What is a prescribed meal plan?

How much space and time do you have to squeeze in something extra to think about?

Probably not a HUGE amount right?

This is completely understandable. I am an advocate for recognising the other demands and responsibilities in our lives – and using this recognition to give ourselves empathy for when things don’t go entirely according to plan.

Also, it makes total sense why so many people want prescribed meal plans as solutions to, what they think to be, not ideal nutrition.

What is a prescribed meal plan?

1: Often has all of your ingredients listed out.

2: Your macronutrients for each meal are calculated.

3: You are told when and how much to eat.

4: You are told how many meals you have; often breakfast, lunch, dinner and one snack.

To be fair, this looks like it could be a pretty convenient tool on the surface.

The main win in a meal plan. Such as the above ^ is that it limits the amount of ‘bandwidth’ the subject of ‘food’ takes up in your life. With bandwidth already being something extremely limited, there is no surprise that this sort of meal plan has become more and more popular.

As you’ve probably already gathered, this brief article is here to explain to you why (if you’ve tried something like this before) it may not have worked as effectively as you’d have hoped.

The main reason people often are unable to make long term successful health transformations on this sort of meal-plan – is that it significantly reduces the amount of flexibility in your diet.

As human beings with dynamic lives and dynamic responsibilities – it is hard to predict ALL of the changes that are going to happen around us. Changes can impact all of the following:

1: Your appetite

2: Your energy needs

3: Your sleep

4: Your financial circumstances

5: Your social circumstances

6: Food availability

7: Exercise

The rigidity of a meal-plan such as the one above – doesn’t allow for necessary adjustments to your energy demands. E.g. when you feel more hungry because you’ve had 5 training days back to back, or less hungry because the weather is super hot and you’ve been chilling all day!

There are things that influence our desire to eat, and hundreds of things that influence our energy demands. If we are seeking results that we want for ever – then we need a means of getting them that we can sustain… for ever.

It’s completely understandable how someone may eat ‘off-plan’ in this scenario. The nature of the rigid meal plan also perpetuates a rigid mindset when it comes to ‘achievement’ and ‘nutrition’. This increases the likelihood that an individual following this plan will feel like they have ‘failed’ if they eat in any way differently to the plan.

For your diet to truly suit you and for it to be something you can sustain, there has to be an element of auto-regulation and intuition when making decisions around food.

This approach is a step away from the ‘prescriptive-meal-plan’ approach, and it can range from simply; changing specific calorie goals to being ‘ranged’ goals, or even completely removing a meal plan structure, and setting habitual targets instead – for example; aiming for a portion of protein in every meal and reflecting on how your hunger felt at the end of the day.

For this reason, in our flag-ship Nutrition Programme – ‘The Nutrition Accelerator’ we don’t tell people what they have to eat 4 times per day and expect complete devotion to a pre-designed plan. Instead we ensure your nutrition is personalised to you – because we INVOLVE you and demand your involvement every step of the way.

Think of it like learning to drive a car; we don’t think your learning is truly successful if you are sitting in the driver’s seat but the Tesla is driving itself. We are going to put you in the driver’s seat, let you steer and accelerate – and sit next to you the whole way to guide your decision making.

Our recommendation is to make sure that whatever nutrition approach you take, you allow for a degree of flexibility. Whatever that is, it should be supported by a reflective practice; such as reflecting at the end of the day on how your appetite was that day compared to the previous day.

Louis, Sweat-It Nutritionist

Do you need any support with your nutrition?

Do not hesitate to get in touch to work with the TEAM either via email info@sweat-it.co or with one of our Nutrition Accelerator intakes, starting on the 5th June.