PYS #017: How To Instantly Boost Your Diet Without Another Meal Plan
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Description
Today’s episode #17 is about how to instantly boost your diet without having to try another meal plan and what steps you can take to confidently make healthier food choices.
Many women think that a crazy meal plan is the answer to their prayers in transforming their body, and you see the promise advertised everywhere. You may have tried diet after diet and keep searching for the next one because the last crazy diet you tried did not produce the results you desired, or the results only lasted throughout the program and then you were right back where you started. What did all those diets have in common? They all came with a meal plan that you followed (more or less).
I have tried many diets, and the reason I tried diets is that my clients say, “Heike, what about this particular diet, is it going to work? Is it going to bring the results that I want?” So I decided the best way to check stuff out is to put myself on those diets. Every one of those diets came with a precise meal plan, eating at a particular time, specific amounts of food, drinking a specific amount of water or taking certain foods out of my diet, and the pounds did fall off. It started with mostly water loss first, then I got raging headaches, and I had no energy to do all my exercises, but I figured it was all for a good cause (showing you what diets and meal plans are all about). But the big problem with these diets was that once I started eating normal and regular (healthy) meals, the weight came back almost instantly.
So I have my own experiences with following specific meal plans, that took me years of exploring and studying to find out what really works when it comes to healthy eating and learning why meal plans usually don’t produce lasting effects.
I have to be honest with you. Yes, I did write meal plans for years because I thought that was what you needed to do. I write exercise plans for my clients, so it makes sense that I should write a meal plan too, right? After all, that’s what my clients wanted, a meal plan for them to follow exactly. Meal plans are like having a precise prescription: eat this not that, eat this amount at this time. They’re very specific and usually very limiting.
Let me give you an example of what a typical meal plan might look like, and it might look familiar to you.
Breakfast – 7:30 AM: 1 breakfast taco (3 eggs, 1 cup mixed veggies, 1 wrap), plus one cup of tea or coffee and 1 glass of water
Lunch – 12:30 PM: 1 tuna salad (4 oz tuna, 2 cups lettuce, lemon for dressing), plus 8 oz of water
Snack – 4:30 PM: 1 scoop of whey protein mixed with a half a cup of water and 12 oz of water
Dinner – 7:00 PM: 4 oz chicken, 2 cups of cooked vegetables, 1 small baked potato and 8 oz of water
You might think, “That’s great! Now I have a plan. I don’t have to think about it anymore.” It’s laid out there in front of you; you just eat that every day. That’s what I eat. Easy to follow, I can do this.
Lots can go wrong, and the struggle is real.
It starts with shopping. So you get all the essential ingredients that you need for your new meal plan, and you put it together in a list and the shopping starts, where to find all those ingredients? Are they the right ingredients? One store doesn’t have it so let’s go to the next store. You end up with running around, spending a lot of time finding these ingredients to go with your new meal plan.
Then second is cooking. So now you’re home with the meal plan that comes with recipes, and you say, “I can do this.” You start cooking, but you hate cooking. You really don’t know how to cook, and you really don’t want to cook, so you end up dreading the cooking process of your meal plan.
Another problem is money. Some of those meal plans are really expensive for all the ingredients you have to buy, and for the foods, you never would buy in the first place. And lastly, nobody in your family wants to eat what you cooked. They look at it, and they just crinkle up their nose and say, “No, thank you. I’m going for the peanut butter and jelly sandwich.” This happened to me, so the struggle is real.
Let’s look at some of the most common problems with meal plans.
#1 – Not sticking to the meal plan
You get busy, and you didn’t buy all the food on the list. You ran around, you tried, but you just couldn’t get it together. You work late; you don’t have time to cook, you don’t have time to shop for potential missing ingredients so you eat whatever you can find. Then there’s the birthday party with the delicious cake, and this food is definitely not on your list. Then the kids get sick. I remember when my kids got sick, it was chicken noodle soup for days until everybody was healthy. I’m sure chicken noodle soup is not on a meal plan.
And then the most tricky part I find is when you go on vacation. On vacation you want to relax, you want to de-stress, you don’t want to think about what you should or shouldn’t be…
