Making a Realistic Food Plan

Often, the biggest motivator for me in terms of eating right is to make a food plan. For some, diets can often become restricting and they prefer to be spontaneous in their food choices, however, I find that having a concrete food plan to go to can really help you stay on track and also save money. With a food plan, you are allowed the best opportunity to really sit back and look at your meals afterwards to get the best out of your diet. With the fast-paced life we find ourselves in, often meals can be forgotten, certain food groups omitted and quick, unhealthy snacks can creep their way into our day and straight into our mouths. Planning on the go can often be dangerous – when we are hungry we will want more than we need, and this can lead to bad habits.

For anyone wondering where to even begin, I will show you a little bit of a food plan I used when losing weight, and how I go about putting it together.

• 1.       Firstly, think about exactly what you want to achieve with your diet and the types of food you should and shouldn’t be eating. I’m currently trying to bulk and tone up, so my food plan is full of proteins and good carbs. For those trying to lose weight, you might be restricting carbs at the moment, focusing more on vegetables. Whatever your goal is, have that in mind before you start writing, and every time you put a meal together, think of whether that meal sits well with what you are supposed to eat.
• 2.       Now, come up with a template. Are you going to plan your food for a month, fortnight or week? I personally prefer to plan weekly. This means that I can buy the majority of my shopping on the Monday and it will last until the next week.
• 3.       Think about the meals that you eat every day and split these into sections. For me, the main meals are the usual breakfast, lunch and dinner, so I split each day into 3 sections. Don’t forget a snack section as well – it is unrealistic to just eat set meals every day, a healthy snack is just as good for you and keeps your metabolism running throughout the day.

• 4.       Think a little bit about what you already have in your cupboards and fridge. Look at the kind of meals that you can make with these ingredients so that you can avoid stockpiling food. Look at the shelf-life. If something goes off on Wednesday then don’t plan it for after Wednesday. Insert these meals into your food plan.

• 5.       Now, choose a meal where you can treat yourself slightly. Think about an occasion where you might eat out, or you might be going on a night out. Plan for a cheat meal each week to feel less restricted by your diet. If the meal comes around and you fancy eating something healthy instead, well done! If not, you don’t have to feel bad about it as you have planned for it!

• 6.       Now for the main part, start to fill in the bulk of your meal plan. Again, think about your week and how it usually pans out. Having a heavy gym session on Thursday? Then eat a meal suitable for this! Working during the week, plan your lunches so that you can make them before work! Cooking for the family on Sunday? Plan your nicest meal for then!

• 7.       Stop when you cannot think of anything else. If there are gaps, take some inspiration from other websites. There are a host of healthy meal options out there that you might not have thought about. The BBC Good Food website offers so many different dishes for a range of different diets. The Picky Eater blog is also good for quick and easy recipes, and the Fat Bloke Thin blog is particularly good for low calorie treats.

• 8.       Finally, add your snacks in and you’re done. Think about snacks that are convenient and easy to make. I usually stick to fruit and vegetables in terms of snacks, but don’t be afraid to throw in a bag of crisps or a small bar of chocolate once a week. Once you’ve reached your goal you need your body to be ready to start eating these in moderation again. Don’t completely cut them out, it could be worse for you in the long run.

• 9.       Finally, write a shopping list of all of the items that you need to get for the week and get them all at once. Shopping intermittently throughout the week will leave you buying little extras that you don’t need. Doing it all at once ensures you are well prepared and stops you from ‘hunger buying’. The easiest way to make your list is to go through each individual meal and think about everything that you might need for that meal. If it is already in your cupboard, or if you have included it in the list already for an earlier meal, great. Add everything else and you should find that you can execute your food plan efficiently throughout the week without much leftover! The list below is what I would buy for the food plan that I created, assuming that my cupboards were completely empty. I have worked out that it would cost approximately £30 depending on any special offers, not bad for a week of food considering you would spend £10 at least on a meal out. It should also leave you with some leftovers for the following week!

I hope these little tips work, let me know via twitter if you have any questions or want to know some healthy recipes – I don’t really go by long winded recipes myself, I like to keep things simple in my food preparation, but I can give some advice on how to do this if you’re struggling! 

Getting Through the First Week of Weight Loss

As with many life endeavours, the first week of something will usually determine how the rest is going to pan out. This could not be truer than with weight loss. If you have a decent first week, chances are you will carry on and maintain your efforts further. Fall at the first hurdle, however, and you’ll be wondering why you even started.

