Meal Planning

Now we get to the practical part of planning your meals based on your macros. What should be my proteins, carbs and fats? Does it matter how many meals I have? Can I eat late at night?  How to make things easier?

First, I’d like to tackle meal composition and meal frequency.

How many times a day we eat largely depends on our lifestyle, schedule and preferences. During weight loss and while being in caloric deficit many prefer to eat less frequently, so their meals are more sizable and satisfying. That would be a good time to cut out snacking and focus on creating balanced meals.

For example, if you used to eat 4 time a day, consolidate your current daily calories into 3 meals with a little more space in between the meals. You might get a little hungry waiting between the meals, but your body will soon adjust to the new pattern. Let’s face it, being somewhat hungry is a part of dieting process.

Meal composition plays a huge role when it comes to taming your hunger. I am not going to provide meal plans in this post. Most meal plans provided to you by someone else will never work for you longterm. What I do is teach you patterns of meals, so you yourself will always be in the driver’s seat and will not depend on anyone else for creating your meals.

The pattern is quite simple really. Each meal should contain a source of lean protein, lots of vegetables, a source of carbohydrates and a source of fat. By the way, in this article I am talking to the crowd who are not on any specific diet (like keto, for example). I am talking to the people who don’t mind carbohydrates in their lives.

So what is going to be my protein? My carbs? What about fats? Thankfully a quick google search will provide you with lots of food examples. Make a list for each of the 3 macronutrients, pick the ones you enjoy, and do some mixing and matching. For example, in my list of lean proteins I have shrimp, skinless chicken breast, chicken tenderloins, pork loin, yogurt, white fish, lean beef cuts, tuna, and cottage cheese. In my carbs list I have leafy greens, salad mixes, green beans, spinach, cucumbers, tomatoes, bell peppers, sweet potatoes, whole wheat bread, berries. My fats list may include avocado, mixed nuts, havarti and parmesan cheeses, olive oil.

Take a food that you think goes well together from each column and you have yourself almost a complete meal. Create a few of them and rotate them through the week. One of my favorites is composed of a serving of Greek yogurt, a serving of mixed nuts, a handful of berries with a 1/2 serving of vanilla protein powder mixed in.

The amount of food in your meals will depend on the number of calories you have to play with for the day. Let’s say I have roughly 1,500daily  calories in m bank with 145 g of protein. If I am having 3 meals a day I’ll be trying to get 48g of protein per meal. “That’s a LOT of protein!” You’ll say. Truth is most main protein sources have 20-40g per serving AND your carbs and fats in that meal will have some addition protein, so it’s not as hard as you think to hit your protein needs.

Having approximately same size meals would be very beneficial, because it doesn’t take a lot of thinking on the spot. That makes adherence to the diet easier, ultimately moving you closer to your goal.

But I realize it might not be your reality. You can always log your food in a calorie tracking app as you go and check against your total daily calorie allowance throughout the day. But in most cases when people get to the end of the day they usually overdo their fats and nowhere near their protein target. So it’s best to plan ahead in my opinion. You are on a mission and you need to approach it accordingly. This is not the time to wing it. It’s time to strategize, plan and execute!  Will you make mistakes in the beginning? Of course, you will. Learn from them and keep going.

Now, on the subject of being prepared. Once you know the foods you know you are going to be eating during your diet, your fridge and your pantry should be stocked with the foods on your plan. If you know that Ben&Jerry’s Phish Food ice cream is not going to make you successful, don’t bring it in the house. Don’t buy it. If you are confident that you will be able to fit it in your daily calories and macros, then go for it. No food is off the list or drink for that matter. Some people are successful with their fat loss diet while having an occasional drink. Granted they are able to fit that into their daily calories. Others…once they have the first drink, all bets are off and “drinking pant” are on. It’s up to you to decide what to have in the house and what is best left at the store.

Another helpful strategy some of my clients find useful is TRE (Time Restricted Eating), where they give themselves a window during which they eat. The window can vary between 6-12 hours. This approach allows to have fewer but more sizable meals and still be in a caloric deficit for the day. Most postpone their first meal till noon or even later while drinking black coffee and being busy working. Others go to bed earlier and have their food earlier in the day. Meal TIME manipulation is not a magic trick for weight loss. It’s just one of the ways to achieve caloric deficit. Whatever works for you in order to sustain that deficit for a prolonged period of time will bring you success.

When composing a meal, protein should be the first thought in your mind. Not only protein is the primary macronutrient that will help you to hold onto your muscle while dieting, it has the greatest satiety levels of the three. You will be able to stay fuller longer if you take this advice seriously. If you want to geek out on the subject of protein, Examine.com has a great article called “5 Little-known Facts About Protein”. Give it a read.

When you search for foods look for the ones that have lots of volume with the least amount of calories in them. As you look up foods in your tracking app, pay attention to its caloric values, and you will be able to make an informed decision when deciding between a couple of slices of pizza or a huge sweet potato with lean steak for dinner.

Carbohydrates are handled on an individual level. Some people are able to tolerate much more than others. I put carbs and fats on a spectrum. If you are able to assimilate carbs well, go easier on fats. And visa versa. Protein stays set at about 1-1.5 g per pound of Lean Body Weight (LBM).

I also encourage people to experiment with different types of carbs. Folks with low carbohydrate tolerance might do better with complex, fiber-rich carbs as opposed to processed ones. Play with it. Be your own scientist.

As far as fats go, a good starting point is to have between 25-30 percent of your daily calories in fat. As long as you vary the sources between animal fat, fish oil, nuts and seeds, olive and other oils, avocados, fatty fish like salmon and sardines...you should be good. Just remember, fat is the most calorie-dense macronutrient. Therefore, it should be consumed in moderate amounts (Again, not talking to keto crowd here). For those who are not keen on the products of the sea, a daily dose of fish oil caps should do the trick. Somewhere between 1.5 - 5g of combined EPA and DHA per day.

So to recap. Search out the foods that will be your meal components. Foods that will represent your protein, carb and fat sources. By mixing and matching create YOUR OWN meal plan for the week. Create your shopping list and hit the store. Don’t buy anything that’s not on the plan (unless its on your plan) and get crackin’! Very few will have smooth sailing from the get go. But remember setback is just a setup for a comeback. Rome was not built in a day and neither will you!

“We want our meals to be palatable enough to be enjoyed, but not too palatable, so that the end of the meal is a tragic event.” - Eric Trexler