Latest / Cameron's Conversations: The last weight loss podcast you'll ever need. / Episode 45: Why meal menus are better than meal plans!
Transcript
- Cameron Cummings: Welcome to today's episode of the Cameron's Conversations podcast. And in today's episode, I'm gonna talk about why a meal plan isn't going to sort your nutrition out. So a lot of the time, and I do see this a lot with coaches, people are given meal plans. Now, here's the thing. I don't actually think meal plans are inherently bad, but they're very limited. And the problem is for most people is that what you actually get with a meal plan is you get something that doesn't suit your lifestyle, probably doesn't suit your taste, might not even suit your dietary needs. ⁓ I can think of a couple of clients who have been to other coaches and have been vegetarian and had meal plans with chicken in it like twice a day, which is brilliant to see. I've even had vegan clients who have also still had chicken in it, which I suppose is no better or worse, but yeah, just to... Bit of an issue there, right? Bit of an issue that's the main protein source. So I'm not such a big fan of meal plans, right? Yes, they are useful, but most of the time they're not customized to people. They're not really. People say, a customized meal plan. What they mean by that is they mean, Sandra, you're in 1,700 calories. I'm gonna customize it to 1,700 calories and 100 grams of protein. Right, cool. It's not customized, really. Not in the sense of sort of for the individual, right? It's just tweaked. So the thing that we're looking for here is probably what we actually want is we want something that instead of going to the weekend and you think, oh, I've got a meal out with friends, I have no idea what to eat because it's not in the meal plan, or can't have this, I can't have that, oh, that's not in the meal plan, and this kind of mentality, what we want is we want a meal menu based on your preferences and your tastes. And that's where obviously within coaching I'll make suggestions. So as an example, let's just take me and what I might have for breakfast. So let's say we're building out some breakfast for me. I work from home predominantly, so sometimes I go out to coffee shops and stuff like that. Our co-working spaces, but 99 % of the time I'm at home, it's much my preference. So what I often do is I can have a protein smoothie for breakfast, right? That works really well for me. I make it super, super thick so that it lasts me a good period of time. It keeps me full, it keeps me going. So that's great. That works really well for me. Okay, what if I don't have time for that and I'm on the move? Okay, well, if I'm on the move, I can probably just have... like a little protein shake and a banana and an apple. Or maybe I can have a protein pouch and a banana and an apple. So that's my on the move breakfast. Then if I want another one for being at home, I might just have a couple of protein yogurts and some frozen berries chucked in if I'm too lazy to make my smoothie that day. So I've got already a few options, right? And I could even throw one in the weekend. I quite like on occasion, I don't have this that often, but maybe once a month or just maybe a little bit less than that. I'll maybe have some like bacon for breakfast. So I'll have like bacon, I have it on a brioche roll, I have it with some tomato ketchup, because I don't like brand sauce, not my bag. And that's fine too. High in protein, does the job. I wouldn't have it every day. I wouldn't have it every day because I don't necessarily think it would suit me to do so, right? But it has a lot of utility in the shorter term, because I just like it, it's different. It gives me something that I enjoy. So I can fit that in and that's great. And it still hits my protein target. So there's a lot of things I can have there. But now what I have is I have a... Okay, well if I'm going out, I've got that breakfast to go to, and there's a bit of flexibility, either I have a protein shake or a protein drink. Cool, that's easy, I can do that anywhere. Whether I'm traveling, like tomorrow morning I'm going to be flying to Spain, right? I'm gonna be flying to Alcantara, so it's gonna be really easy for me tomorrow morning. I know exactly what I'm gonna have for breakfast. Probably some caffeine, because we're getting up very, very early. And then I'm also going to have a protein pouch or protein drink in the airport. and I'm also gonna get a piece of fruit. And it'll probably cost me 27 pounds for that because airport prices are so cheap for food. But anyway, the point is, is that it's really easy. There's not much thought. So that's a great thing to have is almost this menu type effect. It's the same for dinners. Okay, right, we need to establish dinners. Well, what do I like to have? Well, I eat red meat. I eat all sorts of other meat and stuff like that. I'm not particularly picky. I don't want to have red meat every day. So there's kind of some limitations there. But otherwise, okay, how do we structure this out? Well, really simple. Let's go for something like chicken fajitas one night, give a beef stir fry one night, and maybe have a venison grill steak another. So I have red meat once a week or something like that, twice a week, that's perfect, that works well for me, or venison meatballs, something like that. So we've got some simple things there, right? Beef stir fry, chicken fajitas, venison grill steaks, okay, that's three options. Let's have a veggie option there too. Okay, we'll have a lentil dhal as well. Now what I then do is, let's say I make two of those a week, right? that gives me eight meals. So that covers me some of my lunches as well. So that might cover me for three, four dinners and it covers me for three, four lunches. So all of a sudden, I already know what I'm having for my breakfast, already know what I'm having for my dinners and also for my lunches, but I still have some flex. I still have two or three nights where I can have something a little bit different, but there's not this level of uncertainty. And