One of the MOST common questions I get asked: “Why don’t you do meal plans?”
While I understand the appeal and draw to wanting a meal plan, someone to literally tell you what to eat, I want to talk with you about why meal plans are not helping you as much as you think they are, and the difference between that and macro tracking.
If you want to read this… welp, keep reading 😉
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Trust me, I get it…
You’re trying to lose weight, and the thought of having someone tell you exactly what to eat and exactly how much of it so you can just shut your brain off and do it sooounds AWESOME.
Is this the easy method? Tooootally. And the issue is, by taking this easy way out, you learn NOTHING. You don’t actually understand what you’re doing or why.
So here are three issues I have with meal plans, and why I think macro tracking is a much better approach to losing weight and building the physique you want.
There is NO flexibility with meal plans
When you’re operating on a meal plan, the second your schedule goes ANY other direction than what you thought… you’re SCREWED. If you’re out running errands and lose track of time and have no food with you – what the hell do you do? What if you’re stuck in a meeting that goes late?
There’s no room for making adjustments for these kinds of situations, and that’s SO stress inducing (and let’s be honest, life is already stressful enough – we don’t need to add more stress to our dieting!) The more stressful a weight loss process is, the more it will SUCK. You only have so much ability throughout each day to make self disciplined choices, so your diet should be EASY most of the time.
Meal planning leaves you stuck
Will you get some results from a strict meal plan? Yeah, probably. But the problem is they leave you STUCK in a restrictive mindset around food, and you don’t learn anything! You either continue doing this meal plan forever and ever and ever amen OR you gain the weight back.
It’s a no-win situation that usually involves protein shakes that taste like chalk… Noooo thank you. So unless you can see yourself doing this meal plan FOREVERRRR (which is just another form of being stuck), you’re a ticking time bomb for gaining the weight back and that fucking SUCKS.
Meal plans don’t come with a side of accountability and support
When relying on meal plans there is NO guidance when things come up. You don’t have accountability or support in learning to make flexible choices. For example, what if a friend wants to grab drinks and God forbid she orders a big plate of chips and salsa? What do you do? Can you eat it or do you just say no and WISH you could eat some? Or do you go full-on fuck-it mode and eat ALL the chips and then you don’t know what to do because your whole plan was thrown out the window.
The second your meal plan doesn’t go perfectly – you’re left high and dry. And this lack of accountability and support when it comes to meal plans will leave you going back to square one, rather than learning to adapt as life throws you curveballs (which are inevitable).
What I Want for YOU:
These are just three reasons why I’m not a big fan of meal plans, but there are many more! As an educator, it’s important to me that you know the HOW and the WHY behind what you’re doing so that after we’re done working together, you can keep the physique you’ve worked your ass off for.
I want you to be in a place where your body is banging, your metabolism is raging, and you can manage everything independently. Do macros require you to take a more active role in your weightloss journey than meal plans? YES!
SHOULD you take a more active role in your weightloss journey? ALSO YES. It’s like when I used to work as a Physical Therapist. Patients would often ask me: “How are you going to fix me?” My answer? I’m NOT! I’m going to help YOU fix yourself.
So unlike meal plans, I’m here to teach you how to get to and STAY at the body you want.
I want to leave you:
- Confident in what you’re doing
- Being flexible with yourself along this journey
- Empowered in making educated decisions for yourself
That is how I left each and every one of these women who joined Team HLB looking for education, support, and results. They got just that. Go check ‘em out!
