New fat loss or nutrition coaching clients often ask me to write them a meal plan.
I actually have a blanket policy against writing meal plans and I want to share why.
Meal plans can actually do more harm than good. Keep reading to find out why and learn what I think you should be looking for instead.
A meal plan prescribes an exact diet. They’re usually very precise – every last bite of food is to be weighed and accounted for and eaten at a specific time.
- At 7am, eat 3 egg whites and 1 whole medium egg cooked in 1 tsp extra virgin olive oil with a 5oz apple.
- At 12pm, eat 6oz plain grilled chicken breast with 1/2 cup steamed broccoli.
- At 3pm eat a snack of 1/2 cup fat-free cottage cheese with 3oz berries.
You get the idea.
There is a time and a place for meal plans. For example, registered dietitians who are certified to provide medical nutrition therapy can use meal plans to help clients manage illness or chronic conditions.
If you fall into this group, you should absolutely seek the help of a licensed professional. Personal trainers are not qualified (or legally allowed) to write meal plans to address medical problems.
A-list actors, elite bodybuilders, and professional athletes regularly use meal plans to get in amazing shape and perform at the highest level.
Here’s the thing: you don’t live the life of a pro athlete or Hollywood star.
I work primarily with busy urban professionals. My clients work long hours, care for young kids and older parents, and enjoy active social lives and traveling (at least they did before recent events).
They don’t have private chefs and their lives and livelihoods don’t center around their bodies.
This is the first reason why I don’t write meal plans: they are completely unrealistic in real life.
If you try to follow a restrictive meal plan that doesn’t allow for the unpredictability of life, you are setting yourself up to fail.
What to do instead: Develop flexible frameworks that guide your eating in any situation.
For example, if you’re someone who eats out a lot but still wants to lose weight, you can use your hand size to eyeball portions instead of relying on a food scale.
Ask yourself: What are the most challenging nutritional situations I find myself in on a regular basis? What skills can I build to help me navigate these situations in a way that will move me toward my goals?
The second reason I don’t like meal plans is that they ignore individual differences.
Meal plans are heavily biased toward the preferences and experience of the person writing the plan. They fail to account for differences in:
- Physiology. One of my biggest pet peeves in the nutrition world is that many coaches act as if there is only one way to eat for optimal health. Everyone’s body is unique and responds differently to different foods. I may be able to easily digest foods that tear you up, and vice versa.
- Personal preferences. Many meal plan staples are bland, boring and tasteless. If your meal plan is full of foods you don’t really like, you’re not going to stick with it for long.
- Cultural heritage. The foods I learned to eat growing up in a Jewish household are very different than those eaten by my Indian and Latinx friends. You can still lose weight or improve your health eating the foods that are meaningful to you. Just say no to whitewashed meal plans.
- Food availability. What’s in season where you live? What foods can you actually buy at the grocery store where you shop? Your meal plan won’t do you any good if you can’t find the foods on it, or if they’re super expensive because they’re out of season.
What do do instead: The unsexy truth is that everyone needs to experiment to find a way of eating that works for their unique situation.
Some people can eat grains and dairy, others should avoid them. Some people prefer to eat big meals, other prefer smaller meals and snacks. Some people eat a lot of meat, others remove it from their diets entirely.
You need to make these decisions for yourself, not rely on a piece of paper to make them for you.
This brings me to the last problem with meal plans: they prevent you from building the skills you need to think and make decisions for yourself.
“If only I had someone to tell me exactly what to eat, then I’d finally achieve my goals.”
I’ve heard the above statement more times than I can count. Unfortunately, this is wishful thinking that isn’t rooted in reality.
People actually do best when they feel they have autonomy in their lives.
This means decisions you make for yourself are much more powerful and will have a much bigger impact on your actions than decisions a coach makes for you.
My clients who’ve experienced the most success over the years are the ones who took the most ownership over the process. They got curious about themselves and experimented to find their own unique path.
Failure is part of this process, because you often have to weed out the things that don’t work to find those that do.
Although I encourage you to ditch the meal plans, you don’t have to go through this process all by yourself. You can hire a coach who listens to you and helps you build habits and skills as opposed to just telling you what to do all the time.
If you’re interested in my online coaching program, you can learn more here.