actually, probably once a week I'll have like a ready meal or something like that. Like I'll probably have like that thrown in for a lunch or something different. Like one of the high protein ready meals from like Aldi or Lidl. That does the job as well, maybe once, sometimes even twice a week. And that works for me for my lunch. I don't like it so much for dinner, I don't find them as filling, but I know lots of clients that do, that it's filling enough. So that gives them an option, right? And then I've got some flexibility in the weekend, but I've got a lot of structure there. That is the way that we want to build it out. That's the way I often do with clients who do feel like, I just need a better structure here, cool. Let's give you that. Let's create a menu together. I'll suggest things, knowing some of their preferences and tastes. and we can kind of figure out, that's not such a option, you don't like that, that's not gonna work. That works really, really well. And all of a sudden, you've got this rotation of meals. Now, sometimes people say to me, ⁓ but I don't like eating repetitively. Well, there's two parts to this. One, a little bit of repetitiveness is probably essential. And sometimes we have to put on our big boy and girl pants and just get on with it, right? Where it would be nice to have 10 different breakfasts in 10 different days. For most of us, that is not bloody practical. To find something that's high in protein, low enough in calories, ain't gonna work. That's not to say you need to be a nutter like me and have, you know, sort of a smoothie every single day. I just really like my smoothies. Like I used to have a protein yogurt and berries in the morning, but now I've kind of shifted. And I have that every day, but I enjoy it. I always look forward to it every single day. So it's not an issue for me to do. Other people wouldn't like that, but that's okay because they might give themselves four options for breakfast to rotate between on weekdays. So there's very little repetitiveness. They only have the same breakfast twice in a week. that's a small trade off. For lunches, they maybe have eight lunches they rotate between, and for dinners, they maybe have eight to 10. And actually, that's more variety than you think. A different breakfast, a different lunch, and a different dinner each day of the week feels different, right? It feels like quite a lot of variety, because you're mixing and matching. So that's got a lot of utility. A little bit of repetitiveness, though, I will say is important. I think, too, like trying to make different meals every single week, week on week on week, can be quite taxing. If you are someone who loves to cook and really enjoys it, that's fine, but for most people that's not practical. For most people doubling up, you know, they cook once, eat twice, things super helpful. Something for dinner, the next day for lunch. Something for dinner, the next day for lunch. That can be such a simple thing for people to do. I find that great. If I make fajitas, that's four servings. That's a dinner and two or three lunches. And it doesn't bother me to have it, you know, maybe two nights in a row and then one lunch or something like that. Like, you know, that's absolutely fine with me. There's obviously a limit to how repetitive, I wouldn't want to have the same dinner four nights in that'd be too much, but I've got that kind of balance and I think that's what I'd want for any client is to find the right level of variety. I have some clients who are very repetitive eaters, I have lots of clients who are very good at cooking and like to eat lots of different things all the time. But something I do think is like, as it say, in a bit of kind of tough love in there as well, it's like, look, you probably don't need to have a different breakfast every single day of the week really, like for two weeks straight, like 14 different breakfasts, good luck. finding something that suits your goals for all of that time. Like it's so much effort. So there's need to be a balance. But then there is also that situation where some people can just eat that a bit less repetitively because they are good cooks, they have the time, they like to do it. That's great. There's nothing wrong with that as well. But it's about being selective. Those same people might be like, do you know what, I really like variety and dinner, but yeah, do you know what, I don't mind having the same lunch a few days, you know, out of the week, maybe twice I have the same lunch, twice I have the same lunch, and then one other different working lunch, and then it's the weekend anyway. so you have more flexibility. Most of us change up on the weekends anyway, because that's what happens naturally, because we're eating in different places, more social, et cetera, et cetera. So that's really important too. So I think that's kind of a good sort of consideration to why meal plans have utility, but I prefer the idea of a meal menu to a meal plan, and that's why. So hopefully that has been helpful for you in terms of how you might want to structure your nutrition. And if you do, want some help with structuring your nutrition and getting into the shape of your life, and some, pushing on to where you've never got to before, and finally kind of breaking free of that kind of like yo-yo dieting, stuck in a loop kind of place, then that is exactly what one-to-one coaching is for. And one-to-one coaching has been specifically designed, the way I coach people, to pull them out of this yo-yo dieting, to pull them out of this crappy dieting mindset they've gotten into. where they just feel like they're constantly struggling, using up all this bloody mental energy on dieting and getting nowhere for it. So if you are interested in one-to-one coaching, the link is in the show notes as well. And we can have a little bit of a note pressure chat as well to see if it's a good fit for you and to give you some general guidance of what you should do next. If that's of interest, it is in the show notes. But otherwise, have a great day and speak soon.