If that darn scale hasn’t moved, despite your promise to lose weight in 2009, then you may need to get organized.

As crazy as it seems, getting organized is directly connected to losing weight. Here are some examples of how the two intertwine.

• Arriving home, you simply don’t have time to cook dinner so you call for a pizza.
• You are home in time but there aren’t any healthy options on hand so you just make what you find.
• Out in the car, or at the office, you get so hungry that you grab the first thing you find from a vending machine or from a drive-thru.
• Once again, the week has ended and you didn’t make any of your promised trips to the gym. There always seemed to be something else to do.

Here’s how getting organized can affect that weight loss.

Sit down and make a menu for the week. If you are following a particular diet, then pull it out and use it as a guide. Create a plan for seven healthy days of meals. Make a grocery list and go shopping.

If there are nights you are rushed, then learn to make ahead. Always think about the next day’s meal plan. You can prepare a casserole, fish or chicken for baking so that you can quickly slip it in the oven. A salad can be prepared the night before or in the morning. Make use of the Crock-Pot. There are healthy Crock-Pot recipes.

To your shopping list, add healthy low-calorie, low-fat snacks. Depending on your diet, these might include part-skim mozzarella cheese sticks, apples, popcorn, rice cakes or carrot sticks. If they are not prepackaged, divide them into serving sizes in small baggies. Take a stash of them to your office and to your car. If they need to be refrigerated, make it a habit to grab some on the way out the door each day.

Getting organized really does help you be successful in your resolution to lose weight.