When losing weight, I found that the first week was by far the hardest one in terms of staying motivated and on track. Nothing, and I mean NOTHING, happens in that first week. We have all eaten healthy for a couple of days and felt disappointed when we check in the mirror to find no difference at all. That’s usually the point where most people give up. Thinking ‘nothing’s happening so why bother’ after two days is probably the number one reason why any sort of diet has ever failed.
 

So, I thought I would offer a few small tips to anyone that is constantly facing this problem. Hopefully they will help you get through that first week and onto better things.

Firstly, prepare. If you’re thinking of going on any sort of diet or fitness programme, give yourself a couple of days to plan for it. Make a meal plan, do a healthy food shop, join your local gym, get your exercise clothes ready, make a running playlist, create some sort of chart to track your progress – do everything you possibly can to be ready to begin the diet, but do it before you actually begin. If you don’t prepare, you’ll immediately start at a disadvantage. Starting a diet on a Monday, but realising that you can’t be inducted into your local gym until Thursday will more than likely throw the whole week off and put you at square one again. Make sure you’re ready to go straight into the weight loss rather than getting caught up with these unnecessary problems at the beginning.

A lot of people might not agree with this, or feel comfortable with it, but I always say you should tell EVERYONE what you’re doing. Put it up on Facebook, tweet it, Instagram that before photo, call your parents, just let people know that you are planning on losing weight in the coming months. It might seem personal, but telling everybody what you are doing will make you more likely to go through with it. Giving up halfway through the first week will give all of these people a reason to doubt you and will probably make you feel rather embarrassed, so it acts as a perfect motivator for keeping it up.

Water and gum will be your best friend in your first week of weight loss, particularly if you are a food lover like myself. As you start to cut down on portion sizes, your stomach will undoubtedly not be happy and you will be feeling the hungriest during this first week as it starts to get used to your new routine of eating. For me, gum was really helpful in counteracting this. I think that just having the flavour in your mouth can sometimes curb a craving and keep you satisfied until your next meal. Water is also essential in terms of feeling full. More often than not, thirst can become disguised by hunger, and you will find that drinking water throughout the day will generally make you feel a lot less hungry as your stomach gets used to the changes. As well as this, water is generally great anyway at keeping your metabolism going strong and giving you the vital nutrients and hydration that you need to lose weight more effectively.

This tip might sound a bit strange, but I would say that you should not weigh yourself after your first week. Usually in the first week your weight will drop dramatically as your body begins to get used to your new lifestyle. This can be a great motivator for carrying on past the first week, but poses problems in terms of week two. We have all heard of the second week wall – your weight loss usually stops in this week as your body recovers from the dramatic loss of the week before. More often than not, this can be demotivating in itself and will often lead you straight back to square one as you wonder what the point of it all was. I would suggest weighing yourself monthly. This way, any weekly anomalies will usually not matter and, as long as you are keeping with your weight loss plan, you should generally see a more consistent downwards trend.

If you are going to the gym for the first time, the first week of weight loss can usually be quite daunting. There is a lot of machinery in a gym, a lot of commotion and a lot of people who have quite obviously never left the gym in their lives and look like walking billboard adverts. But don’t worry about it, you are all there for the same reason – to improve yourself. It might seem that everyone in the gym is staring at you as you attempt your first run on the treadmill, but this is not the case. Rule number one of the gym is that, unless you’re the loud groaning guy lifting weights far too big for him, NOBODY CARES what you are doing. Don’t feel put off by the crowds. If you still feel daunted, take a friend with you so you can go through it together, or find a large, busy gym with lots of people so you don’t feel like you stand out quite as much. After the first week you’ll soon realise that the gym is actually a really friendly and supportive place and 99% of people in there will have the same sort of worries as yourself.

Personally, I recommend chain gyms, such as FitSpace. In your first week of weight loss you might find that the gym life is not for you and you would rather exercise at home. FitSpace offers a no contract membership, so you don’t have to get tied down into long and costly contracts from the very beginning. They also have gyms across the country and your membership card gives you access to all of these, perfect if you’re a student travelling between cities.

Hopefully this post can offer some assistance to anyone going through that first week of weight loss. I don’t claim to be an expert in health and fitness by any stretch, that’s for the personal trainers to work out, but having gone through it I am happy to answer any questions about what it is really like in terms of staying motivated and on track – just give me a shout on twitter, my link is in my bio!

Good luck!