How To Design Your Own Meal Plan

Over the last few weeks we’ve been talking about how to plan our food out so that we are organized and can actually eat what we know we’re supposed to be eating. This is never easy but today I’m gonna take it another step further.

I’m gonna show you how to set up your own meal plan. If you liked the ones I showed you last week then you probably don’t need this, but may want to have a quick look for the future. For those who missed the meal plans last week they are here: www.travissawyer.com/2012/09/04/easy-diets-meal-plans-for-fat-loss

This is a fairly advanced article but I wanted to put it together for theose people who a really ready to step things up for the Transformation Competition starting next week.

So if you are still struggling to eat 3 healthy meals each day just focus on that for now, reread the 10 Fat Loss Food Rules and email me direct for some help. The basic rules will benefit you most anyway.

I’ve gone through and put together 4 separate meal plans to suit when you are training. There are only slight differences between them, but once you notice you’ll be able to fine tune things better. You’ll also notice word doesn’t like my spelling.
There are meal plans for:

• If you train at 6am on MWF

• If you train at 6am on TuThF

• If you train at 930am on MWF

• If you train at 6pm on MWTh

The biggest difference between the meal plans is when you eat starchy carbs and when you avoid them. I have set up the meal plans so you are doing basic carb cycling. This helps the body use the carbs when it needs them and burn them more effectively when it doesn’t need them.

You will basically have 3 high carb days per week and these will coincide with Bootcamp days or your heaviest strength training days. On the high carb days you can have some starchy carbs, but not much. And the starchy carbs should only be consumed immediately after your workout in the form of a meal or a shake.

You will basically have 3 high carb days per week and these will coincide with Bootcamp days or your heaviest strength training days. On the high carb days you can have some starchy carbs, but not much. And the starchy carbs should only be consumed immediately after your workout in the form of a meal or a shake.

Guys, you can get away with a little extra carbs at night time if you absolutely need it.

Men who work physical jobs will fit in this category. Ladies you are best to stick to the carbs after your workout, but you can have up to 2 pieces of fruit on these days.

On the low carb days which will be 4 days per week, your carbs should only come from vegetables and maybe some fruit if you need it. Ideally you will have no fruit on these days and a ton of veggies at every meal. You should have no starchy carbs including bread, rice, pasta, potatoes, root vegetables, etc.

Now I’ve not mentioned protein and fat yet but they play their part too.

You should be having a good serve of protein at each meal and/or snack. In an ideal situation you should be having around 2 x your bodyweight in grams of protein per day.

So if you weigh 65kg you should eat around 130g of protein spread out over your meals. It’s ok if your night time meal is larger than the others. There is nothing wrong with eating a big meal at night as long as you have not pigged out throughout the day.

200g of meat is equal to around 40-50g protein depending on the meat. If you are unsure, the website www.calorieking.com.au can give you any answer you throw at it. Otherwise read your food labels for information.

Because of the reduction in carbs from your diet, you still need to make up the calories somehow. Fat is the answer. It’s good fat you want in the form of animal fat from lean meats, avocado, extra virgin olive or coconut oil, and some nuts and seeds.

On the high carb days you won’t need as much fat as on the low carb days.

But don’t be afraid to eat some good fat every day. If you are starving after you have finished your meal it may be because you didn’t eat enough fat and/or protein with the meal.

A whole medium avocado weighing 160g contains around 34g of fat in it. I could get away with eating one of these a day. If you are on the smaller side a small avocado would be more suitable to you. If on the larger side, a larger one. I’m not saying to eat an avo a day, but want to highlight the point that it is ok and still works for fat loss.

Another thing to keep in mind is don’t limit your salad to lettuce leaves. No one wants to try and survive on lettuce leaves! Stock your salad full of cucumber, radish, onion, carrots, tomato, capsicum, low fat cheese, sunflower seeds, snow peas, apple, walnuts, whatever you can think of.

I won’t include Lunch & Dinner ideas in this article, but there are many in the previous few weeks posts and a bunch of breakfast ideas below.

I’ve also included a blank meal planner you can use here —>
Just click on the image for the pdf to print.

Breakfast Ideas

As there are 2 different types of breakfasts on the meal plan I’ll give you a few examples of each.

Every Day Breky

• Ladies 3 / Men 4-6 whole eggs scrambled with capsicum, spinach and mushrooms. Add sea salt and pepper to flavour.
• Berry Smoothie with 1 scoop of protein powder, half to one cup of frozen berries and half a cup of milk or water.
• Leftover chicken stir fry
• Lean bacon, eggs, mushrooms & fried tomato. (soak up excess fat with paper towel)

Breky + Carbs

• Eggs + 1-2 slices wholegrain bread (ladies) 2 slices wholegrain bread (men).
  
• Smoothie + 20(ladies)-30g(men) maltodextrin powder (can get it from health food store) or 20-30g quick oats (must be blended or you can use oatmeal).
• Low fat yogurt (without fruit mixed in as its full of sugar) with 1 scoop of protein powder mixed in. Add berries or tablespoon of sultanas to taste.
• Home made protein bar (recipe below)

How to make your very own protein bars for a quick and easy breakfast.

This recipe is straight from the Precision Nutrition website so I haven’t tried it yet.

Ingredients:
3 cups dried cranberries
3 cups mixed nuts
1 cup large flake oats
10 scoops (20g protein/scoop) vanilla protein powder
2 tbsp molasses
2 tbsp honey

Instructions:
Chop the cranberries and mixed nuts in a food processor. Mix with large flake oats and protein powder in a large bowl (as big as you can find, otherwise you may have to do this in two batches).

Add just enough water to wet all the protein powder so that it doesn’t have a chalky consistency. Next, add 1 tbsp molasses, spread over whole batch, and mix thoroughly. After that, add 1 tbsp honey and do the same. Repeat with 1 more tablespoon of each sweetner. If the mix is too dry, add a little water; if too wet, add a little protein.

Lay plastic wrap across the bottom of two 9 x 9 or similar baking dishes, leaving enough wrap on each side to wrap around the mixture and cover the top. Spoon the mix into the baking dishes on top of the wrap, and pack it in with the spoon. Cover the mix with the extra wrap, then flatten the mix with your hands. Refrigerate. No baking required.

Cut into 20 bars, 10 in each baking dish. And enjoy.

Notes:
Keep the mix in the fridge and covered or else it will dry out.

These bars are wicked good so make sure not to overeat them. Even though the ingredients are healthy, 2 or 3 small squares will net you 600-900 calories. And that’s alot for a little snack.

Nutrient Profile:
1 bar = 312 calories
16.5 Protein
26.5g Carbohydrate
15.5g Fat

…from Jon Berardi

Enjoy and Good Luck!!!