By Brian St. Pierre, for Precision Nutrition
Almost every fitness seeker starts out asking for a meal plan. The only problem? Meal plans usually suck. Instead of considering yet another doomed eating regimen, there are better ways to transform your diet in a sustainable way.
“Do I get a meal plan?”…This is one of the most common questions we get from folks who are just starting out. Most of us in the fitness industry have learned to avoid these rarely-followed, labor-intensive nutrition tools, but we can’t blame people for asking. Meal plans have long been a staple of the fitness and nutrition industry. Trainers and nutrition experts are taught to create meal plans. Clients are taught to expect them.
Unfortunately, most of the time, meal plans don’t work. Traditional meal plans are explicit prescriptions. Eat this exact thing, in this exact amount, at this exact time. For example, you’ll often see:
Breakfast – 7:30 am: 3 eggs, scrambled, 1 cup vegetables, 1 piece whole grain toast, 1 cup coffee, 1 glass water
Morning snack – 10 am: 1 protein bar, 1 handful mixed nuts
Lunch – 12:30 pm : 4 oz chicken, 2 cups salad, 1 handful seeds, 1 glass water
After exercise – 4 pm: 1 scoop whey protein, 1/2 cup frozen fruit, 1 tsp omega 3 oil, 12 oz water
Dinner – 6 pm: 4 oz steak, 1 cup cooked veggies, 1 baked potato, 1 glass water
You might be thinking, “Good! I want a plan. I’m sick of trying to figure all this stuff out! Just tell me what to eat!” Unfortunately, when we try to follow rigid prescriptions like this, a lot can (and often does) go wrong.
For example:
Scenario 1: You just don’t stick to the plan. No matter how enthusiastic you are, meal plans can be tough to follow. This is normal. Life can get in the way, people get busy, we’re not always prepared, kids get sick, bosses expect you to work late, it’s always someone’s birthday (or a special holiday), and, sometimes you just don’t feel like having a protein bar at 10 am.
What’s more, even if you’ve spent money to have someone make your plan, you might find yourself rebelling against it in subtle (or not-so-subtle) ways. This is also normal. Unfortunately, it means you might not get the results you hope for. For instance, a meal plan you hoped would help you lose weight could actually facilitate weight gain instead.
Scenario 2: You follow the plan perfectly. In fact, you follow it too well and for too long. Most meal plans are meant to be temporary. They’re designed to help a person get to a specific short-term goal, like dropping a few extra pounds before a wedding, learning to manage blood sugar, or cutting weight for an athletic competition. Our bodies can usually adapt to a rigid way of eating for a short time, it this isn’t meant to be a lifestyle, so it becomes all too easy to simple stop doing it.
Scenario 3: You follow the plan for a little while but it sucks. It isn’t sustainable. It doesn’t make you feel better. It doesn’t keep you sane. Maybe you see some short-term results (or not). But you hate living and eating this way. You never want to see another stupid piece of lettuce or 4 ounces of chicken. Eventually, you get so turned off by the process that you regress or quit altogether. You conclude that “eating healthy” sucks.
You miss your big chance to learn how to make healthier, more enjoyable, more lasting and real changes.
Another reason meal plans fail: one of the biggest (yet generally unacknowledged) problems with traditional meal plans is their focus on “nutrients”. We typically don’t eat “nutrients”, we eat food. We eat meals, often with other people, we eat meals that match our cultural background and social interests, and there are times we are unable to measure things. Sure, sometimes an explicit prescription is desirable, or even necessary for getting you on the right track, but most of us don’t need to think in terms of surgical precision in order to do that.
Bottom line: If you want to eat better, you don’t have to get weird about things. You just need to think about what the things you’re already eating, and how you could make it a little bit better, healtheir. This means fiddling and adjusting. Making small changes and improvements to what you already normally eat and enjoy, one small step at a time.
Welcome to the meal transformation game. How can you play “make this meal just a little bit better” in every situation? In which situations is that easier or harder? When your choices are limited (for instance, when you’re traveling, or eating at a workplace cafeteria), how can you shoot for “a little bit better” while still being realistic, and without trying to be “perfect”? Let’s transform breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Here’s how that “food spectrum” might look in daily life, with a sample day of eating.
Transforming breakfast
Stage 1: Let’s say that your usual go-to breakfast is a whipped-cream coffee drink and a chocolate croissant. You pick it up in the drive-thru, and wolf it down on your way to work. This is your starting point, but it’s just no longer working for you. You’re getting indigestion from rushing, the croissant doesn’t hold you at all, and you’ve just spilled the coffee on your crotch while changing lanes. Now your game is to improve your breakfast just a little bit, starting with what you already have or do.
