Why Meal Plans Are Not Working For You And What You Can Do Instead

I do understand why people ask their trainer or nutritionist for meal plan. Life is busy and don't have time to think of what food to buy or meal to prepare. I am also certain that the many of the meal plans that were created for you does work.

Then the question comes why is it not working for you?

It is because continuing the prescribed plan is difficult and even when you started off right, it won't last very long and get frustrated about why the plan does not work.

So what do I do for my clients.

Well, I don't give them meal plan because I already know that my clients won't last very long with it and it sucks for both myself and my clients.

Image by skeeze from Pixabay

Instead of giving them a meal plan, I work with them on modifying their options. For example, for lunch time Joe likes hamburgers. Instead of changing the entire hamburger into salads, I would suggest Joe to find gourmet hamburger place that actually serve real meat and add real vegetables and potatoes instead of authentic food sources by some of fast food places.

Is this improvement? Absolutely! Eating real meat is a lot more healthier than chemical infested fake meat and taste a lot better too!

How about if Joe have donuts and coffee for breakfast? No problem. Most likely Joe make these choices because he is busy right? So let's suggest him to choose multi-grain donuts or muffin and add cup of yogurt for the protein. Also, instead of glorifying coffee with tons of sugar and coffee, have him use only 1 cream and 1 sugar.

Is this improvement? Sure. May not be perfect meal change but Joe is definitely making transition into making healthier food choices.

So rather than making drastic changes like meal plan, see what you can do to make smaller but healthier meal transformation. As you go through the transformation, you will start becoming mindful about making different choices, which I see more benefits with my clients than providing just meal plan. And yes, you will learn how to cheat right as well.

So the tip to meal transformation is to find one thing that you can improve in each meal from you have been having like the example of Joe above. Then stick with it for 2-3 weeks then find another thing you can improve on. Yes, it does take time but more successful and has game like touch to it so you can enjoy.

Find what you can change today!

Kota Shimada