hangs a calendar of a whole year on the wall. On every day that he writes a joke, he marks that box with an X.

After a few days, he had a chain of Xs on the calendar that continued to grow longer. He became determined to never break the chain.

While Seinfeld used this brilliant motivation for getting better at writing jokes, we can apply it to getting and staying fit. Every day that you exercise in the gym or home, place a big satisfying red X on the calendar.

As you continue exercising daily, enjoy the gratification of seeing your fitness chain grow on your wall calendar.

If your goal is to drop body fat and build muscle, then consistently exercising is the key. Stick to your program every single day, build the chain and see the results.

You also can get a healthy-eating chain going. Use a different colored pen to make a big X on every calendar day that you successfully stick with a healthy-eating plan. 

Start your healthy-eating chain with the recipe below.

BBQ Chicken En Papillote

This quick-and-easy recipe combines chicken, sweet potato, butter beans, green beans and tangy BBQ sauce. The meat turns out tender and there’s virtually no clean up.

Be sure to slice the sweet potato very thin, to ensure that it will be tender at the end of the 30-minute baking time. Slice the chicken breast thinly to make sure that the meat is cooked through. 

• 2 shallots, thinly sliced into half moons
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and thinly sliced into half moons
• 1 cup green beans, trimmed and cut into 1-inch pieces
• 1 (16-ounce) can butter beans, drained
• ½ cup natural BBQ sauce (avoid ones with added sugars)
• 4 chicken breasts, thinly sliced
• 2 tablespoons fresh chives, minced

Preheat the oven to 400º F. In a large bowl, toss the shallots, sweet potatoes, green beans and butter beans with half of the BBQ sauce. Rub the remaining sauce over the chicken breasts.

Cut four 12-by-16-inch pieces of parchment paper and fold each in half. Open the parchment paper and arrange ¼ of the sweet potato and green beans and a chicken breast in the center of the top half of each parchment. Generously season with salt and pepper. Top with a sprinkle of chives.

Fold the bottom half of the parchment paper over the chicken and veggies. Start folding and crimping the parchment paper ends together from one end all the way around to the other end, creating a sealed envelope. Fold the end under the packet. The packet should be fully encased, with no breaks for steam to escape. The captured steam is part of the cooking process. Place the packets on a pan.

Bake the chicken and veggie packets for 30 minutes. Serve the packets on plates, tearing them open just before serving. Enjoy!

Courtesy of RealHealthyRecipes.com

Tidjani Camara is a personal trainer, nutrition coach and the owner of Massive Action Training in Tyler.