Last week, I told you how to create a meal plan that shreds fat, but creating a meal plan doesn't matter if you can't stick to it. Today, I will be sharing my top tips for making a fat loss meal plan sustainable. I will be listing these tips in order of importance.
Filling Foods
Eat foods that are high in protein (lean meats and low-fat dairy) and foods that are high in fiber (green veggies, veggies, fruits, and whole grains). This will fill you up faster and keep you full longer, which will keep you from going over your Calorie target. I talked about protein and fiber in more detail in last week's article.
Foods You Enjoy
This should be obvious but unfortunately, too many people still think that diet food should taste like cardboard. Eat foods you enjoy. Don't eat foods you dislike. If you don't like broccoli, don't eat broccoli. If you like to eat steak, eat steak. Just be sure to fit it into your Calorie Budget.
Plan Your Meals Beforehand
At the risk of sounding cliche, if you fail to plan, you're planning to fail. If you wait until after someone has offered you a super tasty, super high-Calorie food, you will give in more times than not. However, if you already know what you are eating for the day, you will be much more likely to pass up on the food being offered. There are two factors I want to touch on for planning your meals:
1. Willpower
Batch cooking is one of the best things you can do for sticking to a fat loss diet. Think about it. You're driving home from work. You're tired and there's nothing to eat in the fridge. You see your favorite fast food restaurant right there on the side of the road. To top it off, there's only one car in line! Do you stop?
Now think about this. You're driving home from work. You have some leftovers from the amazing meal you had the night before just sitting in the fridge waiting for you to pop them in the microwave. You see a fast food restaurant on your way home. Do you stop?
2. Time and Difficulty
Batch Cooking is also the biggest time saver there is when it comes to meal prepping. Throwing one chicken breast in the oven takes just as long as throwing four chicken breasts in the oven. Why not save yourself the hassle of an extra cooking session? Let's face it. Most of us don't like to cook. This is partly why fast food is so popular. If the meals we are cooking take up a lot of time and are difficult to get correct, the odds of us continuing this habit goes down dramatically. Tasty meals don't have to be complex. Keep it as simple and easy as possible.
Experiment With Your Prep
It will take some practice to figure out exactly what your meal prep preferences are. Here are a couple of things to consider:
How many meals do you want to eat per day? This will largely depend on how many Calories you have to work with. Keep in mind, the more meals you eat in a day, the smaller those meals have to be in order to hit your Calorie target. Many of my male clients opt for four meals per day, with the first meal being the smallest. (This is also my preference.) Many of my female clients opt for three meals/day, again with the first meal being the smallest. I talk about this in more detail here.
How many days in a row are you okay with eating the same meals? I am perfectly content with eating the same meals for a whole week. Most of my clients seem to be this way as well. That said, I have some clients who can't stand to eat the same foods for more than a couple of days and prefer to cook every 2-3 days.
Reheating Food
When meal prepping, you're going to be using the microwave quite a bit. That said, some meals taste better than others reheated. For example, pasta may get stiff when reheated depending on how it was prepared. The whole point is to set up a meal plan you will enjoy and stick to. If your meals are similar to a leather shoe after reheating them, you probably won't eat them.
Balance of Variety
We need variety in our diets to avoid the diet seeming stale and boring. We also need variety in our diet to ensure we get all of the different vitamins and minerals we need to maintain our health. That said, we must find a balance of variety that provides us with both freshness in the diet and the nutrients we need, while at the same time, not making the diet complex and time-consuming.
Thank you so much for reading! If you found this information helpful and think others will benefit from it as well, please give this article a share on Facebook. It helps us out more than you know. If you like what I have to say, sign up below to become a Treadaway Training insider and never miss a post or video. I will be back next week with another fat loss topic. As always, God bless you AND your family and I'll see you next week.