Stage 2: Your opening moves in the meal transformation game: you might replace the croissant with a whole grain muffin, instead of a “dessert in a cup”, you get a regular coffee with milk and stevia, and you grab a yogurt cup on your way out of the house for a bit of protein.
Naturally, you’re still rushed and busy… so you eat your breakfast with some distractions, while scrolling through emails at work. But this is a solid start. Well done.
Stage 3: Next level of game play: you switch the muffin to granola with cottage cheese or Greek yogurt, you switch the milk in your coffee for a lower fat variety, or even go right to black coffee, you meal player you! You also add some colorful fruit, and you’re now eating out of dishes on a table, instead of out of takeout packages off the dashboard of your car. Of course, you’re still checking out the news headlines while you eat…No problem. We’re keeping it real.
Stage 4: Now you are seriously playing like a pro. You’ve changed “rushing and panicked” to “set aside a little extra time to enjoy a leisurely breakfast”. You cleverly prepped an egg frittata with veggies in advance on your food prep day. The coffee has become healthier or even swapped out for green tea, since you noticed that too much coffee was tweaking you out. The protein plus colorful fruit and veg have become the stars of the meal. You’ve discovered you really like lemon water. (WHAT? You don’t even know you anymore!) You eat mindfully, feeling relaxed, while watching the sun rise. Ahhh.
Transforming lunch
Stage 1: At this point, starting out, the idea of a sit-down lunch feels flat out ridiculous. “Eat slowly? Who has time for that during a busy workday? Grab a burger and go!” Another “car dashboard” meal, eaten on the go. Another stomach ache and regret. You decide you might want to play with this meal too.
Stage 2: To improve this meal a little bit: You go to a higher-end burger place where you’re pretty sure they use real meat. You get a side salad with that burger, and eat just a couple potato chips. You choose a lightly sweetened tea instead of soda. You don’t eat in your car, but you do eat by your computer. That’s OK. You’re progressing.
Stage 3: At this stage, you’re doing a little prep work. You whipped up some burgers in advance so they are handy and ready to take to work. You also grabbed some nice cheese and whole grain buns from the local market on shopping day. For lunch, all you have to do is take your homemade burger and its fixings to work. You move from your desk to the lunchroom, where you socialize with coworkers. This slows you down a bit and helps you digest and relax.
Stage 4; You’re having the burger without the bun, alongside a nice pre-prepped salad. Instead of staying at your desk or in the office, you take a break. You sit outside and get some fresh air while you enjoy your meal. For a drink, water’s all you need.
Transforming dinner
Stage 1: It’s 8 pm. You’ve just gotten home after an insane day at work. All you want to do is put food into your face and zone out in front of the TV. You can’t even imagine making anything more complicated than boxed macaroni ‘n’ cheese right now. Ketchup and hot dogs are as fancy as it gets.
Stage 2: Same concept, but, you’re adding some extra protein with the help of a rotisserie chicken leg that you grabbed at the grocery store on the way home, you’ve added a side salad, just grabbing a few handfuls of pre-washed greens out of a bag, and you’ve whipped up your own pasta. Work is still on your mind, and a couple drinks will take the edge off.
Stage 3: Things are getting fancy. You’re upping the protein with a little more chicken. You’re having a little less pasta. You’ve also added a nice big salad to the mix. You’ve cut the booze to 1 drink. Plus, you’re sitting at the dinner table, instead of flopping down on your couch or standing over the sink.
Stage 4: Again, we’re playing at pro level here. With your meal planning and prep strategies, even a weeknight dinner looks good. You can whip up a delicious salad in 3 minutes flat and you have some pre-cooked quinoa on hand. That rotisserie chicken is still a fast, convenient option, but now it’s got some healthy buddies. You’re indulging in a single glass of good wine these days, and you take time to savor it.
Summary: Meal transformation is not about reaching perfection. If you’re at stage 1, all you have to do is shoot for stage 2. Or stage 1.5. If you’re in stage 2, play with getting to stage 3. And if you’re stage 3, heck, you can stay where you are. You might never get to stage 4. Or it might only happen at times when you’re relaxed and have a little extra time. Stage 4 might only happen on Sunday night, whereas the rest of your week is a mix of stages 1, 2, and — if you’re super lucky — 3. And that’s OK.
How far you progress along the continuum all depends on what YOU want, what YOU need, and what YOU can reasonably do, right now. Over time, things can change. Play YOUR game.
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