I tried it, I hated it and I’ll never do it again.
Just about every weight loss/fitness/health personality and website recommends planning your meals out in advance and following their eating plan. They appear to be super helpful with this too, usually hooking you up with a free download, like: “The 7 Day Meal Plan for Weight Loss”, or they package it up with all the other ‘amazing tools’ you get when you sign up, pay them money, or become a member.
Yup that’s right; you’re having broccoli salad on Tuesday night and on Friday you’re having spinach and eggs with poached salmon for lunch, and 10, yes exactly 10 almonds for an afternoon snack. Or you can pick from a handful of recipes and work them into your weekly eating plan. Just make sure you do this and whatever you do, don’t ever eat that!
If you follow this plan you’ll lose 5kg in 7 days. Or, sign up and receive the full 12 week programme and lose up to 30kg for only $69.99.
Wow, that sounds really fun. NOT!
Hmm..Smells Like A Diet To Me
I hate the idea of meal planning, I don’t know if I’m gonna feel like broccoli salad on Tuesday, and there’s no way I can afford to be adding fresh salmon to my shopping list. And 10 almonds? Really?! What about my favourite foods? They’re not on the plan, can I never eat them again if I want to lose weight and get healthy? And you know I’ve gotta go to work everyday, right?
But ya know what? You can make healthy decisions without being told what they’re going to be in advance. But more than that, I want you to own the decisions you make, enjoy the process, AND learn from it. If it’s cold on Tuesday maybe you want something warming, not a bloody salad!
Like I’ve said before I love to cook, and I love to be creative in the kitchen. Meal plans take that away from me. Meal plans take some of the responsibility for the choices you make away from YOU. Now you answer to the plan. Sounds alarmingly close to a diet doesn’t it?
Meal plans and diets promise to be a step-by-step recipe for weight loss and health. ‘Follow this exactly and you’ll achieve the body you’ve always dreamed of!’ Problem is: while some meal plans might work, they don’t offer a sustainable, long-term solution, and they don’t prepare you for life outside the plan.
The Only Shortcut is Realising There’s No Shortcut
We all want to know the answers to any problem we’re facing, and we all want a shortcut to the end result. Unfortunately it’s a lot like riding a bike. While the training wheels are on, you think you know how to ride. It’s not until that safety net is taken away that you realise you actually don’t know what you’re doing.
The only way you really learn to ride a bike is to fall off, get hurt and get back up. But you learn something from falling off. When you do get back on and try again, you’re armed with just a little bit more knowledge than the last time. Eventually you get it right.
The only shortcut to weight loss and health is realising that there is no shortcut.
The moment you find yourself on a plan, the plan becomes the focus and the plan is responsible for your results. You know how I feel about diets, I think they’re rubbish! I think it’s a mindset that’s doomed to failure, and if you ask me the meal planning mindset is the same.
Diets and plans usually have a starting point, and a point at which it ends. This might be a set date in 1 or 12 weeks time, or it might just be the day you say: “fuck this, I hate it and I’m done!”.
Losing weight and getting healthy is a process, not a set of protocols. It’s a process that never ends; it evolves, you learn and you get better at it.
When you realise there is no end date and no shortcuts, you can stop dieting and living by other people’s plans and start searching for your own answers. The search to find your own answers is a massive step towards changing your life.
– Shane 🙂
What do you recommend for anti-inflammatory foods? Is there anything you have come across and found helpful?
This isn’t something I’ve really looked into, but from what I understand you want to be eating foods that are high in antioxidants. Colourful foods are a great start, stuff like: berries, pumpkin, capsicum and kumara. Spices like ginger, tumeric and cinnamon have been used to treat inflammation for centuries too. Green tea is another popular remedy.